Illustration by Gretel
Wed, March 25
Be Good
Skoll World Forum
Oxford, England
At this social-enterprise summit, you'll see that doing good is, well, doing good. Entrepreneurs, donors, and thinkers will meet at the Saïd Business School (SBS) to mull market-driven tactics for saving the world. A biz school is an apt venue; MBA types are flooding the sector. "Students want to combine markets and meaning, rather than just pad their pockets," says Pamela Hartigan, head of SBS's Skoll Center. Plus, they realized there are no jobs in banking. -- TB
Wed, March 25
Touch Up
Photoshop World '09
Boston
Ah, Photoshop: You make us look so good! At this celebration of the world's most popular photo-editing, face-improving, cellulite-removing software, attendees can check out all manner of add-ons and gadgets, and engage in discussions about photography. But convention sponsor Adobe might not be as enthused. In a sign that planned obsolescence ain't what it used to be, the Photoshop maker's latest design software, Creative Suite 4, came out last fall. Almost nobody bought it. Turns out most people are pretty happy with CS3. Maybe those pictures aren't worth a thousand words -- or a $499 software upgrade. -- SL
Fri, March 27
Watch
Monsters vs. Aliens
Directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon
DreamWorks Animation has gone all-in with Monsters vs. Aliens, its only film release of 2009 and the first major feature to be "shot" totally in 3-D. In the future, "all movies are going to be made in 3-D," DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg declared last year. Right now, an extra dimension doesn't come cheap -- Katzenberg has estimated that it added $15 million to the movie's $150 million budget. And you have to wonder if there's such a thing as being a too-early adopter: Most theaters have yet to install the $70,000-per-screen equipment needed to show all three Ds. So when this motley band of adorably heroic monsters steps up to save humanity from an aggressive alien race, more than half of moviegoers will have to settle for just two. -- CD
Tue, March 31
Marvel
The Getty's Made for Manufacture exhibition
Los Angeles
Long before Andy Warhol and his soup cans or Damien Hirst and his one-man auction show, art and commerce were intimate bedfellows. This Getty show reminds us just how long, with 23 drawings done by Renaissance and Baroque artists to prep for stained glass, sculpture, jewelry, and tapestries commissioned by wealthy patrons. The mock-ups, like Jean-Louis Prieur's 1775 Drawing for a Wall Light -- displayed with the finished product -- are remarkably detailed. That was intentional. The artists could then turn production over to their underlings, and it helped avoid wasting pricey materials on manufacturing errors. Occasionally, something was lost in translation. "The drawings," associate curator Stephanie Schrader says, "are often the closest thing to the artist's actual vision." -- KR
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