The Sundance Film Festival, which gets under way Thursday in Park City, Utah, has long had a reputation for showcasing dark, sobering films. Now the festival is getting a face-lift, of sorts, Brooks Barnes writes in The Times. The event has nearly tripled the number of comedies appearing in its top three categories, a lineup that should leaven the mood and bring it line with the festive, glitzy atmosphere that pervades the ski town when the festival is in session.
Oprah Winfrey will get the television spotlight Thursday night as her network, OWN, broadcasts the much-anticipated interview with Lance Armstrong, in which the cyclist will admit he used performance-enhancing drugs during his career. Armstrong is said to have “teared up and cried,’’ uliet Macur reports in The Times. Ms. Macur suggests a list of questions Ms. Winfrey should ask if she is going to “go deep’’ in the interview, as Mr. Armstrong said she should.
With four young adult books under his belt, including the best-selling “The Fault in Our Stars,’’ John Green might figure he’s made a significant impact on teen culture. But Mr. Green is creative in a way that has few boundaries, Leslie Kaufman writes, and so he’s become popular on video, too. Joining with his brother Hank, they perform on the VlogBrothers channel on YouTube, which has become a must-see for self-proclaimed nerds. On Tuesday night, at sold-out Carnegie Hall, the Green brothers went through all their popular routines, talking about quarks, reading from Mr. Green’s novels, and stirring the audience with a song about mountain goats that fea! tured the refrain “People were mean to you, but I always thought you were cool.â€
After Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist, committed suicide last week, his family said the government had been pursuing a vindictive prosecution against him, contributing to the emotional pressure he was facing. On Wednesday, the United States attorney for Massachusetts defended her office’s handling of the prosecution, which involved charges that Mr. Swartz illegally used the computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Wall Street Journal reports. The prosecutor said her office never intended to press for the maximum penalty of more than three decades, and had told Mr. Swartz’s lawyers it would seek a sentence of six months.
“Scandal,’’ a political thriller set in Washington, has been a big hit for ABC, and in particular a big draw or black audiences. According to Nielsen, the show is the highest-rated scripted drama among African-Americans this season, Tanzina Vega writes. The casting of Kerry Washington is believed to be a big factor in the success; she is the first African-American to have a leading role in a network drama in almost 40 years.
