January 5

The Auteurs has a good summing-up of film festival possibilities this year. The two blog entries by Fionnuala Halligan that it mentions are worth clicking through to as well:

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1373

In similar vein, The Millions offers a summary of the highly expected books of 2010:

http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/most-anticipated-the-great-2010-book-preview.html

Among notables born on this date are Italian philosopher and novelist Umbert Eco, Russian composer Nikolai Medtner, Swiss novelist and playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt, explorer Zebulon Pike, choreographer Alvin Ailey, broadcaster Charlie Rose, French painter Yves Tanguy, Russian painter Nicolas de Stael, Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and actors Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, George Reeves (TV's Superman), Jean-Pierre Aumont, and January Jones (Mad Men). A true birthday oddity is that three supremely gifted pianists, Alfred Brendel, Arturo Michelangeli, and Maurizio Pollini, were all born on this date. Any reasonable list of the 20th century's greatest pianists would without question include all three of those men. It's an interesting coincidence -- I wonder how an astrologer would interpret it!