Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ... Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits

Pollock Painting May Be Safe

The University of Iowa has come out strongly for holding on to “Mural,” a Jackson Pollock masterpiece at the university’s Museum of Art. At a Board of Regents meeting in August, following floods that caused considerable damage to the campus, a regent raised the question of whether “Mural” might be sold to finance repairs, and asked the university to provide certain information about the painting and its impact. The painting is insured for $140 million, so there’s no doubt it could bring in serio

First Lady Laura Bush visits home of the author of Little House on the Prairie books

MANSFIELD, Mo. -- First Lady Laura Bush visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum on Friday. Bush told her small audience that she has always wanted to visit the place where Wilder wrote her Little House on the Prairie books and others. She's happy she got to do it before the end of her husband's term as president. Bush also came bearing good news. She designated the site was an official project of the Save America's Treasures, which makes it eligible for a preservation grant.

When weather changed history (TV series/Weather Channel)

When Weather Changed History – the original series from The Weather Channel® that won awards and broke viewership records after its premiere in January 2008 – returns for an exciting all-new second season beginning October 5. The 14 new episodes explore weather-related circumstances known to affect the outcome of history and reveal the sometimes-surprising connections of weather on the course of events. Each new episode of When Weather Changed History will premiere Sundays at 9 p.

Actor Leslie Howard kept Spain out of WWII, claims author

The actor, 50, was returning to Britain after a trip through Spain and Portugal when his passenger aircraft was shot down by the Luftwaffe in 1943. A Spanish author has claimed that the actor had secretly met with General Franco to convey a message to the fascist dictator in a bid to prevent him from joining forces with Hitler and Mussolini. José Rey-Ximena claims that Howard used a former lover to get close to the dictator after being given the special mission by Winst

Dog chews and Mao: Saatchi's art revolution

When Charles Saatchi closed his last art gallery after a row with the landlord, he famously sold off his prestigious collection of works by the YBAs, leaving the world wondering what he would "discover" next. Yesterday, Saatchi revealed a new collection of YCAs, or Young Chinese Artists, after unveiling the world's largest free-entry contemporary art gallery in private hands. A giant faeces sculpture called Indigestion II, replicas of London buildings m

War photography exhibitions in the UK

Sixty-one years ago, the photographic agency Magnum was founded over a boozy lunch in the restaurant of the Museum of Modern Art in New York by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and a group of other photojournalists seeking more editorial control. Driven by a humanitarian mission, Magnum encouraged a breed of brave photojournalists who ventured to where history was being made and documented what they saw. The power of their pictures and those of other photojournalists grew until t

Restoration of banned "Fifer Man" cancelled

“The statue will be kept at the treasury of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMCA) and we have no plans for its restoration,” office director and TMCA curator Mahmud Shaluii told the Persian service of MNA on Saturday. “It will be kept at the place in its existing shape; perhaps it will be restored at some point in the future,” he added. According to former curator Habibollah Sadeqi, TMCA planned to restore the statue in order to reinstall the artwork at the yar

Iranian experts begin restoration of Rudaki mausoleum

A group of expert tile craftsmen from Neyshabur Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Department will complete the restoration and renovation process of the mausoleum within a month. The tomb was constructed on an octagon plane with a rotary dome representing the architectural style of Attar’s mausoleum in Neyshabur, Khorasan Razavi Province. The dome covering an area of 100 square meters will be covered with turquoise-colored tiles in the planetarium style.

Michael Sheen as David Frost

Tony Blair, David Frost, HG Wells, Kenneth Williams, Brian Clough, Mozart, Caligula - the roll call of parts that Michael Sheen has played resembles a version of the parlour game known as Fantasy Dinner Parties. With that mob seated around the same table, passing the condiments and swapping chit-chat, there would be no need to resort to Pictionary or Taboo to give the evening a lift. Until now, Sheen has been defined by his brace of performances as Blair. The Deal recreated the char

Theatre review: Caligula (Ireland)

"You're being absurd," Emperor Caligula is told, and how could he not be? In Albert Camus' 1930s play, the notorious Roman ruler becomes a mouthpiece for the philosophy of the absurd, demonstrating the meaninglessness of life by embarking on a reign of terror. With relentless logic, he pursues his idea of freedom by tyrannising others, "converting philosophy into corpses". David Greig's witty translation brings contemporary irony to a play that offers an original

Bob Dylan: Robert Burns is my biggest inspiration

Bob Dylan's greatest creative inspiration is not Woody Guthrie, Little Richard or Odetta. It's even not Picasso or Cézanne. Instead, Dylan has revealed his greatest inspiration is Scotland's favourite son, the Bard of Ayrshire, the 18th-century poet known to most as Rabbie Burns. As part of an advertising campaign this year, Dylan was asked to name the lyric or verse that had the greatest impact on his life. Rather than quoting his idol Woody Guthrie or poet Dylan Thomas, from whom

Stoker's blood relation resurrects Dracula

Van Helsing and his intrepid band of vampire hunters might have disposed of Bram Stoker's creation Dracula more than a century ago, but a sequel to the novel by Stoker's great grand-nephew will see them under attack from the undead once again. Dacre Stoker delved into his ancestor's handwritten notes on the original Dracula novel to pen his sequel, Dracula: The Un-Dead - the original name for Dracula before an editor changed the title. The novel, out next October, draws on excised c

Lord Nelson officer Captain Hardy painting sold for 4,000 pounds

The painting of a warship in Nelson's navy is the only known work by Captain Hardy and was created in about 1801. As an officer, Hardy was trained by the Royal Navy to be a competent artist so he could draw enemy ships and coastlines of foreign countries. The drawings and paintings were not signed and were meant to be used for strategic purposes and not as works of art. Hardy gave it to Reverend Dr Alexander Scott, who was Nelson's private secretary and who rubbed the naval hero's c

A new exhibition of Renaissance portraits reveals how, for the first time, the human face came alive in art (UK)

In the summer of 1521 Albrecht Dürer was travelling in the Low Countries. Just as he was leaving Antwerp on July 2, he received a message from King Christian II of Denmark, who was in town. The monarch asked Dürer to draw his portrait, which he did, in charcoal. Afterwards, Christian asked the artist to dine with him. Dürer noted in his diary, "he behaved graciously towards me". Dürer's drawing of the king still exists, and will be included in the exhibition Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck

The good old days of back-breaking labour (BBC documentary)

'We smell and we ache," says Alex Langlands. "It's been a huge undertaking - and it's freezing up here in winter. But it's also been a real thrill." Adjusting to hard physical work in wild weather was not the only challenge for the team of two archaeologists and a historian who retreated to deepest Shropshire to live for a year as Victorian farmers. "Braces were a revelation," says Langlands, one of the archaeologists. "They used to wear th

'Bond' star plays historian in Ion TV mystery

Daniel Craig, star of the James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” due out Nov. 14, plays an Oxford historian-turned-detective in the British thriller “Archangel,” airing at 8 p.m. Oct. 24 on Ion Television. Set in contemporary Moscow and the frozen northern town of Archangel, Craig stars as Fluke Kelso in this three-hour mystery-thriller that revisits the stark landscape of Communist Russia. His fateful meeting with a former Stalinist bodyguard leads to the uncovering of o

How could we still be in the dark about what happened on Moore's Ford Bridge 62 years ago? (TV documentary)

The South is the bathroom of American history. Saturating the otherwise picturesque rolling landscapes is the oppressive stench of a history of lynching, blood-curdling beatings, and African-American bodies burned and ruthlessly mutilated. This is the room that America doesn't want visitors to see. Keep this door shut because if opened, threatening so spill out is a truth cold and heartless, vicious and numbing. It is better to infuse the truth with perfumed tales than it is to air it out.

Discovery of lost nude pictures of Marilyn Monroe leads to legal fight

Now the discovery of long lost semi-nude pictures of the actress and singer has unleashed a bitter legal battle, which is being watched closely by the guardians of her status as in international style icon. The photographs, believed lost for more than 40 years, are among a series featuring the star of Some Like it Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in a series of erotic poses wearing not much more than a set of pearls and a sultry pout. They were taken by New York photogr

Theatre preview (UK): The Bomb

Could you face the man who killed your father? Is reconciliation and forgiveness possible? Those are the questions raised in Kevin Dyer's powerful play. Brighton bomber Patrick Magee was given multiple life sentences, but released under the Good Friday agreement in 1999. Subsequently he has met the daughter of one of his victims. This is their story, a painful and explosive account of two people trying to recover the humanity that was destroyed more than two decades ago.

Theatre preview (UK): All Quiet On The Western Front

The title of Erich Maria Remarque's great anti-war novel about German soldiers fighting in the first world war comes from a news report in October 1918 just a month before the end of the war. But as Remarque's novel demonstrates, even when all was reported quiet, men were being slaughtered. Robin Kingsland's stage adaptation tells the story of Paul who - influenced by the patriotic fervour of his school teacher - enlists in the German army, aged just 19. A tale of lost innocence and lost lives,