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

Frost/Nixon to open film festival (London)

The world premiere of Frost/Nixon will open this year's Times BFI London Film Festival, it's been announced. The screening will take place on Wednesday 15 October. The film hails from Oscar-winning director/producer Ron Howard and Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer, together with Bafta award-winning producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. It recounts David Frost's historic interview with disgraced US President Richard Nixon, and stars Michael Sheen and Frank

The Station That Dared to Defend Carlin’s ‘7 Words’ Looks Back

As the encomiums for George Carlin have rolled in from stand-up legends, celebrities and scholars, his death at 71 has also been noted at a diminutive, iconic and iconoclastic radio station in Manhattan, WBAI-FM. Its broadcast of the comedian’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” became a landmark moment in the history of free speech. In a 1978 milestone in the station’s contentious and unruly history, WBAI lost a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision that to this day has defined

Lost Marilyn Monroe film

Unseen footage of Marilyn Monroe during her last film has sold at auction in Las Vegas. The silent 8mm colour film was taken by Stanley Kilarr, an extra in The Misfits, which finished shooting in November 1960 and was also Clark Cable’s last movie. The behind-the-scenes footage sold for $60,000 with other film memorabilia at Planet Hollywood on June 21. The 47-minute reels were estimated at $20,000 (£10,000).

Making Abraham Lincoln Anew--and in bronze

An inspired collaboration has been taking shape at President Lincoln’s Cottage as part of the lead up to the Lincoln Bicentennial celebration. Washington developer Robert H. Smith is generously sponsoring a new sculpture memorializing Lincoln’s association with this important site to be completed before the end of 2008. Mr. Smith’s proposal to place a new Lincoln sculpture at the recently restored summer cottage, that Lincoln occupied between 1862-64, will add great sig

Campaign to bring the Bayeux Tapestry back to Britain

A campaign has been launched to bring the Bayeux Tapestry, one of the world’s great works of art, back to Britain for the first time centuries, and put it on display in Canterbury Cathedral. The famous embroidery of the 1066 Norman Conquest is the subject of a major conference of world experts being held at the British Museum next month. Feted as the most famous cartoon strip of history, the tapestry was made in Britain but never displayed here and now historians believ

Researchers hit a homer with 'The Odyssey'

Delving into a 3,000-year-old mystery using astronomical clues in Homer's "The Odyssey," researchers said Monday they have dated one of the most heralded events of Western literature: Odysseus' slaughter of his wife's suitors upon his return from the Trojan War. According to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the wily hero who devised the Trojan Horse hefted his mighty bow on April 16, 1178 BC, and executed the unruly crowd who had

An Inconvenient Opera: Your Version

Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” first a film and then a book, is becoming an opera. Officials of La Scala in Milan say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to write it for the 2011 season, The Associated Press reported. Dear Mr. Gore, Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my draft of “Verità Inconveniente.” Rest assured that I and the management of La Scala are committed to a serious presentation of your scientific work. I will try to adopt some of you

Book: Michelangelo 'hid secret code in Sistine Chapel'

Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope, according to a new book. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which the renaissance artist worked on for four years in the early 16th century, is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith, according to The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece. The book, which

In Poland, Chopin's heart may hold secret of his death

The heart of Frederic Chopin, one of the world's most cherished musical geniuses, could hold the secret to his untimely death. The renowned 19th century Polish-French pianist and composer died at the age of 39, of what is believed to be tuberculosis. But leading Polish medical experts are betting that DNA tests on his heart -- perfectly preserved in what appears to be cognac -- could prove he suffered from cystic fibrosis. Their request to Poland's culture

Russians revive tale of Ivan the Terrible in 16-part TV series

He relied on a brutal, early version of the secret police. He murdered some of his opponents with his own hands. Yet Tsar Ivan the Terrible also united Russia, opened diplomatic relations with England and wrote music. Now the complex royal character is to come to TV screens in a 16-part series, and its director believes Russian audiences are ready for some serious historical drama. Violent thrillers and reality shows have replaced Communist propaganda on Russian television and, like

Phar Lap died of arsenic poisoning

Forensic scientists say champion Australian gelding Phar Lap died of arsenic poisoning, solving a mystery that has intrigued the horse racing world for more than 75 years. Phar Lap won 37 of his 51 starts before his death in mysterious circumstances at Menlo Park in California in April 1932. Days before his death, he won Mexico’s Agua Caliente Handicap, which was then the richest horse race in North America. Arsenic poisoning has long been suspected as the cause of Phar

First major exhibit of civil rights movement photographs on display in Atlanta

ATLANTA — If ever social change was propelled by photographs, it was during the civil rights movement. Burning buses and raised batons, snarling police dogs and blasting hoses, the young black girl in bobby socks and gingham trailed by a group of sneering white girls as she tried to enter high school — the images spurred a national reckoning in a way that words could not. Behind the pictures are stories of smashed equipment and journalists beaten, of activists drawn south by images,

Copernicus book sells for more than $2.2M in NYC

A first edition of the Nicolaus Copernicus book that puts forth the theory that the sun — not the earth — is at the center of the universe has fetched more than $2.2 million at an auction, nearly double the expected price. The 1543 copy of Copernicus' "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) was among more than 300 books offered Tuesday at Christie's auction. It was expected to sell for up to $1.2 million. Christie's c

'Fake' Rembrandt Worth Millions

The auction house thought the portrait was a 17th century Rembrandt knockoff, and valued it at just $3,100. But the British buyer who paid about 1,500 times more than that apparently knew what he was doing. Experts have confirmed "Rembrandt Laughing" — bought for a bargain price of $4.5 million at an English auction house in October — is a self-portrait by the Dutch master himself, depicted with his head tilted back in easygoing laughter. William Noortman from

Political correctness overshadows a fine collection of 19th-century paintings of the Middle East

The first and greatest age of Orientalism in the visual arts started in France around the time of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and peaked as the Romantic Movement swept through Europe. Works like Delacroix's The Death of Sardanapalus (1827) and The Fanatics of Tangier (1838) set precedents for later depictions of the East as a place given to sexual excess, wanton cruelty, mass murder and unbridled sensuality. But as Tate Britain's The Lure of the East: British Orientali

Alcatraz could be turned into a hotel

Alcatraz, the notorious former prison in San Francisco, could be converted into a hotel. The National Park Service, which runs the Californian island, says the plan offers a unique historic, wildlife and visiting experience. In 1850 Alcatraz became a military reservation and 11 years later a military prison; from 1934-63 it was an infamous federal penitentiary, housing criminals such as Al Capone. It is believed the hotel would be in a guard house rather than cell-blocks. National Park Service s

Historian traces rise of a cultural phenomenon--White Weddings (white dress, white cake, etc.)

Fancy white gowns and multitiered cakes. Shiny gold rings and 400 guests. Exactly when did the fantasy of a classic "white wedding" take root? In the new book "It's Our Day: America's Love Affair with the White Wedding" (University Press of Kansas, $29.95), historian Katherine Jellison traces the elaborate and formal ritual to the rise of consumer culture after World War II. It was driven by "superstar brides," including Grace Kelly, Tricia Nixon, Diana

Tuskegee Airmen to be subject of George Lucas film

The black airmen whose lives will be the basis of a George Lucas movie know the picture will highlight their record of successfully escorting thousands of U.S. bombers in World War II. They also feel it should tell of the trials they encountered stateside, like seeing German prisoners of war being treated better and afforded rights that were withheld from black American citizens. Now that "Red Tails" is in preproduction, some of the airmen say they are excited

Car gifted by Hitler to Nepal king awaits new home

A car gifted by Adolf Hitler to a Nepali king is likely to be displayed in a palace museum after the Himalayan nation abolished the 239-year-old monarchy and the ousted King Gyanendra quit the palace. Officials said a 1939 Mercedes Benz presented by the Nazi leader to King Tribhuvan, Gyanendra's grandfather, is now rusting at Nepal's main Narayanhiti palace grounds. It has lain there for more than three years after an engineering college in Kathmandu, which was using it

The first world wide web? In 1934?

MONS, Belgium — On a fog-drizzled Monday afternoon, this fading medieval city feels like a forgotten place. Apart from the obligatory Gothic cathedral, there is not much to see here except for a tiny storefront museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a narrow street in the northeast corner of town. It feels like a fittingly secluded home for the legacy of one of technology’s lost pioneers: Paul Otlet. In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric