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

Back to the Garden: A Woodstock Museum

A funny thing happened on the magic bus trip back to the tie-dyed land of peace, love and music. Yes, there were Jimi and Janis and Joe Cocker twitching around in film clips from the famous concert 39 years ago on the rolling meadow that was Max Yasgur’s alfalfa field. There was a real-life hippie bus in psychedelic colors, and displays of a stars-and-stripes suede jacket and love beads next to a minidress and go-go boots ensemble, the latter getup presumably not worn at Woodstock.

Despite curse, Shakespeare grave needs fixing up

Fix the gravesite. But don't touch the bones. That's the work order, in a nutshell, for brave architects contemplating a fixup job for the deteriorating gravesite of William Shakespeare inside the Holy Trinity Church in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. The illustrious bard is believed by many to have personally penned the threat on a stone marker above his grave. "Blest be the man that spares these stones," it reads. "And curst be he that

Leaning Tower of Pisa 'saved' for 300 years

The Leaning Tower of Pisa has been saved for another 300 years and is no longer moving, according to the engineers in charge of the rescue operation. Engineers are confident their efforts to rescue the Leaning Tower of Pisa have been successful and should last 'at least three centuries' "All of our best hopes have been confirmed. We can now say that the tower will not move again for at least three centuries," said Michele Jamiolkowski, a Turin-based engineer w

Che on the Silver Screen

[Humberto Fontova is the author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him. Visit www.hfontova.com] Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh unveiled his four-and-a-half-hour Che Guevara Biopic at the Cannes Film Festival last Thursday. One reviewer described the movie as “maniacally anticipated” - and Variety hailed it as Cannes' “most-anticipated” film. But based on reviews thus far, it looks like Sod

What if TV producers actually talked to real historians?

Last week, Intellectual Affairs gave the recent cable TV miniseries “Sex: The Revolution” a nod of recognition, however qualified, for its possible educational value. The idea that sex has a history is not, as such, self-evident. The series covers the changes in attitudes and norms between roughly 1950 and 1990 through interviews and archival footage. Most of this flies past at a breakneck speed, alas. The past becomes a hostage of the audience’s presumably diminished attention span.

Bard's 'cursed' tomb is revamped

William Shakespeare's tombstone is set for a makeover - despite bearing a curse against those who move it. The stone, which renovators say will not be moved, warns: "Blessed be the man that spares these stones/ And cursed be he who moves my bones." Shakespeare, who was baptised and buried at the church, is thought to have penned the warning epitaph. The Bard's grave slab, in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon, is visited by thousands of tourists every ye

Pop star's lyrics compared by Cambridge students to Sir Walter Raleigh's

Cambridge University students have been asked to compare the lyrics of the pop star Amy Winehouse with the poetry of Sir Walter Ralegh in a final year exam paper. Those taking the Practical Criticism paper were given a sheet containing the singer's words to her single Love is a Losing Game and asked to contrast them with a work by the 16th century poet and explorer. Winehouse's song, which last week won her a songwriting prize at the Ivor Novello awards, includes the li

Rare Elizabeth I portrait found

A rare portrait of Queen Elizabeth I as a young princess has been discovered in a private collection at a stately home in Northamptonshire. The portrait, dating from 1650 to 1680, was found in the Duke of Buccleuch's collection at Boughton House. It shows Elizabeth with siblings Edward VI and Mary I, father Henry VIII and his jester, Will Somers. It is a copy of an original panel painting, which is thought to date back to the early 1550s.

Lost Goya sketches expected to raise £3m

Three sketches by Spanish painter Goya which were thought to have been lost forever will be unveiled for the first time in more than 130 years next month. The discovery of the sketches, in a Swiss private collection, has caused great excitement in the art world where they have been hailed as the most important of the acclaimed artist’s work to come to auction for over 30 years. They are expected to fetch almost £3 million when they are auctioned by Christies in London n

Mexico's anthropology institute objects to imprinting one of Mexico's treasures on soap opera star's body

Eager to bolster tourism, Hidalgo State came up with a novel idea: an advertising campaign featuring a well-known actress wearing Hidalgo’s most eye-popping sites on her flesh. “Hidalgo, under my skin” was the catch phrase for the ads, which featured the soap opera actress Irán Castillo covered with computer-generated images of mountains, waterfalls and monuments. But federal officials were unimpressed. They did not object to Ms. Castillo’s lying seminude on the grass w

Lindbergh's deranged quest for immortality

Flying had a strange effect on the great aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, leading him to team up with a French surgeon and embark on a quest for ever-lasting life... for a chosen few. What do you know about Charles Lindbergh? You probably know he was an American aviator. He achieved overnight world stardom when he became the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic, solo, in 1927. You might also know that Lindbergh was a peace activist who opposed Amer

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: A bad role model for archaeologists

He may be storming box offices worldwide as everybody's favourite tomb raider, but Indiana Jones breaks every rule in the archaeological book. For all his swashbuckling adventures, the fictional Dr Jones would be found guilty of unethical and quite possibly illegal behaviour, the head of the World Archaeological Congress said. "In pursuit of 'fortune and glory' Jones ignores international treaties, treats human remains as weapons, and destroys archaeological sites

At Spoleto Festival, Revisiting a Fateful Chapter in Slavery

Charleston, SC: Not so often do new American operas find life after birth. But Anthony Davis’s “Amistad,” a historically inspired exploration of slavery and freedom, has come back to the stage 11 years after its debut at the Chicago Lyric Opera, and in a deeply resonant setting. It is the central work at this summer’s Spoleto Festival U.S.A., whose host is Charleston, a city fully freighted with slavery’s legacy. The relevance has not been lost on African-Americans involved: the com

Cornell Capa, Photojournalist and Museum Founder, Dies at 90

Cornell Capa, who founded the International Center of Photography in New York after a long and distinguished career as a photojournalist, first on the staff of Life magazine and then as a member of Magnum Photos, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 90. His death was announced by Phyllis Levine, communications director at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan. Mr. Capa had three important incarnations in the field of photography: successful pho

Parents claim racism in Harper Lee's Ala. hometown

A south Alabama town that was the inspiration for the setting in Harper Lee's book "To Kill a Mockingbird" is finding itself as the backdrop for a real-life legal case involving allegations of racism at school. The parents of several black junior high school students have filed a discrimination lawsuit claiming their children are subject to racial slurs and punished more harshly than white students at Monroeville Junior High School. The lawsuit says black stud

What you should know about the Florida recount (Re: HBO's Recount)

You need to be made of stronger stuff than yours truly to watch Recount. I'm sure it's great, but I'm going to hold off until we inaugurate President Obama and I can stand to look back on it. In the meantime, Alessandra Stanley writes in Today's Times, here: "In 2001 painstaking postmortems of the Florida count, one by The New York Times and another by a consortium of newspapers, concluded that Mr. Bush would have come out slightly ahead, even if all the votes counted throughout the state h

Communists see red over Indiana Jones 'propaganda'

Russian Communist party members have condemned the new Indiana Jones film as crude anti-Soviet propaganda that distorted history, and called for it to be banned from Russian screens. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull stars Harrison Ford as an archaeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent (Cate Blanchett) to find a skull with mystic powers. The film, the fourth in the Indiana Jones series, went on release in Russian cinemas on Thursday. "Wh

2 man play about Nixon & Kissinger (Wash. DC)

On Aug. 8, 1974, in a nationally televised speech, President Richard M. Nixon announced his resignation. The night before, Nixon met with his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, in the Lincoln Sitting Room. What transpired is the fodder for "Nixon's Nixon," a politically charged satire by Russell Lees beginning Wednesday at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda. The two-man play takes an imaginative look at that late-night discussion in which Nixon and Kissinge

Revived Faberge to create first egg since 1917

A revived Faberge luxury goods group plans to resurrect its founder's work next year with the launch of the first jewel-encrusted egg since 1917, when the Faberge family was scattered by the Russian revolution. A group of investors bought rights to Faberge last year -- which had been used to market cosmetics like Brut men's fragrance -- and have been working to restore the firm to its origins with the support of the Russian founder's relatives. "Faberge will announ

Bobby Sands film fuels argument over Sinn Fein 'sell-out'

Bobby Sands, the subject of the controversial new film Hunger, shown at Cannes, is hardly a hero to everyone in Ireland, but to republicans he is a potent symbol of self-sacrifice. While republican factions continue to debate whether he would have supported the present peace process, they are united in regarding him as a martyr who died an agonising death for their cause after a 66-day hunger strike. The film, the debut feature by the Turner prize-winning artist Steve M