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

Sacha Baron Cohen Signs to Play Abbie Hoffman for Spielberg

Well, Sacha Baron Cohen has already made sure that he won't be haunted by Borat jokes for the rest of his life, so it was only a matter of time before he started to branch out. First was his foray into musicals, and now it's time for something just a little more 'serious'. Once again Cohen has gotten lucky and he's caught the eye of another great director. The Times Online has reported that Cohen signed to play 60's counter-culture icon Abbie Hoffman for Steven Spielberg. Cohen is the perfect ch

PBS history of Jewish Americans

IN 1654, when the Portuguese seized Recife, Brazil, from the Dutch, many Jews fled; 23 of them ended up in New Amsterdam, now New York City. That is the starting point for David Grubin’s six-hour documentary “The Jewish Americans,” which will be broadcast over three Wednesdays on most PBS stations beginning Jan. 9. The series ends with Matisyahu, the Hasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today. In making that leap, Mr. Grubin, the film’s directo

Python member Terry Jones tries to balance the continent's story

Leave it to a Monty Python member to make history entertaining. Consisting of four episodes that aired on BBC2 in 2006, Terry Jones' Barbarians takes the maxim that history is written by the victors, turns it over and looks at our past through the eyes of the vanquished societies that fell to the might of the Roman Empire. The two-DVD set is available now. Traveling throughout Europe and visiting with numerous scholars and researchers, Jones makes the case that if your

The History Boys ... why has it remained popular for so long?

I’ve seen it twice, first at its premiere at the National in 2004, then in the West End. It’s been to Broadway, toured the planet and here it is back in the heart of our own theatreland. Why has Alan Bennett’s History Boys had an even longer and larger life than his The Madness of George III – or The Madness of King George as it was known in America, a country where numbers signify cinematic sequels, not sequential monarchs? I’m not sure I’m right – shows can acquire an unstoppable

Fight to save 'Alice in Wonderland' home

Conservationists are fighting to stop a building with links to Alice in Wonderland from being demolished. Penmorfa in Llandudno was once the Victorian holiday home of the family of Alice Liddell, the girl thought to have inspired Lewis Carroll's tale. But developers who want to build new flats say it is "unrealistic" to restore the former seaside hotel. Campaigners want the building listed but historic monuments agency, Cadw said it was not significantl

Exhibition cancelled after ‘conspiracy’

An exhibition in France has been cancelled following the theft of two ancient statues and a diplomatic row. Masterpieces from the Ganges Delta at the Guimet Museum was to be an exhibition of Hindu relics from the 3rd century BC to the 19th century. The recent theft at Dhaka airport of the 1,500-year-old terracotta statues depicting the deity Vishnu has prompted the Bangladeshi government to pull out of the agreement because of concerns over the security of its artefacts. A statement from the Fre

Britain honoring James Bond on stamps

The Royal Mail is issuing six new stamps to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Ian Fleming. The extra-long stamps, out on January 8th, feature editions of the James Bond novels, including Goldfinger and Casino Royale, and are launched in the year the Imperial War Museum London hosts an exhibition, For Your Eyes Only, on the author and his famous spy. This year the Royal Mail will also issue stamps on British monarchs, cathedrals, Hammer Horror films and the end of the First World War.

New musical tells story of Anne Frank

The Anne Frank Foundation is supporting a new musical in Madrid based on the diary of the Jewish girl who died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. The theatre group responsible for the musical, which opens next month, visited the Amsterdam flat where the Franks hid from the Nazis. The founder of the project, Rafael Alvero, said: ‘The thing we want to do is through the music, to understand the story better.’ The lead role is played by Cuban-born Isabella Castillo; the 13-year-old said: ‘

Newsweek says cabarets are making a come back

... Nightlife is a cabaret all over the world these days. Clubs, festivals and small concert venues are hosting eclectic performances, often with a distinct international flavor, that are drawing not just old-school fans but introducing a whole new generation to the rich and sometimes risqu? musical genre. Last fall, New York's Carnegie Hall hosted the "Berlin in Lights" festival, which featured eight nights of German-style cabaret, and the Mabel Mercer Foundation's Cabaret Convention

Newsweek says cabarets are making a come back

... Nightlife is a cabaret all over the world these days. Clubs, festivals and small concert venues are hosting eclectic performances, often with a distinct international flavor, that are drawing not just old-school fans but introducing a whole new generation to the rich and sometimes risqu? musical genre. Last fall, New York's Carnegie Hall hosted the "Berlin in Lights" festival, which featured eight nights of German-style cabaret, and the Mabel Mercer Foundation's Cabaret Convention

Germany's Cinematic Legacy Fills Federal Archives

Ever wondered why everyone gets so excited when German films succeed these days? It’s usually a celebration of a return to form of one of the world’s most renowned film industries. As befitting one of the birthplaces of cinema, Germany enjoys a position of great standing in the world of film. After all, Max Skladanowsky presented the first "living pictures" in Berlin on Nov. 1, 1895, beating France's Lumiere brothers to the honor by a month. As a result of Germany's

Jewish Americans: PBS series explores a people's rich, influential history, dating back to Colonial times, and profiles key modern figures

"The Jewish Americans" airs in three 2-hour segments on PBS on Wednesday, Jan. 16 and 23. Numbers can't begin to summarize the story of "The Jewish Americans," a multilayered PBS documentary that airs in segments on three Wednesdays beginning next Wednesday. But some of them do stand out like signposts in the 350 years of social, religious, political, economic and cultural history covered in the six-hour series. The numbers affirm certain widely familiar patterns

Johnny Depp to Play Stalin in a Documentary

The British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, the author of a researched biography called “Young Stalin”, has signed a contract on shooting a screen version of his work and wants Johnny Depp to play Stalin in the movie. According to Montefiore, Johnny Depp perfectly suits the image of young Stalin created by the historian. "If it's not done in Georgian, Johnny Depp would be perfect for the lead role," Simon Sebag Montefiore said. The historian has

Time Magazine lauds new documentary about Nanking

In the early winter of 1937, Japanese troops, having conquered Shanghai, moved on to envelop Nanking, then the capital of China. After a furious aerial bombardment, they entered the city virtually without opposition. By this time most of its wealthier residents had fled, leaving the city to the poor and to the remnants of the Chinese army. There followed what is probably the most horrific single occurrence in the history of modern warfare, the "rape of Nanking," as it quickly came to b

'The Great Debaters': Why Wasn’t History Good Enough?

Editor's Note: The daughter of one of the real-life debaters depicted in the movie "The Great Debaters" questions the decision to attribute real accomplishments to fictitious characters. Eleanor Boswell-Raine is the associate publisher of The Globe Newspapers. I am the daughter of Hamilton Boswell, who was a member of the Wiley College debating team of 1935. I regret that my father’s history was twisted and that writers somehow didn’t think that the truth was enough.

The Killing of John Lennon (2006) (movie-semi-documentary)

“I was nobody until I killed the biggest somebody on earth.” Those are the boastful words of John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman (Jonas Ball), who shot Lennon on Dec. 8, 1980, in front of his home at the Dakota, the Manhattan apartment complex at 72nd Street and Central Park West. Everything Mr. Chapman says in “The Killing of John Lennon,” Andrew Piddington’s devastating re-enactment of events leading up to, including and immediately after the murder, is taken f

Dumb history quiz sponsored in connection with release of National Treasure movie

An encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. history is the one thing National Treasure protagonist Ben Gates always has on his side. How well do your history skills match up? 1. What words are written on the back of the Declaration of Independence? 2. How many pages are supposedly missing from John Wilkes Booth's diaries? 3. Which U.S. president got a "D" in history at Harvard University? 4. What body of water flows beneath the National Archive

Museum gives fraud its sordid place in history

Baseball has a hall of fame, as does rock 'n' roll. So why not one of the world's oldest professions? The Fraud Museum, a traveling exhibit based in Austin, houses memorabilia from some of the most infamous scam artists, con men and snake-oil salesmen in the history of Western commerce. It's an eye-opening reminder that financial malfeasance didn't begin with Enron's overstatement of its earnings from 1998 to 2001. The museum does pay tribute to Enron, and other disgrac

Photographing the Life That Rockwell Depicted

With his allegiance to dewy-eyed innocence and earnest sentimentality, the illustrator Norman Rockwell has often been mocked for creating an America that never was and never will be. But Kevin Rivoli, a photojournalist in upstate New York, will tell you that’s just not true. He knows because he’s documented it. Mr. Rivoli has spent the past 15 years capturing timeless moments in contemporary America — the solemn christenings and squirmy first haircuts, the town meetings

Who Charlie Wilson's War appeals to

(A MESH member who prefers to remain anonymous submits the following comment on the film Charlie Wilson’s War.) This is a movie made by a highly sophisticated political and artistic mind, someone—the director—who knows all the arguments and charges and nuances of what this important episode has come to mean to various interpreters. I came away feeling that the film is aimed at four different audiences, the last of the four being the most important. The first and most in