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

Germans to Subsidize Cruise Film

A German film fund will grant subsidies worth $6.5 million to Tom Cruise’s new film, “Valkyrie,” Reuters reported. The grant, from a fund with an annual film-subsidy budget of $82 million, exceeds the total cost of most German movies. Last week the German government barred the filmmakers from using a location where the military officer portrayed by Mr. Cruise was executed for a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. A spokesman for the German government said that Mr. Cruise’s affiliation with Sci

80 Years of Robots in Hollywood

Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece set many of the ground rules for the sci-fi epics to come, not just in the way it depicted a dystopic future, but also the way it dealt with mad scientists and of course, their creations. Depicting a world in which the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are literally divided by the Earth's surface ˜ the elitists living above ground and the workers living in the dark, dank caverns beneath the surface ˜ Maria is a robot us

Finding true history amid the false: History Museum exhibit puts visitors in the role of curator to try to determine what is real and what isn't

Before the Chicago History Museum puts any one of its 22 million objects and documents on display, the staff has to check out whether the object is real or fake. But ascertaining the legitimacy of a historic object isn't as easy as it might seem. Was a stovepipe hat that has been at the museum for more than 80 years really worn by Abe Lincoln? Is a wooden gun the one gangster John Dillinger used to break out of jail? Could a very old piece of snakeskin, long kept in mus

A history of "The Simpsons"

In January 1992, during a campaign stop at a gathering of the National Religious Broadcasters, George H. W. Bush made a commitment to strengthen traditional values, promising to help American families become "a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons." A few days later, before the opening credits rolled on the animated sitcom's weekly episode, The Simpsons issued its response. Seated in front of the television, the family watched Bush make his remarks. "Hey! We'

'China’s Mona Lisa' Makes a Rare Appearance in Hong Kong

Politics and art don’t always mix well, but the combination has yielded a rare chance for Hong Kong residents and visitors to see what is arguably China’s most famous painting. Trying to foster nationalistic pride in China’s heritage among Hong Kong residents, the Chinese government has sent 32 artworks here for an exhibition to mark the 10th anniversary of Britain’s return of Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997. Among them is Zhang Zeduan’s “Along the River During the Qingming Festi

Elizabeth Drew says Frost/Nixon falsifies history

Frost/Nixon, the hot play in New York, makes for a highly enjoyable evening at the theater. The lead characters, famed talk-show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) and the exiled and disgraced Richard Nixon (Frank Langella, recently awarded a Tony), are wonderfully acted; the staging is simple but effective; there is a clear plotline with a dramatic ending. But the play, the talented Peter Morgan's dramatization of Frost's wildly popular series of televised interviews, in 1977, with t

Showgirls Return to the Spotlight for History’s Sake (Exhibit/Reno)

RENO, Nev. The American West has inspired art like the bullet-spitting buffalo hunters of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell’s bronco riders. But the canon may not yet be ready for Terry Ritter, a former Las Vegas showgirl whose canvases include “The Red Boas,” ecstatic torsos swirling in a sea of red feathers. Forget the Ash Can School. Behold the Can-Can School. Ms. Ritter, 54, is featured in what is billed as the first Showgirl Art Competition Exhibition, whic

Germany Reasserts Ban on Tom Cruise Film Location

The German Finance Ministry, the landlord of all public buildings, said yesterday that the filmmakers behind the Tom Cruise movie about the failed 1944 plot to kill Hitler could not use a memorial site as a location but said its decision was unrelated to Mr. Cruise’s adherence to Scientology, which the government regards as a dangerous cult, Reuters reported. The Finance Ministry said the filmmakers were welcome to make the movie, “Valkyrie,” in Germany, but not at the Bendler Block complex in B

Japanese WW2 massacre film premieres in Beijing

"Nanking", a U.S.-made film documenting eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed by Japanese troops in China during World War Two, opened in Beijing on Tuesday, as the two countries struggle to mend strained ties.The 90-minute movie, co-directed by Oscar-winner Bill Guttentag and producer Dan Sturman, will open in mainland China in general release on July 7, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Japan's full-scale invasion of China. It is one of

Sex and butchery: how Rome made history fun (UK TV)

Blink and you might miss the second series of Rome (Sundays and Wednesdays, 9pm, BBC2). We will be rattling through two episodes a week for the next five weeks. The bloodthirsty re-telling of the birth of the Roman empire focuses on the political players of the time and their almost universal fondness for sex and gouging. It is somewhat similar to watching Patsy and Edina from Absolutely Fabulous getting drunk and shouting at snooty shop girls: you would never do it yourself but it's terrific to

They've long been history; now drive-ins are historical (Australia)

TWO of Victoria's three drive-ins have been classified by the National Trust in a bid to protect a movie phenomenon that refuses to die. The National Trust has classified the Coburg and Dromana drive-ins, and is considering classifying the third, Dandenong's Lunar Drive-In. However, classification offers the drive-ins no legal protection. Drive-in theatres were almost wiped out in the 1980s by the video recorder and spiralling property prices. But Melbourne

Pop Life ’97: Tunes Were Empty, but the Coffers Were Full

FORTY years ago today, “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane cracked the Top 40. With it, and hits like “Light My Fire” by the Doors, 1967’s Summer of Love blossomed. And 40 years later, the media is still commemorating it. From Rolling Stone to VH1 to an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the summer of Summer of Love nostalgia is again upon us, complete with the obligatory images of dancing flower children. By comparison, hardly anyone seems sentimental f

Smithsonian: An assessment by the NYT

WELCOME to the Smithsonian — America’s museum!” Lawrence M. Small, the Smithsonian’s recently ousted top executive, wrote in a peppy preface to the latest edition of the institution’s official guidebook. “Our goal,” he declared, “is nothing less” than to “set the standard of museumgoing excellence for the world.” Whatever his criteria for excellence, Mr. Small, whose title was secretary, hightailed it out of the Smithsonian this spring after being faulted for squandering its money o

Plot Thickens in a Tom Cruise Film about Claus von Stauffenberg, Long Before the Cameras Begin to Roll

When the director Bryan Singer decided to cast Tom Cruise as Col. Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the German Army officer who tried to blow up Hitler toward the end of World War II, he thought he had dealt with all the possible pitfalls. There was the knotty matter of accents, but the director figured that Mr. Cruise and everybody else in the movie, “Valkyrie,” would do fine if they spoke unaffected English. The cost of affording the high-wattage Mr. Cruise could also be problematic,

History museum asks: Is it real?

When Chicago History Museum President Gary T. Johnson told his staff it was time to show off the museum’s vast collection of treasured items, they had an idea. The resulting “Is It Real?” exhibit invites visitors to assume the role of curator, determining if something is a real historical find, a close call or just a bald-faced lie. In some regard, it’s not dissimilar from the TV show “CSI,” which is also the theme of a new exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Science & I

Norman Mailer defends Gunter Grass's silence

Norman Mailer speaking on Wednesday night at the New York Public Library with the Nobel Prize-winner Günter Grass, said, “This may well be one of the very last times I appear in public; old age is catching up with me.” Still, despite walking with two canes and complaining that he couldn’t hear or see well, Mr. Mailer, 84, was as feisty and funny as ever. He defended Mr. Grass, who has been attacked for what critics say is the belated acknowledgment in his new memoir, “Peeling the Onion,” that he

Former Nazi loot to tour

On May 10 the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., will open the first leg of an international tour of paintings from the collection of Jacques Goudstikker, a leading Dutch dealer who fled Amsterdam in 1940 and died the same year. The announcement comes just before an old masters paintings sale at Christie’s in London on Thursday that includes some of the art returned to Goudstikker’s heirs last year. Goudstikker, his wife and their son fled the Netherlands on May 14, 1940, leaving beh

Religion, archaeology meet in blockbuster exhibit (San Diego)

They're fragments from a time long since past and a faith that endures still. And when they go on tour, they draw rock-concert crowds who want to see pieces of the oldest known copies of the Hebrew Bible – or Old Testament in Christianity – and other writings that date back more than 2,000 years. If the San Diego Natural History Museum is right, nearly a half-million visitors will come to Balboa Park over the next six months to see samples of the Dead Sea Scrolls – including, during

"Die Hard" Donates to National Museum of American History

Bruce Willis’s “Die Hard” series is assured its place in history. The actor donated several pieces of “Die Hard” memorabilia to the Smithsonian on Wednesday, including the beleaguered t-shirt that Willis wore into battle during the movie. The actor, accompanied by his daughters, Rumer and Tallulah, was present at the National Air and Space Museum to give the memorabilia to the museum’s “Treasures of American History” collection. In addition to the grubby t-shirt worn by his characte

Pearl Buck manuscript resurfaces after decades

The long-lost manuscript of the 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning Pearl S. Buck novel “The Good Earth” has been recovered, The Associated Press reported. The typed manuscript vanished from the author’s family farm in Perkasie, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb, around 1966. Jerri Williams, an F.B.I. spokeswoman, said it turned up this month when consigned to a Philadelphia auction house, which notified the authorities. Officials did not say if anyone would face charges related to the manuscript’s disappearan