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

Hitler Comedy Is the Top Draw in Germany

A Jewish filmmaker’s comedy depicting Hitler (Helge Schneider, right, with Ulrich Mühe) as an impotent, bed-wetting drug addict became the most popular film in Germany in its first week in theaters, Agence France-Presse reported, citing CinemaxX, the country’s biggest theater chain. Despite negative reviews, the film, “My Führer — The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler,” by the Swiss-born, Berlin-based director Dani Levy, finished ahead of the Ben Stiller comedy “Night at the Museum,” the Den

Author says Welsh boxer model for Gatsby

The biographer of a Welsh lightweight champion who knew F. Scott Fitzgerald says he believes the title character in "The Great Gatsby" was based on the boxer. Andrew Gallimore, author of "Occupation Prizefighter: The Freddie Welsh Story," has found an odd link between Welsh and Jay Gatsby, The Times of London reported. Not long before Fitzgerald submitted the manuscript to his publisher, Welsh was involved in a car crash in New Jersey, injuring a woman named My

King papers exhibit opens to public

As the Atlanta History Center opened Monday for the first public exhibition of Martin Luther King Jr.'s papers since they were returned to his hometown, people walked in, hushed and quiet, and filed past King's sermons, notes and books.Bertis Post, 70, of Atlanta said a prayer as she waited to be admitted into the dimly lit exhibit hall. The retired nurse said she marched with King in Alabama and Atlanta, and the exhibit brought back many difficult memories. &qu

Ken Burns gets virtual lifetime contract with PBS

PBS essentially has given a lifetime contract to documentarian Ken Burns, whose upcoming 14-hour series on World War II was described by network chief Paula Kerger Saturday as his greatest work.Burns, essentially the nation's highest-profile documentarian since his series The Civil War created a sensation, has agreed to air his work exclusively on PBS until 2022, the network said. Burns is 53 now. "What it represents is an extra commitment from Ken that he'

Imagining, and Reimagining, the Globe (Wa DC Exhibit)

Of all the debates about Shakespeare, it is perhaps second only to the enduring controversy over the identity of the author himself: what exactly did the Globe Theater, where many of his plays were first performed and his troupe resided, look like? Did it have 16 sides or 8, 20 or 24? The argument swirls with all the passion of Stratfordians versus Oxfordians, who each claim the playwright as their own. Over the last 200 years, attempts have been made to reconstruct the

Dracula's Castle Is for Sale for $78M

BUCHAREST, Romania -- The Habsburg family said Wednesday that it wanted to sell a Transylvanian castle famous for its connections to the 15th century medieval ruler who inspired "Dracula" for 60 million euros, or $78 million, to the local authorities, an attorney said. The local council says it is interested in buying Bran Castle, but a government minister criticized the price tag, calling it too expensive.

In Germany, a Hitler Comedy Goes Over With a Thud

Perhaps it was inevitable that the first German-made film comedy about Hitler would get a mixed reception in Germany — a country still haunted, six decades after the fall of the Third Reich, by the mystery of how this strange madman once held it in thrall. What is more surprising and revealing, perhaps, is the nature of the critiques, which have lambasted the movie but not the idea that Hitler could be the subject of a comedy. The advance buzz about “Mein Führer: The Tr

India's Taj Mahal gates to have facelift

Indian archaeologists are giving a facelift to two major gates of the country's most famous monument, the centuries-old Taj Mahal. Local sculptors and artisans will restore the main gate and southern entrance to the 17th century architectural wonder in the northern city of Agra, about 400 Km (some 250 miles) from the capital. "The work involves restoration of stone inlay that has naturally got decayed and weathered out over the centuries," said K.K. Sharma, a

Historic Black Theater in Washington Might Close

A historic black theater that once boasted performances by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald is running out of money and could be forced to close unless it gets a substantial infusion of cash, the theater's director said Tuesday. The Lincoln Theatre had just $1,362 in the bank Monday and may have trouble making its next payroll and covering other expenses, said Janice Hill, the theater's director. The Lincoln was once a crown jewel of Washington's "Black Broad

Massive 'I Have a Dream' exhibit may never be equaled (Atlanta)

Martin Luther King Jr. comes alive not only on the page, but in photographs, recordings and old news footage in the historic display of his personal papers titled "I Have a Dream: The Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection," scheduled to open Monday at the Atlanta History Center. The exhibition, which encompasses some 600 artifacts — including college exams and books from King's library as well as handwritten sermon texts — is likely to be the last time so man

RAF museum's exhibits come in from the cold war

It was a time of icy diplomacy, frozen friendships and mutually assured destruction - and its history is now about to be told in the first exhibition of its kind. The extraordinary story of the cold war, from missiles to buried nuclear warheads kept warm by cooped chickens, opens next month in Shropshire, housed in two soaring glass and aluminum fins divided by a rusting iron curtain. The £12.3m project at the Royal Air Force museum in Cosford, near Wolverhampton, is the world's fi

National industrial history museum offers public a preview

BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- In the works for nearly a decade, the National Museum of Industrial History plans to open its collection for tours this month ahead of opening its doors as early as next year. More exterior work remains on the museum's East Third Street building, which got a new roof in 2005. But with last month's state approval for a $616 million casino complex nearby, museum officials want to build excitement in their centuries-spanning collection of industrial innovations.

`Royals and the Reich' Reveals Fateful History of Nazi Princes

The prince often dined with Goering. Hitler brightened at his sight. Extending his charm into the southern realms of Mussolini was wife Mafalda, daughter of the Italian king Vittorio Emmanuele III. Then their friends, no longer finding the couple useful, turned on them. In 1943, Philipp of Hessen was imprisoned in Flossenbuerg; Mafalda died in Buchenwald. Philipp's brother Christoph died in a mysterious plane crash. Their stories are told in the absorbing ``Royals a

Cold War history exhibition opens in UK

Exhibits telling the story of the Cold War have gone on show at the Royal Air Force Museum.V-bomber aircraft, a section of the Berlin Wall, a giant statue of Lenin and life-size Russian dolls are among the highlights of the exhibition. The £12.5 million show at the site in Cosford, Shropshire, opens to the public on 8 February. The aim of the project is to tell the history of the West and the Communist bloc between 1945 and 1991. The hi

The day Elvis got all shook up over secret White House meeting

It was one of the more unlikely meetings in American history - the day the president came face to face with the King. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California is celebrating what would have been Elvis Presley's 72nd birthday with a display of items from the day he dropped in unannounced to the White House. The photograph of a cloaked and bejewelled Elvis solemnly shaking hands with Mr Nixon at their secret meeting on 21 December, 1970, remains the most requested

Surrender and Survival in the Crucible of Battle (NYT on Clinton Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima)

THE obvious novelty of Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima” is that this quintessentially — you might even say iconically — American filmmaker has made a World War II movie from the Japanese perspective. This does not mean, of course, that he is on the side of the enemy, but his camera is very much at the side of the Japanese soldiers, and in their midst. Hewing to the visual and narrative conventions of ground-level combat realism, Mr. Eastwood’s film is less concerned with why they fight —

A new documentary, Screamers, tells the story of the 1915 genocide against Armenians

Thousands of young people with long hair and studded tongues pay good money several dozen times a year to listen to lectures about genocide. Well, “lecture” is perhaps not the best way to describe Serj Tankian's delivery. The tall lanky Tankian, who has cascades of curly hair and looks like the long-lost offspring of Frank Zappa and Cher, is a natural on stage. But when he grabs the microphone, he is more likely to shout than to talk. Serj Tankian is the lead singer of System of a D

Greensboro Lunch counter in special museum exhibit

The Woolworth's lunch counter that became a symbol of the nation's civil rights movement in 1960 is part of an exhibit of national icons at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.The 8-foot section of the lunch counter is displayed with Thomas Jefferson's Bible, the Lone Ranger's mask and the hat Abraham Lincoln wore the night he was assassinated. It sits across from the desk where Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The collection is

'Mein Fuehrer': Bathtime for Hitler

Coming soon to German cinemas: a demoralized, drug-addled Adolf Hitler who plays with a toy battleship in the bathtub, dresses his dog in a Nazi uniform and takes acting tips from a Jewish concentration camp inmate. The movie opening Jan. 11 is treading ground that once would have been off-limits. This is not Mel Brooks's "The Producers" or Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," but a German movie that dares to treat Hitler as comedy. "Mein Fue

Papal choirmaster writes musical based on Dante - and punk is the sound of hell

It is being billed as the Vatican musical. One of the Pope's music officials, the choirmaster of St John Lateran, Monsignor Marco Frisina, has written the score for a song-and-dance extravaganza based on Dante's Divine Comedy. It includes punk, rock, jazz and even heavy metal numbers but early reports suggest they figure only in the section devoted to hell.