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

North-West Passage: An Arctic Obsession, National Maritime Museum, London

Sound sets the scene. When you pass through the doors, you are assailed by the bone-chilling noise of howling winds, and the crepitation of ice. Welcome to an exhibition about the fabled North-West Passage, a source of endless, greed-driven fascination, and often fruitless and tragic endeavour, for centuries. Was it somehow possible to travel by sea from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific, passing through the ice-bound waters of Alaska? Many tried. Many perished. John Cabot, sailing in 1497

The Fortieth Anniversary of the First Moon Landing: review

‘Fine and powdery,” was how Neil Armstrong described the lunar landscape when he became the first man to walk through it. “Magnificent desolation,” said Buzz Aldrin, who has never recovered from being only the second man on the moon. Meanwhile, orbiting the spooky grey-white sphere in the command module overhead, lonely Michael Collins would gaze down at a “withered, sun-seared peach pit”. While Armstrong and Aldrin were setting up the experiments listed on their spacesuit gloves and struggling

Saddam Hussein's palaces in pictures

There is, as yet, no instructed estate agent, but should one come along, their marketing pitch will for once need no over-egging. ‘For sale/rent: 80 presidential palaces, average unit living space half-a-million square feet. Attached gardens featuring disused swimming pools, personal zoos/nuclear bunkers etc. Rooms fitted with thrones and gold lavatories, en suite torture chamber optional. Some bomb damage. Suit megalomaniac or similar.’ Welcome to what its previous owner would no

Did the Apollo Moon Landing Put a Dagger in the Heart of Science Fiction?

Forty years ago this week, science fiction writers were media celebrities—at least for a few hours. When Neil Armstrong stepped on to the surface of the moon on July 21, 1969, his “giant leap for mankind” was not just a fulfillment of President Kennedy’s promise of a lunar expedition before decade’s end. It also validated the starry-eyed dreams of a legion of pulp fiction writers. Long before NASA was founded, the A

Novelist Kathryn Stockett examines slavery and racism in America's Deep South

As a child in America’s Deep South in the 1970s, Kathryn Stockett was not really aware of the racial divides around her. Now she has written a novel about the community in 1960s Mississippi from the point of view of the black servants. The British cover to Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help – about the experiences of black maids in Mississippi in the early 1960s – is a period photograph of a little white girl in a pushchair flanked by two black women in starched white uniforms – the

German police investigate 'Nazi' gnome

German prosecutors have launched an inquiry into whether a garden gnome with its right arm raised in a Hitler salute in a Nuremberg art gallery breaks the law. Salutes and Nazi symbols have been illegal in Germany since the Second World War but investigators may decide the figure is in fact ridiculing the Third Reich.

Vatican reconciles with Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde, whose flamboyant homosexuality shocked Britain in the 19th century, won an unlikely endorsement from the Vatican on Thursday. In a surprise act of reconciliation with the playwright, the Holy See's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, praised the poet as a "lucid analyst of the modern world". Wilde, who was sent to prison for acts of gross indecency with Lord Alfred Douglas and later converted to Catholicism, has been regarded by the Roman

New footage changes the way we see 'Metropolis,' says film restorer

'Metropolis' is legendary because of the footage that was missing for so many years A half hour of additional footage of the 1927 film "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang has arrived in Germany for restoration. DW spoke with chief film restorer Anke Wilkening about the significance of the new scenes. Deutsche Welle: A complete version of Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" was discovered last year in Argentina. Now you'll be working on restoring the film in digital form

NYT likes the makeover of the Ford Theater and museum

Museums are increasingly becoming like theaters, their once-staid display cases giving way to extended narratives and elaborate special effects. But now, after nearly two years of renovations, a theater has become more fully a museum. It is being incorporated into an expanding multibuilding exhibition that will recount a tale as resonant and dramatic as any ever staged: Lincoln’s presidency and assassination. In February Ford’s Theater, where the murder took place on April 14, 1865,

British Museum announces Italian Renaissance drawings exhibition

The British Museum's collection of Italian Renaissance drawings is so fragile that its masterpieces are exhibited only once in a generation. Next summer a chance to see these delicate objects will finally come around, as the museum launches an exhibition, in partnership with the Uffizi in Florence, of works on paper by artists from Fra Angelico to Leonardo. The 100 or so works will span the period 1400-1510 and artists including Jacopo and Gentile Bellini, Botticelli, F

Tate Liverpool exhibition to celebrate political Picasso

Picasso's cold war career as a highly political painter, peace campaigner and tireless fundraiser for leftwing causes will be revealed in an exhibition at Tate Liverpool next spring that will include letters from world leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Ho Chi Minh, as well as a telegram from Fidel Castro congratulating the artist on being awarded the Soviet Union's international peace prize. Christoph Grunenberg, the gallery's director, said the exhibition would explode the myth

Critic: 'Public Enemies' is a terrible indicator of how America has retreated from one of its greatest inventions--the movies.

On a Wednesday night in San Francisco, opening night, in a theater no more than half full, the truth was as inescapable as rain at a picnic. Johnny Depp just wasn't cutting it. He wasn't even making the attempt. Once again, Michael Mann had poured his nearly liquid talent over a gangster picture without ever thinking to ask himself why. That oddly vague title Public Enemies--why isn't it called Johnny D. or just Dillinger?--was turning into a startlingly detached and affectless movie. And the di

History's worst inventions listed

A series of idiotic ideas have been detailed in a book, History's Worst Inventions. They include a wicker chair spaceship and an asbestos tablecloth. Other useless inventions included anti-tank dogs during the Second World War when the Russians attempted to counter the might of the German Army's tanks. The dogs, fitted with explosives, would be starved before battles and trained to search for food under vehicles, where they would then explode. However, dogs often ran t

Beatrix Potter's childhood retreat in Scotland put up for sale

A fishing spot where the children’s author and illustrator Beatrix Potter spent her summer holidays is for sale. When she was a girl, the creator of Peter Rabbit visited Dalguise Fishings, on the Tay near Dunkeld, in Perthshire, where she is said to have developed her love of nature. She was a self-taught painter and kept a variety of pets. The Potter family caught salmon in the river and Beatrix’s time there is thought to have provided the inspiration for characters su

Beach that inspired Virginia Woolf sold for 80,000 pounds

A beach believed to be the inspiration behind Virginia Woolf's novel To The Lighthouse was sold for £80,000. Upton Towans beach in Gwithian, Cornwall and the lighthouse on nearby Godrevy Island inspired Woolf's 1927 novel. The novel is set in the Hebrides but as a child Woolf regularly went on holiday with her family to Cornwall and her recollections are thought to have inspired the book. The 71 acre beach and five acres of dunes were owned by Dennis Arbon

Mandela artworks are 'fakes', London gallery told

Nelson Mandela has launched a last-ditch attempt to prevent a London gallery using his name on an exhibition of prison sketches that he claims are forgeries. The former South African president said he "strongly disassociates himself" from the show, Nelson Mandela at 91, due to open tomorrow at the Belgravia Gallery. Lawyers for Mandela, who celebrates his birthday on Saturday, said they had written to the gallery asking it to "desist immediately" but received no

Nazi victim's art will not be returned to family

Professor Curt Glaser, a prominent Jewish art historian, left Germany in the 1930s, after the Nazis forced him out of his home and his job. He sold his artworks, including a drawing by Renoir, to fund his escape. The works were later sold on at auction to a collector, Count Antoine Seilern, who later left them to the Courtauld Gallery, in London. Prof Glaser's surviving relatives claim the eight drawings should be handed over to them, arguing that he would not have so

Polishing a Lost Gem to Dazzle Tourists (Israel)

The beauty of the exquisitely preserved ancient mosaic only seemed to underline the incongruity of its surroundings. The late-Roman-era mosaic floor, one of the largest and finest in Israel, was unveiled by the authorities last week for just the second time since it was discovered 13 years ago in the dilapidated eastern section of this poor town near the international airport, south of Tel Aviv. Some 1,700 years old, the magnificent tiled floor spreads over almost 2,000

HBO's "The Pacific" will be a harrowing portrait of war

Last month saw HBO release the first official teaser trailer for their $200m (£120m) second world war series The Pacific, which airs on Sky Movies next Spring. It's an epic co-produced by Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg, who collaborated on 1998's Saving Private Ryan and the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers. The trailer gives the impression that the scale of this show dwarfs those earlier projects. The Pacific will follow the intertwined exploits of three US Marines – Rob

Hemingway revealed as failed KGB spy

Up till now, this has been a notably cheerful year for admirers of Ernest Hemingway – a surprisingly diverse set of people who range from Michael Palin to Elmore Leonard. Almost every month has brought good news: a planned Hemingway biopic; a new, improved version of his memoir, A Moveable Feast; the opening of a digital archive of papers found in his Cuban home; progress on a movie of Islands in the Stream. Last week, however, saw the publication of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the