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

Wallace Stegner’s Complaint

Wednesday was the centennial of Wallace Stegner, the writer and uber-citizen of the West. His friends said he looked like God ought to look, and perhaps not since Eden was first sketched in Genesis has an author been so sternly rhapsodic about the land. Were Stegner around this week to blow out the 100 candles on his birthday cake, it’s likely he would still be mad at the East Coast Media Conspiracy, and by that he meant this newspaper. “It was the New York Times that b

John McGlinn, 55, Restorer of Musicals, Is Dead

John McGlinn, a conductor and musical historian who delved deep into neglected archives to recreate musicals like “Show Boat,” “Anything Goes” and “No, No, Nanette” in their original form, died on Saturday at home in Manhattan. He was 55. His brother, Evan, said that no official cause of death had been determined but that he had probably had a heart attack. Throughout his career, Mr. McGlinn breathed the intoxicating air of the early Broadway musical, with special atten

Best Actor in Blackface

The outrage over Robert Downey Jr.’s Oscar nod is predictable and misplaced. Give the brother playing the brother his due. I would classify myself as an intensely proud black man. And I feel completely comfortable saying that Robert Downey Jr. deserves his Oscar nod. Denying Tropic Thunder’s smart satire simply because the artists involved are white is simplistic and short-sighted. Frankly, I find Tyler Perry’s use of trite black American archetypes equally as problemat

Critic: Peter Seeger's got some apologizin' to do himself

[Lloyd Billingsley is the author of From Mainline to Sideline, the Social Witness of the National Council of Churches, and Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s.] Last week the San Diego School Board issued an apology to banjoist and singer Peter Seeger, 89, fresh from his performance with Bruce Springsteen at the pre-inaugural concert for President Barack. The San Diego episode gave little hint that Seeger has a few items to apolog

The Young Victoria: Hollywood learns a history lesson at last

Hallelujah! Hollywood is finally releasing a movie about a British historical subject that is truthful, intelligent, nuanced and pro-British. Here, at last, is a film in which a cut-glass English accent does not denote colonialist evil, sexual perversion or serial killing. For decades Hollywood has treated its audiences like morons, straitjacketing complex historical issues into goodies versus baddies. A classic example is the recent release Valkyrie, in which the German generals'

Auschwitz Blueprints Go on Display in Berlin

Original blueprints showing construction plans for the Auschwitz death camp have gone on display in Berlin in an exhibition opened on Monday evening by a survivor, 86-year-old former Polish Foreign Minister Vladislav Bartoszewski. "The exhibition gives a shocking insight into the abyss," Bartoszweski said in a speech, "even if the objects on display seem harmless. Or maybe precisely because of that. There are blueprints, building instructions. Technical drawings. Calc

China Seeks to Stop Paris Sale of Bronzes

China is stepping up the pressure on Christie’s auction house to withdraw two bronzes from its sale of Yves Saint Laurent’s vast collection next week in Paris, saying they were looted from the imperial Summer Palace near Beijing nearly 150 years ago. The two Qing dynasty bronze animal heads, one depicting a rabbit and the other a rat, are believed to have been part of a set comprising 12 animals from the Chinese zodiac that were created for the imperial gardens during the reign of E

British upside down stamp to fetch sky-high price

A mint condition copy of a stamp which shows an aeroplane flying upside down due to a printing error is expected to fetch £150,000 when it goes under the hammer next month. The 1918 "inverted Jenny" stamp depicts a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny plane the wrong way up - one of the most remarkable errors in the history of philately. Auction house Warwick and Warwick is offering the stamp on behalf of a British client.

From a Vault in Paris, Sounds of Opera 1907

On Dec. 24, 1907, a group of bewhiskered men gathered in the bowels of the Paris Opera to begin a project that by definition they could never see to fruition. First, 24 carefully wrapped wax records were placed inside two lead and iron containers. These were then sealed and locked in a small storage room with instructions that they should remain undisturbed for 100 years. The man behind this musical time capsule was Alfred Clark, a New Yorker who headed the London-based Gramophone C

2 new exhibits on Lincoln in the nation's capital

If Abraham Lincoln belonged to a more remote historical era, there would no doubt be conspiracy theorists like those who bedevil Shakespeare scholarship, claiming there was no way Abe Lincoln was really Abe Lincoln. Surely no one from the backwoods could write so well, master the art of politics and persuasion, marshal armies to victory and leave such a permanent imprint on American life. But in a wonderful and slightly creepy way, Lincoln's physicality is ever with us, in daguerreo

Major new film celebrates 60th anniversary of Chinese revolution

Infernal Affairs star Andy Lau is set to appear in a major new film to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the communist revolution in China, reports Variety. The feature, which will be directed by Huang Jianxin, boasts "the most powerful lineup in the history of Chinese film", according to its state-backed producers. It will also star directors Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang in acting roles, with Tang Guoqiang and Zhang Guoli playing the first chairman of the People's Republi

The 17th-century couple who straddled the east and west - and today's British Museum exhibitions

A daring 17th-century couple have the distinction of starring in two exhibitions about to open in London. As you enter the magnificent survey of the world of Shah Abbas and early modern Iran in the great domed setting of the British Museum's Reading Room, among the first things you encounter are paired portraits of Robert and Teresia Sherley. He was one of two British brothers who travelled in 1598 to the Persian court and became ambassadors from Shah Abbas to the west, she the daughter of a Chr

BBC revives unaired Betjeman film forgotten for 40 years

A forgotten film by the former poet laureate John Betjeman that was never shown because of internal BBC problems is to see the light of day after more than 40 years. The half-hour feature, A Poet Goes North, has been given the go-ahead for screening after being found in a cupboard in Leeds. It fell through the schedules in 1968 for reasons lost or destroyed in the BBC's bureaucracy, even though the poet was paid a handsome £400 (£5,000 at today's values) to potter aroun

From a vault in Paris: The sound of opera in 1907

On Dec. 24, 1907, a group of bewhiskered men gathered in the bowels of the Paris Opera to launch a project which, by definition, they could never see to fruition. First, 24 carefully-wrapped wax records were placed inside two lead and iron containers. These were then sealed and locked away in a small storage room, with instructions that they remain undisturbed for 100 years. The man behind this musical time-capsule was Alfred Clark, a New Yorker who headed the London-based Gramophon

The Holocaust Revisionism of Hollywood

It never crossed my mind that I would ever speak or write negatively about the work of a fellow filmmaker. But when it comes to the topic of the Shoah, I feel like I have to speak my mind -- as both a Jew and a Sabra. The other day I was watching Stephen Daldry's film The Reader with my best friend and producing partner, Marc Frydman. His grandmother was a survivor of the camps. When it was over Marc seemed both saddened and shocked. The movie, he felt, served to diminish the suffer

Kate Winslet's Oscar chances hit by The Reader Nazi accusation

Kate Winslet's chances of Oscar glory are being hit by an orchestrated campaign to dismiss her film The Reader as an apologia for Nazi Germany. Ron Rosenbaum, the author of the critically acclaimed book Explaining Hitler, last week branded the film inaccurate and "the worst Holocaust film ever made", and called on Oscar judges to shun it. His views received support from Mark Weitzman, the New York head of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre, who labelled

Madonna in bid to play Wallis Simpson

She was the scarlet woman from America; he was the revered King of England, and theirs was a relationship that rocked the kingdom to its foundations. Now the Wallis Simpson story could be set for a big screen makeover – with Madonna in the leading role. According to unnamed sources, the true-life romantic drama is a labour-of-love project for the 50-year-old singer. Madonna, who recently divorced Guy Ritchie, the British director – and former stepson of Sir Michael Leighton, 11th b

Ian McEwan gave shelter to Salman Rushdie after fatwa issued

In 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the supreme leader of Iran, declared that it the religious duty of all Muslims to ensure Rushdie was "sent to hell" for allegedly blaspheming Muhammad in his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was forced underground for nearly a decade and although he was not harmed, the book's Japanese translator was murdered. Now it has been disclosed that shortly after the fatwa was issued, Rushdie hid away with McEwan in the

China agrees to lend art to museum in Taiwan

The Palace Museum in Beijing has agreed to lend works of art to the National Palace Museum in Taipei for an exhibition next autumn, temporarily bringing together a small part of China's imperial collection for the first time in 60 years, both museums said on Monday. The art works — mainly paintings of Emperor Yongzheng, an 18th century ruler of China, and his concubines — are part of China's immense imperial art collection, long divided by strife. The Nationalists took nearly a quar

Reopening of museum in Baghdad is uncertain

Great museums engender great debate, and there is no exception for Iraq. Officials here are at odds over the reopening of Iraq's National Museum, the renowned institution that was pillaged after the American invasion in 2003 and has been closed to the public ever since. Last week, Iraq's state minister for tourism and antiquities announced that next Monday the museum would reopen, an eagerly anticipated event seen as a milestone in the country's recovery. In a statement on Sunday, t