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

Jackson Five in Nigeria museum controversy

The historic slave port is to be transformed through the bizarre combination of a slave history theme park and a museum dedicated to double Grammy-winning pop-soul group the Jackson Five. The idea is that the band will help attract African-American tourists keen to trace their roots back to Nigeria. The men behind the plan say it will honour the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and provide employment opportunities for Nigerians. But the plan has

Shah Abbas: The Remaking of Iran, at the British Museum

Not many individuals create a new style in art - and those who do tend to be artists or architects, not rulers. Yet Shah Abbas, who came to power in Iran in the late 16th century, stimulated an aesthetic renaissance of the highest order. His building projects, religious gifts and encouragement of a new cultural elite resulted in one of the supreme eras in the history of Islamic art - which means this exhibition contains some of the most beautiful things you could ever wish to see. I

Trailer for Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds: Brad Pitt 'will be killing Nazis'

The film – inspired a 1978 Italian war movie – follows a band of Jewish-American soldiers dropped into France to spread terror among the Nazi occupiers. If the trailer is anything to go by Tarantino's version will be as violent and bloodthirsty as his previous films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. In the teaser Pitt, playing the commander of the unit Lt Aldo Raine, tells his troops: "We are going to be doing one thing and one thing only. Killing Nazis

BBC programme shows how the Victorians had more fun than us

To Jeremy Paxman, Victorian houses look grim. Grimness is a leitmotif of his BBC series The Victorians, which starts tomorrow – workhouses, gruel, industrial accidents, slums, the usual suspects of "Dickensian conditions". But that is all wrong. The Victorians were a fiery bundle of energy – noisy, voracious, partial to bright colours and bad jokes, fit, energetic, sentimental but hardy, unconventional, but addicted to reform and liberty. A popular weekly paper was simply

Passionate love letter from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn on public display

Written in around 1528, five years before Anne became Queen, the words of devotion show a softer side to Henry, away from his reputation as a bloodthirsty ruler. He assures her that "henceforth my heart will be dedicated to you alone," and apologises profusely for ever suggesting she could be a mere mistress. However, just eight years later Henry apparently changed his mind and had her beheaded at the Tower of London in 1536. He subsequently marr

Cezanne family furious at new Provence railway

Philippe Cézanne, 68, a retired modern art expert, said his great grandfather would have been "horrified" to learn that the national rail operator was considering erecting an ultra-fast track at the foot of Mount Sainte-Victoire, which the post-impressionist painted 87 times throughout his life and which has come to symbolise his genius. "I feel under attack," Mr Cézanne told The Daily Telegraph. "I understand that modernity obliges a certain nu

China and Taiwan to Confer on Imperial Art Treasures Split by History

Divided for 60 years by war and political turbulence, the imperial art collection of China is now the focus of negotiations that could lead to at least a few of the works being exhibited together again. The director of the National Palace Museum here, the repository of the cream of the 1,000-year collection, plans to travel on Saturday to Beijing, the first official visit by a director of that museum to the mainland since the Nationalists lost China’s civil war to the Communists in

The Idea of a Black President in American Culture

Until the recent inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States, the nation’s highest office has been reserved for white men. The idea of a black president has been so unthinkable to most Americans that, for much of our nation’s past, it has been relegated to rare comedic or fantastic explorations in the popular culture. Only over the last half century has that begun to change. Throughout most of American history, the idea of a black president has be

Was the play that ended Lincoln's life any good?

It's the hoariest sick joke in America: "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" By now it isn't even a joke; it's become a familiar way to complain that undue attention is being given to some frivolous aspect of an otherwise grim and urgent matter. But we've had a century and a half to ponder the awful tragedy of Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theater and its effect on the post-Civil War Reconstruction, the presidency, and the American character. Surely that inte

Seen the 'Mona Lisa'? Check out 'Moaner Lisa'

From today, the Louvre will have two paintings of the Mona Lisa, one smiling and the other crying. The new version of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece (the "Moaner Lisa"?) is part of a witty tribute to the most famous painting in the world by a celebrated Franco-Chinese artist, Yan Pei-Ming. Some of the many parodies of the Mona Lisa, such as Marcel Duchamp's version with a moustache and goatee beard, have become almost as famous as the original. But this will be the fir

'The Stone' - a play in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany (UK)

Three families; three generations; one house; one stone. To mark the anniversary of the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949, Marius von Mayenburg’s latest play, The Stone, currently on show at the Royal Court Theatre, explores sixty years of German history through the story of the changing ownership of a house in Dresden. The play retraces the lives of three different families over three generations, from 1935 to 1993, providing glimpses of key episodes of German history, including the Na

Francis Bacon portrait fails to sell at auction

The painter's Man in Blue VI was one of a series of seven paintings he completed in the spring of 1954. It had been estimated to fetch a price of between £4m and £6m when it went under the hammer at Christie's auction house in London on Wednesday night. However, bidders failed to reach the asking price and the painting was returned to the vendor. The work reveals a smartly dressed man whose features seem obscured, seated at the centre of a cavernous dark ca

Van Dyck painting back at Hampton Court Palace after 300 years

The portrait of the king's daughter, Princess Mary, adorned his chamber wall in the last days of his reign while he was under house arrest at the palace. But it was saved from the parliamentarians under his express orders when he fled his captors in 1647. Under the care of Lady Aubigny, an active royalist supporter, the painting was taken to the Netherlands a year later and remained in various continental collections for more than three centuries. It was no

Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life (Smithsonian Exhibit)

As part of the Smithsonian-wide celebration of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the Museum will bring together—for the first time—its unique and unparalleled Lincoln collection. Through a focused selection of nationally important Lincoln artifacts, visitors will explore the life and times of this extraordinary figure. Each highlighted object will be augmented with personal stories told by Lincoln and the people who knew him best. The exhibition will showcase more than 60 histori

German court gives seized poster collection back to son of Jewish collector

A German court ruled Tuesday that a Jewish man from Florida is the rightful owner of a rare poster the Gestapo seized from his father in 1938. The ruling set the stage for the return of the entire collection of thousands of posters taken by the Nazis, which are now worth at least €4.5 million, or $5.9 million. The Berlin administrative court ruled that Hans Sachs never gave up ownership of the collection of 12,500 posters taken from his home on the orders of the Nazi pr

Austria's Nazi loot on show

Filled with photographs, a set of children's playing cards and tiny wooden doll's house furniture, it was prepared by a Viennese Jewish couple, Franz and Anna Bial, to send to their daughter Lilly. Lilly had escaped to Britain in 1939 on a "Kindertransport", a scheme to rescue Jewish children from Nazi persecution. Mr and Mrs Bial were deported to Maly Trostinec, a Nazi death camp near Minsk, in 1942, where they were murdered. It was not until

Critic: "Don't Give an Oscar to The Reader"

If I hadn't used the locution so recently, I would be certain to call The Reader "The Worst Holocaust Film Ever Made." Somebody has to say it. I haven't seen others do so in print. And if I'm not the perfect person to do so, I do have some expertise. And so I will: This is a film whose essential metaphorical thrust is to exculpate Nazi-era Germans from knowing complicity in the Final Solution. The fact that it was recently nominated for a best picture Oscar of

Colonel's secret recipe in new, safer vault at KFC

Colonel Sanders' handwritten recipe for fried chicken was back in its Kentucky home Tuesday after five months in hiding while KFC upgraded security around its top corporate secret. Nothing went afoul when the recipe was returned from an undisclosed location to KFC's headquarters late Monday in a lockbox handcuffed to the wrist of a security consultant. KFC President Roger Eaton was visibly relieved when the door to a new electronic safe was shut with the single sheet of

Artist Sues The A.P. Over Obama Image

In a pre-emptive strike, the street artist Shepard Fairey filed a lawsuit on Monday against The Associated Press, asking a federal judge to declare that he is protected from copyright infringement claims in his use of a news photograph as the basis for a now ubiquitous campaign poster image of President Obama. The suit was filed in federal court in Manhattan after The Associated Press said it had determined that it owned the image, which Mr. Fairey used for posters and stickers dist

Van Gogh and the Colours of the Night, review (Amsterdam)

Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night is one of the first pictures the visitor sees in New York's Museum of Modern Art, its placement proclaiming its status as a forerunner of both the Fauve and Expressionist movements in 20th-century art. The exact opposite is the case in Van Gogh and the Colours of the Night, the show about Vincent's twilight and nocturnal scenes that opens at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam on Friday. Hung at the end wall of the last gallery, Starry Nig