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

Chicago Museum Closes Contentious Jewish Exhibit

In the wake of an outcry from Chicago-area Jews, the Windy City’s only Jewish museum closed down a high-profile maps exhibition that parsed the issue of Israel’s borders and boundaries. The Spertus Museum, part of the 84-year-old Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, located on Chicago’s South Loop, announced June 20 that it was shutting down Imaginary Coordinates, which was originally scheduled to close in the fall. The institute’s board of trustees came to the decision after nearly

Dalton Trumbo and American evil

No one has ever summed up the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s -- and, by extension, the entire history of that decade's anti-Communist witch hunt -- any better than this: "The blacklist was a time of evil. No one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil. There was bad faith and good, honesty and dishonesty, courage and cowardice, selflessness and opportunism, wisdom and stupidity, good and bad on both sides. It will do no good to search for villains or her

Curator Casts Doubts on Goya Masterpiece

A curator studying Goya's The Colossus at the Prado Museum has expressed doubts that the work, dated to 1808–14, was actually painted by the Spanish master, reports the Guardian. According to José Luis Díez, the Prado's curator of 19th-century art, who carried out a detailed analysis of the work, the initials in the bottom left-hand corner of the work read "AJ," for Asensio Juli, a Goya assistant who is thought to have collaborated with him on the frescoes in a Madrid chu

Monet work fetches a record $80 million

'Water Lily Pond,' part of a four-work set, nearly doubles the highest price paid at auction for the artist's paintings.

Frost/Nixon to open film festival (London)

The world premiere of Frost/Nixon will open this year's Times BFI London Film Festival, it's been announced. The screening will take place on Wednesday 15 October. The film hails from Oscar-winning director/producer Ron Howard and Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer, together with Bafta award-winning producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. It recounts David Frost's historic interview with disgraced US President Richard Nixon, and stars Michael Sheen and Frank

The Station That Dared to Defend Carlin’s ‘7 Words’ Looks Back

As the encomiums for George Carlin have rolled in from stand-up legends, celebrities and scholars, his death at 71 has also been noted at a diminutive, iconic and iconoclastic radio station in Manhattan, WBAI-FM. Its broadcast of the comedian’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” became a landmark moment in the history of free speech. In a 1978 milestone in the station’s contentious and unruly history, WBAI lost a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision that to this day has defined

World Record for Austen book

A new world record for a printed Jane Austen book was achieved yesterday at Bonhams in London. The June 24th sale saw a first edition of Emma auctioned to a telephone bidder for £180,000, over three times the estimated price. The three-volume set, first published in 1816, was one of 12 presentation copies the author sent to friends and family. The auctioned version was given to the novelist’s friend Anne Sharp, who had been governess to the children of Jane Austen’s brother, Edward. The anonymou

Tom Cruise merits apology for Slate article concerning the Hitler movie "Valkyrie"

What looked at first like another PR blow to "Valkyrie," the twice-delayed Tom Cruise film based on the true story of a German officer who plotted to assassinate Hitler, turned out to be a case of mistaken photo identity. A report posted on Slate.com last week suggested that United Artists had doctored a portrait of Claus von Stauffenberg to make it more closely resemble the "Top Gun" actor. One problem: The two images scrutinized in the story, posted June 17 und

Lost Marilyn Monroe film

Unseen footage of Marilyn Monroe during her last film has sold at auction in Las Vegas. The silent 8mm colour film was taken by Stanley Kilarr, an extra in The Misfits, which finished shooting in November 1960 and was also Clark Cable’s last movie. The behind-the-scenes footage sold for $60,000 with other film memorabilia at Planet Hollywood on June 21. The 47-minute reels were estimated at $20,000 (£10,000).

Making Abraham Lincoln Anew--and in bronze

An inspired collaboration has been taking shape at President Lincoln’s Cottage as part of the lead up to the Lincoln Bicentennial celebration. Washington developer Robert H. Smith is generously sponsoring a new sculpture memorializing Lincoln’s association with this important site to be completed before the end of 2008. Mr. Smith’s proposal to place a new Lincoln sculpture at the recently restored summer cottage, that Lincoln occupied between 1862-64, will add great sig

Campaign to bring the Bayeux Tapestry back to Britain

A campaign has been launched to bring the Bayeux Tapestry, one of the world’s great works of art, back to Britain for the first time centuries, and put it on display in Canterbury Cathedral. The famous embroidery of the 1066 Norman Conquest is the subject of a major conference of world experts being held at the British Museum next month. Feted as the most famous cartoon strip of history, the tapestry was made in Britain but never displayed here and now historians believ

Researchers hit a homer with 'The Odyssey'

Delving into a 3,000-year-old mystery using astronomical clues in Homer's "The Odyssey," researchers said Monday they have dated one of the most heralded events of Western literature: Odysseus' slaughter of his wife's suitors upon his return from the Trojan War. According to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the wily hero who devised the Trojan Horse hefted his mighty bow on April 16, 1178 BC, and executed the unruly crowd who had

A documentary discovers 'The Lost Pyramid' of Giza. It turns out that 'Lost' is a relative term.

"The Lost Pyramid" is one of those rare documentaries with a revelation so stunning, it's made headlines before anyone has seen it. The film, debuting next week on the History Channel, follows a team of archeologists as they unearth Egypt's fourth Great Pyramid at Giza, which, as the title says, has been lost for years to the desert sands. Even more amazing, this new pyramid (built by the Fourth-dynasty Pharaoh Djedefre) is actually the highest one of all—27 feet higher than the Great

In Poland, Chopin's heart may hold secret of his death

The heart of Frederic Chopin, one of the world's most cherished musical geniuses, could hold the secret to his untimely death. The renowned 19th century Polish-French pianist and composer died at the age of 39, of what is believed to be tuberculosis. But leading Polish medical experts are betting that DNA tests on his heart -- perfectly preserved in what appears to be cognac -- could prove he suffered from cystic fibrosis. Their request to Poland's culture

Russians revive tale of Ivan the Terrible in 16-part TV series

He relied on a brutal, early version of the secret police. He murdered some of his opponents with his own hands. Yet Tsar Ivan the Terrible also united Russia, opened diplomatic relations with England and wrote music. Now the complex royal character is to come to TV screens in a 16-part series, and its director believes Russian audiences are ready for some serious historical drama. Violent thrillers and reality shows have replaced Communist propaganda on Russian television and, like

Book: Michelangelo 'hid secret code in Sistine Chapel'

Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope, according to a new book. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which the renaissance artist worked on for four years in the early 16th century, is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith, according to The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece. The book, which

First major exhibit of civil rights movement photographs on display in Atlanta

ATLANTA — If ever social change was propelled by photographs, it was during the civil rights movement. Burning buses and raised batons, snarling police dogs and blasting hoses, the young black girl in bobby socks and gingham trailed by a group of sneering white girls as she tried to enter high school — the images spurred a national reckoning in a way that words could not. Behind the pictures are stories of smashed equipment and journalists beaten, of activists drawn south by images,

Phar Lap died of arsenic poisoning

Forensic scientists say champion Australian gelding Phar Lap died of arsenic poisoning, solving a mystery that has intrigued the horse racing world for more than 75 years. Phar Lap won 37 of his 51 starts before his death in mysterious circumstances at Menlo Park in California in April 1932. Days before his death, he won Mexico’s Agua Caliente Handicap, which was then the richest horse race in North America. Arsenic poisoning has long been suspected as the cause of Phar

Copernicus book sells for more than $2.2M in NYC

A first edition of the Nicolaus Copernicus book that puts forth the theory that the sun — not the earth — is at the center of the universe has fetched more than $2.2 million at an auction, nearly double the expected price. The 1543 copy of Copernicus' "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) was among more than 300 books offered Tuesday at Christie's auction. It was expected to sell for up to $1.2 million. Christie's c

'Fake' Rembrandt Worth Millions

The auction house thought the portrait was a 17th century Rembrandt knockoff, and valued it at just $3,100. But the British buyer who paid about 1,500 times more than that apparently knew what he was doing. Experts have confirmed "Rembrandt Laughing" — bought for a bargain price of $4.5 million at an English auction house in October — is a self-portrait by the Dutch master himself, depicted with his head tilted back in easygoing laughter. William Noortman from