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

Afghanistan Exhibition Provokes Questions

The National Geographic Society has struck a $1 million deal with the Afghan government to bring a rare cache of gold artifacts to the United States in a traveling exhibition. But some cultural experts who have followed the negotiations are questioning whether Afghanistan is being properly compensated. Plans call for the ancient Afghan pieces — part of the storied 2,000-year-old Bactrian hoard — to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washin

Scott McLemee: C.L.R. James Meets Tony Soprano

Half a century before “The Sopranos” hit its stride, the Caribbean historian and theorist C.L.R. James recorded some penetrating thoughts on the gangster — or, more precisely, the gangster film — as symbol and proxy for the deepest tensions in American society. His insights are worth revising now, while saying farewell to one of the richest works of popular culture ever created. First, a little context. In 1938, shortly before James arrived in the United States, he had published The

The Bad Good Shepherd (what the movie got right and wrong)

Why did the CIA’s 1961 Bay of Pigs operation Cuba fail? In The Good Shepherd, the recent Robert DeNiro film starring Matt Damon, we are led to think that the plan collapsed because the landing site of the invasion was leaked. But in actuality, the problems with the invasion were far more profound. What really happened and in what other ways does Hollywood twist history? The CIA, surprisingly unshy these days about airing its dirty laundry, has now posted a transcript on the agency w

New Name and Mission for Museum of Television

First it was named the Museum of Broadcasting, and then, as cable and direct satellite grew, it became the Museum of Television and Radio. Now, in the Internet and cellphone era, that name seems out of date as well, so the museum is renaming itself again, this time as the Paley Center for Media, after the late CBS founder William S. Paley. The new name, adopted at a March board meeting, is being announced today, effective immediately. It is part of an overhaul intended to make the m

Cash for a bit of the old Hollywoodland sign

For 31 years, a slice of the long-gone Hollywoodland sign hung in the Andrinas' home or office. Not much longer than four feet and a few inches wide, the bronze-colored tin strip with six bright bulbs used to light up the edge of a letter D before the iconic sign was shortened in 1949. It was discovered by a relative scouring the Hollywood Hills for fossils. Guests who visited their home near the upper reaches of Beachwood Canyon would try to wrest the relic from the An

New Yorker profiles 3 1960s documentaries re-released

The social and political upheavals of the nineteen-sixties are the subject of an extraordinary trio of new releases—a pair of documentaries [ “American Revolution 2” and “The Murder of Fred Hampton”] by Mike Gray and Howard Alk, made in Chicago in the heat of the moment and released by Facets, and “The Hours and Times” (Choices), a 1991 drama directed by Christopher Münch.

Novel features historian as main character

[John Crowley's ] Endless Things concludes the story of Pierce Moffitt, a teacher and historian who leaves his painfully disordered city life for the pastoral solitude of the Faraway Hills. There, surrounded by friends, lovers and assorted castoffs from the '60s, Pierce embarks on a new, though no less complicated, life and begins writing a book based on a radical new theory of history. This theory posits that, at infrequent intervals, the nature of the world changes in fundamental ways. As one

Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Album: No, Not Everyone Enjoyed the Show

It was 40 years ago last Friday that the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” widely, though not universally, considered the greatest rock album of all time. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 1 on its list of the 500 greatest rock albums, calling it “the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time.”

Peter and Dan Snow tell Andrew Pettie about the eight key battles that shaped the 20th century

Peter and Dan Snow love war. Not waging it, of course. But discussing, analysing and explaining it. Which is why the father and son team are going back to war, as it were, for 20th Century Battlefields, the pair’s enthralling follow-up to their Bafta award-winning BBC2 series, Battlefield Britain. ‘War is the most extraordinary, extreme human experience,’ says Dan. ‘In the case of Stalingrad, 2million people came together in one place with the single intention of killing one another

The History of Surf Movies

... To celebrate the newest in a long line of surf films, Sony's new CGI animated Surf's Up, which gives us the penguin perspective on competitive wave-riding, UGO offers this brief history of surfing in cinema. The history of surfing as a sport goes all the way back to the 1700s when Captain James Cook first witnessed natives riding the waves off of the Hawaiian Islands. The sport was outlawed in Hawaii by Calvinist missionaries for decades until it started a slow comeback into the public eye around the turn of the twentieth century. As surfing began to flourish again, thanks to media attention (by such writers as Mark Twain and Jack London) and new longboards, it wasn't long before the eye-catching sport caught the attention of one of the twentieth century's other major new developments - film.

History Channel pulls in big ratings for show on Star Wars

The History Channel earlier this week set a number of ratings records with a special about the origins of the Star Wars saga and the series premiere of The Universe. On Monday, Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed delivered 1.8 million adults 25-54 and 1.7 million adults 18-49, besting the network’s previous high-water marks for both demos. The special was seen by 3.1 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data. The following night, History set three recor

A Day in the Life: Sgt. Pepper Turns 40

It was forty years ago today: the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "It's certainly a thrill," the Beatles sang; but listening today, much of the thrill is gone--except for one song. Still, it's easy to remember that day--June 1, 1967--when the first thing we saw was the cover: a collage featuring the Beatles surrounded by cut-out figures of their heroes and other celebrities, including wax figures of themselves two years earlier, when they were the lovable moptops. Roc

Aperture Foundation Photograph Exhibits

The Aperture Foundation is sponsoring several major photograph exhibits of interest to historians and patrons of the arts in the New York City area during the summer of 2007. Two of these exhibits, New York Rises and The Black Panthers: Making Sense of History, will start touring in the fall of 2007 and will run until 2011. Both are looking for institutions willing to host them on their tour. For more information, or to inquire about hosting one of the exhibits, please contact Annette Rosenblatt

History Channel to launch in South East Asia on 15 June

MUMBAI: AETN All Asia Networks (AAAN), a joint venture of A&E Television Networks and Astro All Asia Networks, will launch The History Channel (THC) and Crime and Investigation Network in South East Asia on 15 June. The channels will be launched in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand. "We are going to launch both brands in additional territories in the region throughout the summer, and plan to deploy our brands and programming via VoD, mobile, and broadban

History of Modern Britain, BBC2

HE may look like a cartoon character but Andrew Marr has to be one of the most charismatic presenters on TV at the moment. Since he left his post as the BBC's political correspondent, broadcasts from outside Number 10 haven't quite been the same. Fans have been able to get a fix by getting up early on a Sunday morning but that has hardly been the best timeslot. But now Andrew Marr is back and presenting a History of Modern Britain in his own inimitable styl

Iran’s Giant Shoe Box of Faded Photographs, Full of the Unexpected

TEHRAN, May 29 — When Shadi Ghadirian was 21, she got a student job printing old photographs at the small photography museum here. She was so drawn by the 19th-century pictures of women with thick black eyebrows wearing head scarves and short skirts over baggy pants that two years later, in 2000, she began incorporating the imagery into her own photography. Using clothes from the late 1800s, she dressed female friends and posed them in front of painted backdrops to look like the wom

Largest-ever exhibit of Frida Kahlo work to open in Mexico

The 100th birthday of artist and feminist icon Frida Kahlo will be honored with the largest-ever exhibit of her paintings, the Museum of the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico said Tuesday. "The 354 pieces will be the largest exposition of Frida Kahlo," director of the National Fine Arts Institute Teresa Franco told reporters. It will also be Kahlo's first comprehensive exhibit in Mexico, she said: After Mexico proclaimed Rivera paintings to be national cultural heri

Kei Kumai: Japanese film director who won acclaim for confronting his country's history (obit)

Kei Kumai, who has died aged 76, was a distinguished Japanese film-maker whose work combined dramatic force with trenchant social criticism. He worked with many of Japan's most famous actors, and filmed a script left unrealised by world-renowned colleague Akira Kurosawa (obituary, September 7 1998). Yet he was neglected abroad, perhaps because he eschewed the fashionable experimentation of such New Wave contemporaries as Nagisa Oshima. Instead, he adopted a style of powerful simplicity, charting

Who Shall Live And Who Shall Die?--Holocaust documentary now available on DVD

"Could the Jews of Europe have been saved?" Documentary filmmaker Laurence Jarvik boldly confronts this question, exploring the actions and inaction of the Roosevelt Administration and American Jewish leaders and exposing the political tradeoffs that kept the doors closed to Jewish emigrants fleeing the Nazi regime. Requests were made to bomb Auschwitz, set up a Jewish army and construct rescue havens, yet no action was taken. Containing previously classified

Russian space history exhibition in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: An exhibition of photographs on Russian space history that opened here on Monday features a string of interesting images, among them Laika the dog on board the second satellite launched from earth in 1957. Russian Ambassador Sergey Peskov inaugurated the five-day exhibition at the Institute of Space Technology (IST). The 57 photographs put up for display document Russian space history with images that include the maiden earth orbiting satellite, Valentina T