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

Eastwood says his WWII films expose futility of war

Hollywood star Clint Eastwood said his acclaimed picture "Letters from Iwo Jima" aimed to show the futility of war, after its European premiere at the 57th Berlin Film Festival. The groundbreaking film, which is almost entirely in Japanese, depicts the pivotal wartime battle through the eyes of Japanese soldiers fighting American GIs. Another, earlier film, "Flags of our Fathers," tells the American side of the story. It has been showered with praise

Nixon: Odd but Brilliant (Documentary/History Channel)

"He was a man who craved privacy and wanted secrecy."--David Taylor, filmmaker Richard Nixon's personality, as revealed through a series of audio tapes, was as complex and secretive as his political agenda. Filmmaker David Taylor, preparing his new History Channel documentary, donned headphones to hear "hours and hours" of the recently released tapes, dating back to 1971, from the Oval Office and Camp David. "It allowed me to litera

All _______ on the Western Front (You Decide) (NYC/play)

AFTER seeing the first 1929 production of the great World War I drama “Journey’s End,” the journalist J. B. Priestly called it “the strongest pleas for peace I know.” A reviewer for The Daily Mirror in London called it “a much better argument against war than sentimental propaganda plays,” and the novelist Hugh Walpole said it “managed to hit the hardest blow in its swollen stomach that war has yet had.” More than 75 years later a revival of the play, by R. C. Sherriff, is opening o

Plan to bring down Britain from inside a concentration camp (movie)

It is believed to be the biggest counterfeiting operation of all time - a spectacular attempt to crush the British economy by flooding it with huge quantities of sterling and US dollar notes. Now the inside story of Operation Bernhard, in which 142 concentration camp prisoners were put to work for the last three years of the second world war to create millions of false British and American banknotes, has been dramatised for the cinema for the first time. The Counterfei

1969 comedy about Stalin released on DVD

Peter Bacso’s The Witness is a comedy about Stalinism, oxymoronic as such a description might sound. The film was made in 1969, but immediately banned by the Communist government of Hungary, and only released in 1981. The film is apparently famous and widely popular in Hungary, but it is not very well known elsewhere. The American DVD is marred by missing subtitles in a few scenes, though for the most part my class and I were able to keep track of what was going on. In terms of form

New Orleans: A Rich History Almost Washed Away (Documentary)

The "HELP US" signs, rescue boats cruising city streets, dead bodies, crying babies: In the year and half since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans remains defined by the disaster which overwhelmed it in 2005. Now comes the PBS-produced New Orleans, which attempts to remind us of what made it special in the first place. Airing Monday, Feb 12, New Orleans has the unfortunate luck of coming on the heels of Spike Lee's critically acclaimed documentary When the Levees Broke: Requiem for a City.

Cyberspace meeting for Great Escape Vets

Former prisoners of war from Stalag Luft III, the scene of the Great Escape, have reunited in cyberspace. Alex Lees, Jack Harrison and Melville Carson took part in a video conference to reminisce about their time in the camp during World War II. The meeting linked the men from their homes at the veteran's charity Erskine and in Rothesay and East Lothian. A spokesman for Erskine said the "historic and emotional" reunion lasted more than an hour.

Wilberforce, Lincoln, and the Abolition of Slavery (Website)

There is a movie coming out nationwide on February 23 called Amazing Grace. It tells the story of William Wilberforce, the British abolitionist who led the movement to abolish the transatlantic slave trade. The 200th anniversary of Parliament’s vote to abolish the trade is February 23. On its face, the movie doesn’t deal with American history, but Wilberforce had a profound impact on the abolitionist movement in the U.S. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has created an onl

How 'Antiques Road Show' is flushing out historical treasures

Doug Johns remembers the photo album. It contained a series of photographs of San Francisco city views taken in 1856. They were the first, or among the first, such photos ever taken. Seven years ago, a family in San Mateo County wanted to sell the album to help pay for property improvements. Johns, manager of Johns' Western Gallery in San Francisco, thought the album would fetch $15,000 to $25,000 at auction. He hadn't realized that the photographs, by George Robinson

Engineer and director are alternative heirs to the throne (UK)

A retired engineer from Newcastle and a financial director from Berkshire emerge victorious today in a worldwide hunt to find alternative heirs to the English throne. They were among 500 people who responded to an English Heritage appeal to identify those who might have been crowned King or Queen had William the Conqueror not defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Claimants had to prove that they were linked to Edward the Confessor, whose death in 1066 led to a

Slave exhibits stir old passions at Civil War museum (VA)

Richmond, Virginia, whose statue-lined Monument Avenue has glorified Confederate heroes for a century, is making room for new voices to tell the story of the Civil War. The American Civil War Center, which opened in the one-time capital of the Confederacy in October, is the first museum in the U.S. to discuss the history of the war from the perspectives of three sides -- the North, the South and the slaves. A century and a half after the fighting ended, the museum i

China's terracotta army to invade British Museum

When the First Emperor of China was buried, ceramic bureaucrats and acrobats were laid alongside him to cope with paperwork and keep him entertained in the afterlife. The new finds are included in the biggest exhibition of treasures ever lent overseas from the emperor's burial site in Xian, which will open at the British Museum this September. Examples of the famous terracotta warriors, which have been hailed as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20t

The triumphant return of La Môme (Edith Piaf) to Paris (Movie)

Of the 12 avenues which converge at the Arc de Triomphe, the Avenue Macmahon is probably the dullest and least visited. If you walk down its right-hand side, there is nothing - no plaque on the wall, no marker - to tell you that popular musical history was made here, 71 years ago. In October 1935, two tiny, emaciated young women in ragged skirts came to the angle of the Avenue Macmahon and the Rue Troyon from the poor districts of north-eastern Paris. They stood on a corner which w

For a taste of history, try Mrs. Lincoln’s cake recipe

Mary Todd made this vanilla-almond cake for Abraham Lincoln when they were courting. Celebrate Presidents Day by baking a cake that was a longtime favorite of the Lincoln family. According to Lincoln’s Table by Donna D. McCreary, the vanilla-almond cake was invented by a Monsieur Giron of Lexington, Ky., Mary Todd Lincoln’s hometown. The cake was intended for the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to Lexington in 1825. It was such a triumph that the Todd ladies be

Reclaiming a Black Research Scientist’s Forgotten Legacy (Nova documentary)

On the day that Percy L. Julian graduated at the top of his class at DePauw University, his great-grandmother bared her shoulders and, for the first time, showed him the deep scars that remained from a beating she had received as a slave during the last days of the Civil War. She then clutched his Phi Beta Kappa key in her hand and said, “This is worth all the scars.” Every February, when the curtain lifts on Black History Month, the cast of highlighted lives is often familiar: a Ma

London's historic Victoria & Albert museum devotes first show to a pop star

LONDON -- Kylie Minogue made an exhibition of herself on Tuesday as one of Britain's most venerable museums staged the first show it has ever dedicated to a pop star. The Australia pop diva's leopard-skin catsuits and pink-bejeweled corsets were draped across the halls of the Victoria and Albert Museum whose advance bookings record has been broken by the Kylie show. "I was absolutely speechless," Minogue said after touring the exhibition which displays lavish

'The First Emperor,' and a flutter of Chinese fans —in New York

NEW YORK -- One of Beijing's most anticipated events in this busy winter performing arts season did not even take place in China: the world premiere of Tan Dun's "The First Emperor" at the New York Metropolitan Opera. The opera was conceived, composed and conducted by Tan. It featured a creative team that was largely Chinese, including the renowned filmmaker Zhang Yimou as director and the National Book Award-winning author Ha Jin as co-librettist with Tan. It had a Chines

Tourist trail from Hendrix to Oasis: putting England's rock locations on the map

For decades the done thing has been to bury Britain's rock heritage rather than praise it. Two of the country's most famous music venues - the Cavern Club in Liverpool and Manchester's Hacienda - ended their lives under a wrecking ball. But the era of official neglect is over. A new map of England's rock and pop heritage aims to celebrate nearly 200 destinations linked to famous musicians, from Britpop boozer The Good Mixer in Camden to Jimi Hendrix's 1960s London address to Knebworth House, ven

Tom Stoppard's ‘Utopia’ Is a Bore. There, I Said It.

THE question was straightforward, but it was voiced in a tone fraught with frustration, even desperation. It sounded more like a cry for help: “Are you understanding it?” It emerged from a woman in her 60s, or perhaps a little older, who was slowly making her way across the Lincoln Center plaza, leaning heavily on a walker, as evening fell after a matinee performance of the second installment of Tom Stoppard’s “Coast of Utopia” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. She called

Jane Austen to be the latest teenage sensation

Step aside Britney Spears. Movie moguls, television producers and publishers believe this year's teen hit will be the 19th-century "lit girl" Jane Austen. The life and works of the author, who died a spinster at the age of 41 in 1817, form the basis of no fewer than six forthcoming films and television series, along with plans for new editions of her works, tailored to the teenage market. A host of young stars, including Billie Piper, best known for her role a