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

Artist to become darling of British cinema with loving portrait of John Lennon

Looking back, the producers of a new film about John Lennon must wonder what stopped them from hiring Sam Taylor-Wood straight away. Nowhere Boy will have its world premiere at The Times BFI London Film Festival in October, thanks in large part to the expectation surrounding the artist’s feature debut as a director. Taylor-Wood said yesterday that she was not the first choice for the project and had to “stalk” the producers until they caved in. “Ecosse Films knew it was a

Biographer Claire Tomalin to chronicle the life of Charles Dickens

An award-winning author who has written ground-breaking biographies of Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and Samuel Pepys is turning her attention to another literary giant — Charles Dickens. Scholars said yesterday that Claire Tomalin was “the ideal person” to chronicle the novelist’s life. She is already revered by Dickens enthusiasts for her 1990 account of his relationship with the young actress Ellen Ternan, for which she won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. “I have

"Loss and Liberty" at Museum of London Docklands

Loss and Liberty, a powerful new collection of ceramic artworks and poems produced by offenders at Wandsworth Prison, goes on display at Museum of London Docklands in its London Sugar & Slavery gallery from 5 Aug – 30 Nov 2009. Inspired by the themes in the gallery, the display makes personal connections between the artists’ lives and the history of transatlantic enslavement. It builds on the long-term relationship between the Museum and Wandsworth prison. The 15 works on show

'Styled for the Road: The Art of Automobile Design, 1908-1948' Exhibition to Open at the Wolfsonian

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University presents Styled for the Road: The Art of Automobile Design, 1908-1948, an engaging exploration of automobile design in America from the 1900s through the 1940s. The exhibition, on view from October 16, 2009 through March 14, 2010, highlights the important role played by designers and visual artists in communicating the complex ideas that guided the development of automobiles, roadways, service stations, and advertising materials. More

Getty Exhibition Looks Closely at the Fanciful Images in the Margins of Medieval Manuscripts

Battles, celebrations, and fantastic creatures found in the margins of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts are closely examined in Out-of-Bounds: Images in the Margins of Medieval Manuscripts. On view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, September 1 through November 8, 2009, Out-of-Bounds explores the margins of medieval books and explains their wealth of subject matter: children playing games, romantic pursuits, men battling fantastic creatures, and composite figures—half-human, ha

Pictures Belonging to Lord and Lady Attenborough to be Offered for Sale at Sotheby's

Sotheby’s London announced that it will offer for sale a group of Pictures from the Collection of Lord and Lady Attenborough on Wednesday, November 11, 2009. A Life In Pictures: The Collection of Lord and Lady Attenborough will comprise a fine representative selection of 20th Century British Paintings, including works by leading artists such as LS Lowry, Edward Burra, Ivon Hitchens, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and Christopher Wood amongst others. In addition,

Two exhibitions reveal how artists depicted a golden Britain even as the country sank into turmoil (UK)

In the early 19th century, the quality of London's air was so bad that acidic carbon fumes ate into the varnishes of oil paintings, scarring great masterpieces for ever. If you had a Rubens or two, it was wise to get them out into the country, away from the effects of the industrial revolution. It was this that made the art dealer Noel Desenfans and his companion Francis Bourgeois choose Dulwich – a sleepy place then, outside the capital – as a permanent home for their collection. Today, the two

The Discovery of Spain at the National Gallery of Scotland, review

I hate Edinburgh. Loathe it. Whatever the time of year, no city centre in Europe – not even Amsterdam’s – is anything like as sordid, but during the festival, which starts this week, it turns into my idea of hell-on-earth. From the instant you step off the train at Waverley station, the awfulness of the place hits you between the eyes: the teeth-clenching whine of bagpipes played for a surging tide of moronic tourists; the aggressive young beggars and organised gangs of down-and-outs assailing y

Hamas to make feature film

Its first feature movie, which opened in the Gaza Strip at the weekend, celebrates the short and violent life of one of its militants. Audiences reportedly cheered during its premiere at the weekend when one of the characters announced, "To kill Israeli soldiers is to worship God." The film, titled "Imad Aqel," was filmed on the grounds of Gnai Tal, one of the Jewish settlements evacuated in 2005 when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. It tells the

Renaissance Masterpiece Going to the Portland Art Museum

This October, the Portland Art Museum will present a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view Raphael's renowned painting The Woman with a Veil. This single-painting exhibition will bring one of the most important paintings of the Renaissance to Oregon for the first time. The Woman with a Veil (la velata or la donna velata) was painted in 1516 and depicts a serene woman looking intently at the viewer. It is believed that the model for the painting is the same woman depicted in other

Call of the Sea Exhibition - A Fresh Look at Britain's Marine Painters and Maritime Heritage (UK)

A new exhibition at St. Barbe Museum focuses on the work of two artists who capitalised on national pride and interest in a growing maritime empire to create the first truly British school of marine painting. Peter Monamy (1681 - 1749) and Charles Brooking (1723 - 1759) created timelessly evocative representation of Britain’s maritime power that combined atmospheric effect and accurately rendered ships. Britain produced a whole series of superb marine painters during the 18th centu

Evolution makes for inspired art

How do you picture evolution? The images that come to mind are probably not works by any of Darwin's great artistic contemporaries. No, they're a couple of 20th-century cartoons. There's Rudy Zallinger's illustration, The March of Progress, which first appeared in the Time-Life book Early Man (1970). It shows a line of primates walking, from left to right, evolving step by step from a knuckle-dragging ape to an upright, modern, Caucasian man. You know it well. It's an image that's become proverb

By royal approval: Buckingham Palace awarded blue plaque for jazz

After 90 years, a hitherto undetected early royal enthusiasm for jazz is being commemorated with the naming of Buckingham Palace as an unlikely venue in the British development of the music. It is doubtful that King George V was really a great fan, but a concert that he apparently enjoyed in 1919 has led to the palace's inclusion in a list of significant British jazz locations. The palace is listed among a dozen more widely recognised sites such as Ronnie Scott's club i

Director brings pre-Celtic clash alive

The Roman legions who manned Hadrian’s Wall faced a warrior tribe they never managed to conquer. That much we know. But who were the mysterious people they confronted, and how did they manage to hold off the might of imperial Rome? That is the challenge that the film director Kevin Macdonald has set himself in his latest film, The Eagle of the Ninth, to be shot in Hungary and Scotland later this year. After award-winning films such as Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland and

Hidden misery of Mao’s slave teenage brides told in new film

THE film’s title, 8,000 Girls Ascend the Heavenly Mountain, suggests that Chinese audiences will see a tale of joy when it is aired on television this autumn. It dramatises the lives of thousands of girls aged 13 to 19 who went to China’s remote far west in the 1950s to follow soldiers sent to colonise the turbulent Muslim region. In real life it was a trip to purgatory. As shooting for the film unfolds in Beijing under the watchful gaze of party censors, an astonishi

British Cinema After Mr. Hitler's War

As everyone knows, the British cinema of the postwar period consisted of David Lean ("Great Expectations"), Laurence Olivier ("Hamlet") and those charming Ealing comedies ("The Man in the White Suit"). Except that it didn't. The Britons weren't just producing high-toned, literary films intended for export, though it's easy to get that impression from reading most of the standard film histories. Britain was also home to a rich tradition of genre filmmak

Researchers unveil Mozart piano pieces in Austria

Mozart's momentous legacy grew Sunday as researchers unveiled two piano pieces recently identified as childhood creations by the legendary composer. The works — an extensive concerto movement and a fragmentary prelude — are part of "Nannerl's Music Book," a well-known manuscript that contains the Austrian master's earliest compositions, the International Mozarteum Foundation revealed while presenting the pieces in Mozart's native Salzburg.

Terror drama staged in back of a Belfast taxi

Until now no taxi driver in the history of road transport could ever brag to paying customers about once having a theatre in the back of his cab. But a play that literally traces the route of Belfast's so-called "terror tours" can fulfil that boast. Two Roads West is set in a most unusual theatrical setting - the inside of a Belfast black taxi cab. For just over an hour an audience of up to five people travel around in a theatre-on-wheels as the taxi criss-crosses the Fall

Rick Noyes: Obama,Clinton Idolized on Time Covers more than GOP Presidents

[Rich Noyes is Research Director at the Media Research Center (a conservative media watchdog).] So how unusual is it for a new President to be featured seven times on Time's cover, as Barack Obama has been (with First Lady Michelle Obama snagging her own solo appearance)? A look back at Time's covers finds Bill Clinton matched Obama's celebrity in 1993 — seven covers for himself, one for Hillary. But the last three Republican Presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George

Rare Buddhist artefacts hidden in the Gobi Desert for seven decades are found

The historic artefacts were buried in the 1930s during Mongolia's Communist purge, when hundreds of monasteries were looted and destroyed. The relics include statues, art work, manuscripts and personal belongings of a famous 19th Century Buddhist master. The leader of the search team, Michael Eisenriegler, described it as an "adventure of a lifetime". A total of 64 crates of treasures were buried in the desert by a monk named Tudev, in an attempt