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

Documentary made about one of life's sui generis: A co-founder of DHL who ended up in Vietnam

... The man in question is Larry Hillblom, who merited a brief obituary in The New York Times when his World War II-era seaplane disappeared in the Pacific Ocean off Saipan in 1995, but scarcely a line before or since. That’s a pity: He merits a book. Hillblom, a native of Kingsburg, is the “H” in DHL, the express-delivery company he co-founded in 1969 after noting, as an impoverished law student at the University of California, Berkeley, that he could make a buck ferrying legal do

Mark Burnett’s “Expedition Africa” a home run for History

Executive producer Mark Burnett’s “Expedition Africa” is a visual thrill ride that retraces the historic trails of Dr. Livingstone, who set out in 1865 to find the source of the Nile River. ### An exciting series shaped by the man who brought “Survivor” to the smallscreen begins this Sunday on History. Executive producer Mark Burnett’s “Expedition Africa” is a visual thrill ride that retraces the historic trails of Dr. Livingstone, who set out in 1865 to f

HBO Series: Churchill at War

For five years, Winston Churchill played perhaps the single most important role in thwarting the Nazis during WWII, with his intrepid leadership and rhetoric inspiring millions of Britons and other members of the free world to fight Hitler's Germany to the bitter end. Continuing the story of Churchill told in HBO's award-winning film, "The Gathering Storm," INTO THE STORM is set against the backdrop of World War II, and offers an intimate look at the making of a nation's h

Poets, Academia: A Couplet in Conflict

When Ruth Padel resigned last week as Oxford’s professor of poetry after only nine days on the job, it put an end — for now, at least — to a tale that began with past charges of sexual harassment against Ms. Padel’s primary competition for the position, the Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, and grew to include discreet tip-offs, fervid editorials, and Ms. Padel’s eventual admission that she had helped publicize the allegations against her rival. Ugly stuff, in other words, and mightily

Hamburg rebrands itself as Beatles City

Hamburg, hit by declining tourism figures, is calling on the Beatles to ease it through the crisis. Or, as the Fab Four would have put it: Help! “John Lennon used to say that he was born in Liverpool but grew up in Hamburg,” says Ulf Krueger who has been pushing the port to brand itself as a Beatles city for more than 20 years. The moment has come: a five-storey Beatles museum, complete with a life sized model of the Yellow Submarine and a mock-up of the Hamburg clubs where

Crime and Picasso: The Shadowy Underworld of Art

There didn't seem anything particularly unusual about the sale of William Kingsland's art collection, at least at first. A well-known New York art connoisseur, Kingsland died in 2006, and the auction house Christie's was hired inthe months after his death to sell many of his paintings and sculptures. But it turned out that Kingsland was not his given name. His birth name was Melvyn Kohn, and dozens of the artworks in his collection had been stolen from museums and galleries. The most notable inc

What East Germany Was Really Like (Photo display)

They wanted to clean up the basement but found a treasure trove of photos instead. After Berlin teacher Manfred Beier died, his sons stumbled across 60,000 pictures. Their father, it turns out, created one of the best documentations of life in East Germany, and the first days of the West. It's amazing how little you can know about your own father: After the death of Berlin resident Manfred Beier in 2002, his sons Wolf and Nils began to sort out their inheritance and came across a tr

The U.S.S. Enterprise, in Strange New World of Museum

PHILADELPHIA — It is best to approach “Star Trek: The Exhibition” at the Franklin Institute here with phasers set to stun. And to avoid any quantum entanglement, make sure that if you visit the show before it closes on the stardate equivalent to Sept. 20, your transporter is in working order. Otherwise, there is just no telling the confusion that might result. You might think, for example, that most starships of the 23rd and 24th centuries pretty much looked like the U.S.S. Enterpri

Big Ben celebrating 150th anniversary

Defiantly low-tech yet accurate to the second, Big Ben is having its 150th birthday Sunday, its Victorian chimes carrying the sound of Britain into the 21st century. It's a birthday the world can share in. The peals of London's favorite clock are carried globally by BBC radio, and its 315-foot tower, roughly 16 stories, is the city's most famous landmark. But getting inside and seeing Big Ben, the sonorous main bell that gives its name to the whole contraption, isn't e

Love Makes the Postage Meter Go ‘Round (The New U.S. Love Stamp)

Robert Indiana’s sculpture Love is an iconic

U. of Illinois Wonders if Vandals or Racists Damaged Indian Art

An outdoor exhibit of American Indian art is vandalized five times in two months. Are the culprits destructive students, racists, or both? It depends whom you ask. Beyond the Chief, a collection of street signs honoring different tribes, opened in February at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Within five weeks, vandals had bent the signs and — in an instance that suggests the culprit was either a poor speller or British — written in permanent marker: "

Tom Paine being celebrated on the 200th anniversary of his death

Join The Nation's John Nichols, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, Nation Editorial Board member Eric Foner and many others in a tribute to the life and work of a great American patriot on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Paine's death.

1969 "Bed-In for Peace" exhibition opens in Liverpool, UK

"Laurel and Hardy, that’s John and Yoko. And we stand a better chance under that guise because all the serious people like Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi got shot." -- John Lennon From the 1957 photograph of John Lennon playing in his skiffle band, The Quarrymen to the 1971 photograph of the former Beatle performing “Imagine”—exhibited at the opening and closing stages of the Beatles Story respectively—Lennon’s journey from artist to activis

Robert Fan Designed Magnificent Buildings. Then Mao Came Along

The Washington Post's Maureen Fan went to homes designed by her grandfather, architect Fan Wenzhao, or Robert Fan, who left Shanghai when the Communists took over in 1949. [Includes video.]

Brooks McNamara, Theater Historian, Is Dead at 72

Brooks McNamara, a theater historian who shepherded a vast and disorganized array of letters, photographs, scripts, sheet music, set and costume designs, business records and other memorabilia into a valuable historical collection known as the Shubert Archive, died on May 8 in Doylestown, Pa. He was 72 and lived in Doylestown and Manhattan. The immediate cause was pneumonia, said his wife, Nan. Mr. McNamara had been suffering from sporadic cerebellar ataxia, a degenerative nerve dis

Wooden figure of Jesus Christ is not work of Michelangelo, art historians say

The 41cm long figure, named Cristo Ritrovato (Christ Refound) was bought late last year from a private collection and since then has been on a marathon tour of the country. It started in Rome where among those to admire it were Pope Benedict XVI and various senior government officials and has also been displayed in Milan, Trapani, Palermo and is currently on show in Naples. More than 60,000 people have seen the sculpture but there is a growing concern within the Italia

Amelia Earhart's soaring spirit

There's something about Amelia Earhart. More than seven decades after she disappeared without a trace in the South Pacific on her flight around the world, Earhart remains the most famous female aviator in history, a timeless heroine and inspiration to generations of women, filmmakers and fashionistas. Flying was just the beginning. Earhart was also a fashion icon and designer with her close-cropped hair, pants and leather jackets. She was a leader in women's rights and

Mystery Jane Austen suitor who sparked rift with sister named

A new biography of Jane Austen claims to have identified Dr Samuel Blackall as the mystery suitor who broke the novelist's heart and sparked a rift with her sister. Although Austen never married, the emotional warmth of her romantic novels has always fed speculation about her private passions. The 2007 film Becoming Jane explored her youthful flirtation with a handsome Irishman named Tom Lefroy who – it is suggested – was the inspiration for the rugged Mr Darcy in Pride and Pr

NYT publishes hand-drawn pictures of WW II by Bataan Death March solder

Click here to see pictures. Click here to read the article.

Dear Donna Reed: A Pinup So Swell She Kept G.I. Mail

“It has been a long time since any of us boys have seen a woman, so we are writing to you in hopes that you’ll help us out of our situation,” Cpl. Frank J. Gizych lamented in a letter posted from the fog-shrouded Aleutian Islands. “Since we know that it’s impossible to see a woman in the flesh, we would appreciate it very much if you could send us a photo of yourself.” It was July 1944, and America was at war. From bases and battlefields in Europe and on Pacific islands, soldiers, s