Culture Watch

Love Him or Hate Him, LBJ Was a Political Genius

by Bruce Chadwick

As soon as actor Bryan Cranston begins to speak in the play "All the Way," you think that you are in a theater with the real Lyndon Johnson.

Fishing for Wives

by Bruce Chadwick

The Puzzled Japanese ‘Picture Brides’ of Hawaii in 1913

Speakeasy Dollhouse

by Bruce Chadwick

Drinking with the Booth Brothers at the Start of Prohibition: Why did John Wilkes Really Shoot Abraham Lincoln?

Hello Louie: Satchmo and His Horn Ride High Again

by Bruce Chadwick

In this scintillating new one man show, Armstrong, in his dressing room between Waldorf concerts, reminisces about his life and career over the tumult of racial history, rekindling sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet memories.

The Lustful Iowa War Brides and Sensitive NatGeo Photographers of 1965

by Bruce Chadwick

No, it's not a Danielle Steele novel -- it's "The Bridges of Madison County," now in a revival on Broadway.

The Despicable Racist Backlash Against "12 Years a Slave"

by Elwood Watson

It didn't take long for the haters to come out.

Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi

by Bruce Chadwick

A new play by the famed Australian playwright Thomas Keneally explores the Irish side of Australian history.

Maximilian Schell Changed the Way We Think About the Holocaust. Really.

by Jennifer Frost

1960's "Judgment at Nuremberg," Schell's starmaking role, avoided the redemption so typical of Holocaust movies of that era.

"We’re Off to See the Wizard…"

by Bruce Chadwick

Stage versions help celebrate seventy-fifth anniversary of 1939 "Oz" movie.

Story about SS St. Louis Flounders at Sea

by Bruce Chadwick

"Sotto Voce" is a turgid, rambling, and ultimately dull look at an historic tragedy.

In Defense of History According to Hollywood

by Yohuru Williams

History movies are a favorite target for historians, but if they're really so awful, why are they so often screened in the classroom?

Reliving a 1970 Turkish Prison Escape

by Bruce Chadwick

The 1978 cult classic "Midnight Express" has been adapted for the stage.

"American Hustle": True or False?

by Ivan Greenberg

The Oscar frontrunner may be a great movie, but it doesn't address the troubling issues surrounding ABSCAM.

"Titanic" Sails Again

by Bruce Chadwick

And this time, it doesn't sink.

Bottom of the Ninth in 1977

by Bruce Chadwick

Trouble in Yankeeland in the stirring "Bronx Bombers."

Still Fighting the Battle of Gettysburg

by Bruce Chadwick

"Row After Row" casts the gimlet eye at reenactors.

A Family Crisis in Pittsburgh

by Bruce Chadwick

Made all the worse because it's 1957... and the family is black.

Sweet Little (Not So Much a) Rock and Roller

by Bruce Chadwick

Carole King, queen of the jukebox musical on Broadway?

The Politics and Popularity of "Downton Abbey"

by Gregory Kosc and Kallie Kosc

The real reasons why Americans can’t get enough of the hit TV show.

The Many Things "47 Ronin" Gets Wrong About Shogun-Era Japan (And the One Thing It Gets Right)

by Jonathan Dresner

A soulless, bloodless, and boring version of the classic Japanese saga.