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

BBC/HBO co-production "The Special Relationship" on UK TV

I will leave it for film critics to decide whether or not Michael Sheen improves upon his earlier incarnations as Tony Blair in Peter Morgan’s third dramatisation of New Labour. It is appropriate here, however, given the montage of news snippets and recreations of public speeches in the docudrama The Special Relationship, that we look at Blair’s lobbying, Bill Clinton’s dilly-dallying, and the legacy of liberal interventionism more generally. The fact that the British playwright says “we were fa

Eddie Fisher: The Songs, the Sins, the Scandal

Eddie Fisher was the golden boychik of mainstream pop, the dimpled troubadour from Philadelphia. Pretty and poised, he had the packaging and the product: a clear, confident tenor that could turn powerful or intimate at will. In the 1950-54 prerock period — the most tepid five years in the history of 20th century music — he had 19 songs reach the Top 10, including four ("Wish You Were Here," "I'm Walking Behind You," "Oh! My Pa-Pa," "I Need You Now") that w

World of Khubilai Khan revealed in new exhibit

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – A new exhibit featuring massive statues, dragon-shaped roof ridge ornaments and art from the Yuan dynasty gives visitors a glimpse of ancient China that the first Westerners would have seen 700 years ago. "The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art features 200 works of art. Many are being shown outside of China for the first time. It focuses on the era spanning the birth in 1215 o

Alex Ross: Wagner for a Song

[Alex Ross, the music critic for The New Yorker, is the author of “Listen to This.”] ON Monday night, “Das Rheingold,” the first part of a mammoth new production of Richard Wagner’s opera cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” will thunder down on the Metropolitan Opera. A 45-ton set will test the theater’s foundations; a reported $16 million budget will test the company’s finances. In the midst of economic troubles, is it seemly to spend such a vast amount on a spectacle that will be see

Israel "Cachao" Lopez: The Cuban Tradition

NEW YORK, 20 SEPTEMBER 2010 — A little over a decade ago when a Culturekiosque editor in Madrid asked the Spanish baroque music specialist Eduardo Lopez Banzo if he had any advice for classical musicians on the performance practice of the complex and constant rhythmic changes in Iberian baroque music, he replied, "They need to spend some time in Cuba!" Thanks to the on-going PBS series, American Masters and the Cuban-American film actor Andy Garcia, North American audiences will grasp

On the Atlantic City Boardwalk, Other Stories Remain to Be Told

You can’t be an Atlantic City historian these days without a Nucky Johnson experience, so both Allen Pergament and Ralph E. Hunter Sr., retirees who became obsessive collectors of local artifacts and lore, come prepared with tales of the political boss, racketeer and kingmaker whose fictionalized spawn is at the heart of the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.” At what he calls his “Booseum” — a phantasmagoria of 20,000 pictures, 10,000 postcards, the lost world of Miss Americas, diving h

Treasures of the Medicis on Display in Paris

The Medicis, a family of illustrious Florentine bankers that rose to power in the 14th and 15th centuries, produced popes, princes and two queens of France. Patrons of the arts and arbiters of taste and fashion over a period of more 300 years, they used art as a tool of diplomacy and as an expression of power. On Sept. 29, the Musée Maillol in Paris, now under the direction of the Italian Renaissance expert Patrizzia Nitti, will open “Treasures of the Medicis,” a four-month-long sho

The Conspirator: Abraham Lincoln's 9/11

The news put Americans in a state of shock; they knew that, after that unprecedented day, they would never be the same. With this dastardly attack, and after the greatest loss of civilian lives the U.S. had ever known, the federal government abridged the liberties of those it suspected of giving aid and comfort to the nation's enemies. It tried civilians in military courts, deprived them of due process, suspended the right of habeus corpus. The few lawyers to speak up in defense of the accused w

"Boardwalk Empire": Gangsters return triumphantly to HBO

"Without the continued support of good, decent women like you, men like me would be nowhere." This is Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) of HBO's new series "Boardwalk Empire" (premieres 9 p.m. Sunday, September 19), telling a crowd from the Women's Temperance League exactly what they want to hear. But behind the scenes, Nucky thinks good, decent women and other rule-followers and idealists are flat-out suckers, while realists (himself included) recognize that most people are sim

Film review: "Glorious 39"

There will always be a collection of forces opposed to facing up to fascism. For all the talk of national unity pre-1939, the Second World War era was no different from today, post-2001, with Stop the War coalition, for instance. But did the intelligence services really plot to keep Britain out of World War Two? Stephen Poliakoff believes so. So much, in fact, the acclaimed director dramatises how the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) did their utmost to stop Winston Churchil

Film review: "Women Without Men"

It is about time a movie chronicled the events surrounding the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. President Barack Obama’s gesture of conciliation when he admitted America’s (lead) part in the British-backed coup d’état which ousted Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and the rise of the Green Movement more generally, both in June last year, only add to the demand. Enter Woman Without Men, a Persian drama exploring the limited range of options available to wom

"The Box That Changed Britain" on BBC TV

I do not have much time for famed Liverpudlian Roger McGough. Not since 2006, anyways, when he bowed to the anti-war mob and boycotted a concert he originally agreed to compere in honour of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On this particular occasion, however, the Mersey poet deserves praise for narrating what is a fascinating programme on containerization as part of Sea Fever – a major new season on BBC Four which looks at the crucial ways in which the sea has helped to shape modern Britain

Ronald Reagan biopic planned

The story of Ronald Reagan's life -- from boyhood to Hollywood actor to leader of the free world -- is about to spill out on the big screen in a way quite different from the miniseries that caused such a stir seven years ago. The feature film, titled "Reagan" and sporting a $30 million production budget, is set for release late next year and will be based on two best-selling biographies of the 40th U.S. president by Paul Kengor: "The Crusader" and "God and R

History of a Dress, Chinese Style

All students of fashion know how the 20th century transformed women’s clothing in the West. Corsets were loosened, hemlines rose, and designers like Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent famously dressed ladies in trousers and tuxedo jackets. Less documented was a similar fashion overhaul in China, which is now the subject of an exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of History. “The Evergreen Classic: Transformation of the Qipao,” showing until Sept. 13, is a beautifully presented, and so

Fascinating facts and a few mysteries amid the Lincoln artifacts

Senior military historian and curator Gordon L. Jones is standing in the middle of an Atlanta History Center gallery packed with powerhouse documents, literal pages from early American history, his eyes focusing on something almost invisible. It's a string, not much more than a thread really, tying the left temple to the frame of Abraham Lincoln's wire-rimmed spectacles, one of the items in his pockets the night he was assassinated. "It's probably Lincoln's repair

Raphael recalls era of Vatican intrigue

The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain this autumn comes at a time of controversy for the Catholic church. It is therefore fairly obvious why the Vatican is making a flamboyantly generous cultural gesture to mark the occasion. Raphael's cartoons for a set of tapestries to hang in Rome's Sistine Chapel have long been among Britain's great art treasures, and this September the Victoria and Albert Museum will host a one-off exhibition in which the tapestries themselves, lent by Rome, can be comp

History in shadows: Exhibition in Turkey tells of Muslim world's contributions to science

ISTANBUL - For generations, the lore of "One Thousand and One Nights" helped shape Western notions about Muslim culture. The collection of tales described an exotic world of harems and flying carpets, Sinbad and monsters, Aladdin and the jinn, Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. Now an exhibition about innovation in Muslim civilization seeks to highlight what organizers say is an overshadowed period of history, a "Golden Age" in which advances in engineering, medicine a

Artist’s Work, Out of Attics, Goes to Walls of a Museum

DENVER — Charles Deas is the kind of artist who fuels the fantasies of people watching “Antiques Roadshow.” His story makes you want to go take another look at those musty old paintings in grandma’s den. Deas got lost. In the mid-1800s, Deas (pronounced days) specialized in portraits and multilayered scenes of life on the frontier as American Indian and European heritage collided and intermingled. He painted brilliantly and prolifically for a decade and became, briefly

Hendrix in Britain and Handel's house

By all accounts iconic ‘70s rock star Jimi Hendrix and eighteenth century classical composer George Frideric Handel, are pretty dissimilar. But there is a surprising connection between the musical pair: they lived at the same address in Mayfair, London, albeit 209 years apart. The Brook Street address where Handel resided for 36 years until his death in 1759, and where Hendrix lived between 1968 and 1969, will be opened to the public next month in commemoration of the 40 years since

Katie Holmes in recreation of day John F Kennedy assassinated

Katie Holmes helped recreate an eerily realistic snapshot of the day John F Kennedy was assassinated as she filmed part of her role as the former US president’s wife in a new miniseries. The actress, who is playing Jackie Kennedy in The Kennedys, looked uncannily like the former First Lady as she sat next to Greg Kinnear, who also bore a startling resemblance to his character as he portrayed the former president. The pair were recreating events leading up to the moment