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

Rockwell Paintings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

IN an age when Democrats and Republicans are barely on speaking terms, you might not think that decades-old paintings of freckled schoolboys and their loyal mutts could help revive the conversation about what we value as a nation. Yet Norman Rockwell’s cheerful America has lately acquired a startling relevance both inside and outside the art world, in part because it symbolizes an era when connectivity did not require a USB cable. Rockwell’s paintings are easy to recognize. In the y

'Mummies of the World' at California Science Center uncovers history

A well-dressed miller from Hungary, a 6,500-year-old child found in Peru, a baby crocodile — these aren't your mother's mummies. You can see all three of them, along with more than 40 others, at the world premiere of "Mummies of the World," starting Thursday at the California Science Center. Don't worry, there are a few linen-wrapped Egyptian mummies too. But this exhibit isn't limited to one ancient civilization. Made up of specimens lent from 20 international institution

Ron Radosh: To Chavez, With Love

[Ron Radosh is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Hudson Institute, and a Prof. Emeritus of History at the City University of New York's Queensborough Community College] The red carpet was rolled out this Wednesday night for director Oliver Stone at the premiere of his new documentary, "South of the Border," at the Silverdocs Film Festival in Silver Spring, Md. Mr. Stone told the enthusiastic crowd that his intent in making the film was to correct Americans' nega

Charles Francis and Bob Witeck: The Smithsonian Museum Puts Gays In The Vault

[ Charles Francis, Founder of the Kameny Papers Project, is a Washington, D.C. public affairs consultant. ] A dozen picket signs on old wooden sticks carry the DNA of the gay civil equality movement in America. Forty-five years ago, this month, in 1965, these pickets were held high by men and women considered among the first generation of LGBT activists in front of Lyndon Johnson's White House. With the men wearing jackets and ties and tailored skirts for the ladie

Film review: "City of Life and Death (Nanjing! Nanjing!)"

In April 2005, a Japanese junior high textbook set off protests across China. The book was an updated version of the one which triggered violent scenes four years earlier when it was first released. Approved by the Education Ministry, the text refers to the 1937 Nanjing (formerly Nanking) Massacre – in which some historians say at least 300,000 people were killed by Japanese troops in the then Chinese capital – as an “incident”. There was a lot more at play, though, than simply a r

Jeffrey S. Reznick: The 'Convalescent Blues' in Frederick Cayley Robinson's 'Acts of Mercy'

[Dr Jeffrey S. Reznick, Deputy Chief of the History of Medicine Division of the US National Library of Medicine. During the autumn of 2006, Dr. Reznick had the privilege of studying Frederick Cayley Robinson's

A Sculptural Showcase in Siena

Jacopo della Quercia was unique among Siena’s artists of his time in achieving fame throughout Italy and beyond. And, as a 19th-century French art historian observed: “Jacopo had only one pupil, and for him there was a century to wait: he was Michelangelo.” The sculptor was born here in around 1374 and died in his native city in 1438. A succession of his lyrical statues and reliefs in marble and wood, which combine grace and vigor to an extraordinary degree, open “From Jacopo della

Jill Fields on why the cone bra is pops with pop stars

We have entered a new era of boom and bust. The busts are those of dueling pop stars Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, each of whom recently unveiled her own dangerous reinterpretation of the legendary Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra worn by Madonna back in the day. And the booms are literal and frightening, spraying bullets and spewing whipped cream all over the top of the Billboard charts.... Whatever you think of the two pieces of music on display in these videos, one thing is b

'Stonewall Uprising': Turning Point in Gay Rights History

“The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage.” So declared Mike Wallace in authoritative voice-of-God tones in “The Homosexuals,” a tawdry, sensationalist 1966 “CBS Reports,” excerpted in Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s valuable film, “Stonewall Uprising.” Funny how yesterday’s conventional wisdom can become today’s embarrassment. The most thorough docume

Tim Rutten: Bloomsday and James Joyce

[Tim Rutten is a columnist for the LA Times.] "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." Wednesday, people around the world will gather in libraries and theaters, pubs and restaurants, streets and squares to commemorate a precise set of events that included the preceding snatch of conversation and that occurred between daybreak and midnight in a provincial European city on June 16, 1904 — events they know full well never happened. T

'Rude Britannia' spotlights artists' comic view of British politics, culture

Some countries overthrow their politicians. Some endure them. In Britain, they just laugh at them. The renowned British sense of humor is on display in a new London exhibition that charts 300 years of the anarchic artistic spirit that produced the political satire of William Hogarth and "Spitting Image" -- as well as the sheer silliness of Benny Hill. "Rude Britannia," which opened Wednesday at the Tate Britain gallery, is a feast of irreverence and

Will Last Century’s Styles Open Today’s Wallets?

For some clothing brands, the summer of 2010 looks a lot like the summer of 1910, and 1949, and 1957 — basically, any time but now. Eddie Bauer is reintroducing jackets that the company supplied to World War II pilots and 1950s mountaineers. Jantzen’s ruffled halter bikini is modeled on a pin-up-girl style it sold in the 1940s. Sperry Top-Siders is selling white buck shoes based on archival pieces. And L. L. Bean has revised a hunting shoe that a 1914 catalog sold with the warning “

"Robin Hood – The Movie" exhibition at Nottingham Castle

Much has been written about Ridley Scott’s new Robin Hood: Andrew O’Hagan says it “has little going for it” (London Evening Standard); Tom Huddleston believes the $130m blockbuster to be an “overblown disaster” (Time Out); and Joe Morgenstern points out that the 140-minute film is an “absence of fun” (Wall Street Journal). “When you call a movie ‘Robin Hood,’ you set up expectations,” Kenneth Turan, the Los Angeles Times film critic, writes. Indeed, the same could be said for its showpiece exhib

Bringing New Art to Old Havana: A Q&A with Dealer Concha Fontenla

— In Old Havana, where bright-hued colonial balustrades are a more common sight than white-cube galleries, the nonprofit Factoría Habana art space is something of an anomaly. Opened last December in a majestic warehouse on a back street far removed from the neighborhood's main tourist corridor, the gallery is the project of founding director Concha Fontenla, a native of Galicia, Spain, who curates a diverse program alternating foreign contemporary art with work by local artists like Lázaro Saave

Shogun 2: Total War to be released in 2011

SEGA has announced that Shogun 2: Total War, will be released in 2011, ten years after the release of the original Shogun: Total War. This marks the sixth instalment from the multi award-winning Total War strategy franchise on PC, which includes the highly popular Medieval: Total War games. Shogun 2 is set in the middle of the 16th Century Japan. The country, once ruled by a unified government, is now split into many warring clans. Players take on the role of one Daimyo, the clan le

PBS' History Detectives Puts a Question to the Nation: Is Andy Warhol's Art on the Moon?

PORTLAND, Ore., June 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, PBS enlists HISTORY DETECTIVES fans across the nation to solve a 40-year-old mystery: "Who is John F.?" — and did he really help send Andy Warhol's art to the moon? HISTORY DETECTIVES has posted "Moon Museum" online today, two weeks before the segment airs in the June 21 broadcast premiere. The producers of the PBS series, a summertime favorite, are releasing the story prior to the season launch in the hopes that online

Bill Clinton film stars clash over Lewinsky scene

Stars of “The Special Relationship”, a HBO movie focusing on the relationship between Bill Clinton and then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have come to blows about the deletion of the quarrel scene centered on the Monica Lewinsky controversy. The quarrel scene though included in the preview version of the movie was edited out in the final review. Dennis Quaid, who plays Bill Clinton, felt that scene should have remained in the final cut. His co-star Hope Davis, who

Ashley Sayeau: "Sex and the City" and Women's Consumption

[Ashley Sayeau, formerly Nelson, has written on women and politics for a variety of anthologies and publications, including The Nation, Salon and Dissent.] Ever since Sex and the City 2 hit theaters last Thursday, reviewers have been battling over the cleverest way to call four grown women spoiled, shameless and self-absorbed. While critics have found fault with everything from the women's continued interest in men to their gossipy natures, the thickest venom has been reserved for,

Jesse Walker: The Id and the Odyssey of Dennis Hopper

[Managing Editor Jesse Walker is the author of Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America] For the general public, Dennis Hopper was identified to the end with the '60s counterculture, thanks to his career-making role as a hippie biker in Easy Rider. So when he died this past weekend, you're forgiven if you were surprised to read that he spent the last few decades of his life as a Republican. Unlike many famous figures who moved from one end of the spectrum to the

“Picasso: Peace and Freedom” opens at Tate Liverpool (UK)

Exhibitions are dependent upon the loans available to galleries at the time. And Tate Liverpool is no different. Yet one omission from its summer blockbuster, Picasso: Peace and Freedom, renders what was a hugely anticipated show a huge anticlimax. This is not to say that the exhibition does not bring together important paintings and sculptures or a large number of posters and documents, though. Indeed without the generosity and support of a large number of lenders – including those