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

Last Meal: NY's Tavern on the Green restaurant dies

Tavern on the Green, once America's highest-grossing restaurant, is singing its culinary swan song. The former sheepfold at the edge of Central Park, now ringed by twinkling lights and fake topiary animals, is preparing for New Year's Eve, when it will serve its last meal. Just three years ago, it was plating more than 700,000 meals annually, bringing in more than $38 million. But that astronomical sum wasn't enough to keep the landmark restaurant out of bankruptcy cou

“The Art of Russia” on BBC TV

Eighteen months after an epic series involving a journalist going in search of Russia and the BBC’s at it again. Only this time its Andrew Graham-Dixon’s turn, however, to help viewers understand what Winston Churchill described as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” But like Russia: A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby, in The Art of Russia Graham-Dixon quotes Fyodor Dostoevsky, reads a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina on a train and sails on the River Neva. Neither w

David Swanson: An Avatar Awakening

Let's face it, if James Cameron had made a movie with the Iraqi resistance as the heroes and the U.S. military as the enemies, and had set it in Iraq or anywhere else on planet earth, the packed theaters viewing"Avatar" would have been replaced by a screening in a living room for eight people and a dog. Nineteen years ago, Americans packed theaters for"Dances with Wolves" in which Native Americans became the heroes, but the story was set in a previous century and the message understat

Dropping the ball on Times Square

THE tradition of dropping a ball in Times Square began more than a century ago when Adolph S. Ochs, the publisher of The New York Times, hired the sign maker Artkraft Strauss to build — then lower — a 700-pound wood-and-iron ball, five feet in diameter and illuminated by 100 25-watt bulbs, to mark the passage from 1907 to 1908. The ball descended slowly from a flagpole atop One Times Square, at the intersection of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street, where thousands witness it live — and mi

A Grown-Up War Story for a Nation Weary of War

World War II was in its final stages when “A Walk in the Sun” was released in January 1945, and the film, in its honesty and ruefulness, already has the feel of a retrospective, postwar vision. The need for propaganda had passed — it was no longer necessary to convince audiences that the war was a cheerful romp, as in “This Is the Army” or “I Wanted Wings” — and certain things could now be acknowledged, like fear, panic and death. Directed by Lewis Milestone from a well-received but

Deadly Style: Bauhaus's Nazi Connection

IN the catalog preface for “Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity,” a comprehensive survey now up at the Museum of Modern Art, the curators write about the museum’s — and America’s — last major exhibition on the subject, in 1938. That show, they maintain, offered a scattershot presentation of the Bauhaus, complety ignoring its last five years, after Walter Gropius, the school’s larger-than-life founding director, had resigned. Not coincidentally, they suggest, most Americans have a limited

Whose Christmas Is It?

If you look at a list of the most popular Christmas songs, you’ll find that the writers are disproportionately Jewish: Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” (yes, Mel Tormé was Jewish), “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” “Santa Baby,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Winter Wonderland” — perennial, beloved and, mostly, written for the sheet music publishers of Tin Pan Alley, not for a show or film. (Two notable exception

Hitchcock: That Bloody Shower and Its Violent Offspring

Toward the end of his thought-provoking book “The Moment of Psycho,” the film historian David Thomson gives us a long list of movies made possible or informed by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror classic “Psycho” — a list that includes not just Brian De Palma homages to Hitchcock like “Dressed to Kill” and slasher films like “Halloween” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and their innumerable spawn, but also some less obvious choices: ¶The continuing Bond franchise, which, Mr. Thomson

Movie Review: "Invictus"

[Jim Castagnera is the author of Al Qaeda Goes to College (Praeger 2009) and 17 other books.] “Invictus” means “unconquered.” The poem of that name, by 19th century Scotsman William Ernest Hensley, is said to be Nelson Mandela’s favorite. As the title of Clint Eastwood’s new film, which opened last week in the U.S., the word has a dual significance. Mandela, played to perfection by Morgan Freeman, claims that it helped carry him through his 27 years of incarceration at the hands

Robin Hood Trailer Released

Universal Pictures has released the first trailer for the Robin Hood movie that will be coming out in 2010. Directed by Ridley Scott, the film stars Russell Crowe along with Cate Blanchett and William Hurt. It has been described as a more gritty portrayal of the Robin Hood legend. The official synopsis of the film was also released: "Oscar winner Russel Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as 'Robin Hood,' whose exploits have endured in popular

"Stalin's Back" on BBC TV

“I want to begin with a question – what is the BBC for?” These were the opening words of BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson, in a speech last month about the future of public service broadcasting. Thompson was responding to criticisms from politicians and commercial competitors that the BBC is too ubiquitous and too subsidised at a time when the rest of the industry is hemorrhaging funds. Critics presume that commercial media would fill the vacuum left by the behemoth

Leading Collection of Tibetan Buddhist Art in the West to be Presented to the Public for the First Time

One of the most complete and textured collections of Tibetan Buddhist art in private hands will be presented to the public for the first time this winter through an exhibition at the Freer + Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and documented in a related book, A Shrine for Tibet: The Alice S. Kandell Collection, by Marilyn M. Rhie and Robert A.F. Thurman. The objects in the collection—dating from the 13th through 19th-centuries—will be installed in the gallery as

France Returns the Louvre's Wall Paintings Sought by Egypt

Fragments of an ancient wall painting that caused a feud between Egypt and the Louvre Museum are heading home. France returned the ancient artwork to Egyptian officials after President Hosni Mubarak inspected one of the fragments following a visit with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy. The pockmarked slab in sepia and blue tones, from a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor, shows an offering from a nobleman to a servant. Egypt's antiquities

Greg Victor: “The People Speak”: Matt Damon rewrites American History

[Greg Victor, Culture Editor for "ParcBench" is a historian, pop culture critic, and theatrical writer] Hate history class? If so, then you must have had to put up with one of those pesky history teachers that insisted on footnotes and citations. And your teacher must have forced you to study the humankind-hating words of dead, white males that are responsible for everything bad in this world. Now there is no more need for any of that. Matt Damon

Exhibition at National Museum in Taiwan Showcases 70 Works of Art Made by Van Gogh

An exhibition entitled Van Gogh: the Flaming Soul showcasing more than 70 drawings and 20 paintings by Vincent van Gogh from the Kröller-Müller Museum’s collection is to open at the National Museum of History in Taipei (Taiwan) in December. In preparation, a delegation from the Kröller-Müller Museum travelled to Taipei at the end of October to discuss the various aspects of an exhibition of this scale with those involved. Topics of discussion vary from transport, security, light and climate cond

The National Portrait Gallery Presents Two Exhibitions on Elvis Presley in 2010

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will recognize the influence of the “King of Rock n’ Roll,” Elvis Presley (1935–1977), on American life, history and culture with two exhibitions in 2010. “One Life: Echoes of Elvis” opens on Presley’s 75th birth anniversary and is a one-room exhibition devoted to the evolution and influence of Presley’s image after his death. The traveling exhibition, “Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer,” shows a young musician just about to rise to fame.

Viggo Mortensen: "Great Man" Theory? History Is Driven by the Little Guy

Actors have the privilege of exploring fictional characters, to see the world from the perspective of another person's imagined life. Sometimes, usually less often, we have the opportunity to speak the words of historical figures, to say the words they themselves spoke. This presents a different kind of challenge, in many ways, something I have been thinking about personally since becoming involved with a performance project and now documentary film called The People Speak, which is airing on Hi

Greek Museum Exhibition Bares All on Sex in Ancient Times

Sex, love and lust among the gods, rulers and lesser mortals of the ancient world are the focus of a new exhibition in the Greek capital this month. Phallic-shaped lamps, love letters engraved in clay and erotic symbols on lucky charms dating from 7 BC to 4 AD are just a fraction of what visitors will see at an exhibition dedicated to the Greek and later Roman god of love. "Eros: From Hesiod's Theogony to late antiquity" runs from Dec 10 to April 2010 at the

Saving cultural treasures in war-torn lands

Weston, Conn. - Stuart Gibson reveals not one soupçon of jet lag as he recounts his just-concluded visit to Iraq's Mosul Museum, now a husk of a building where chunks of plaster still litter the floor. Instead, this champion for preserving world cultures seems to radiate energy. Mr. Gibson has become a world traveler: helping a textile museum in Kurdistan, organizing a cultural conference in Mongolia, assisting the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. As senior cultural exper

Joe Scarborough : Remembering John Lennon, 29 Years Later

[Former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.) serves as host of "Scarborough Country," weeknights 10-11 p.m. ET on MSNBC.] It's hard to believe it's almost been 30 years since I heard Howard Cosell deliver the news on Monday Night Football that John Lennon had been killed. I was still in high school when John Lennon died so I was too young to remember the Beatles as anything more than a former band. When the Beatles invaded America, I was less than