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

A Shtick With a Thousand Lives: Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner

MEL BROOKS and Carl Reiner have been cracking each other up for nearly 60 years. The two met while working on Sid Caesar’s early television series “Your Show of Shows,” when they cooked up a routine in which Mr. Reiner played an earnest, unnamed TV interviewer, and Mr. Brooks, the 2,000 Year Old Man. In a Yiddish accent, the old guy held forth on the questionable wisdom of an absurdly long life, touching on topics including parenthood (“I have over 42,000 children — and not one come

Sen. Joseph McCarthy exhibit opens Saturday at History Museum at the Castle

APPLETON — The History Museum at the Castle, 330 E. College Ave., invites the public to tour the museum free of charge from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday as it opens a new exhibit on Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The permanent exhibit, “Why McCarthy?” includes a bronze bust of the late Republican senator, who would have been 101 years old Saturday. Visitors can use a touch-activated screen to view historic images and learn about McCarthy’s life and career. Born and raised in the A

Thieves steal Munch piece in Norway

OSLO — Thieves stole a valuable artwork by Edvard Munch from an Oslo art dealer in the latest of a string of art heists targeting work by the famous Norwegian expressionist, police said Friday. One or more thieves stole "Historien" — or "History" — from Nyborgs Kunst in downtown Oslo after smashing one of the dealership's windows with a rock, police spokeswoman Unni Groendal said. The hand-colored lithograph, printed in 1914, is worth "in the mi

London Museum Asks Public What to Pitch

If you're the type of person who has trouble throwing anything out, then the job of collections reviewer at the University College London's museums might not be for you. The college is embarking upon a purge of its assorted collections, some 250,000 items in total, only 2% of which are currently on display. A gargantuan task, surely, but the college is not doing it on its own — officials have taken the unusual step of opening the process up to the public. They're asking visitors what they should

Brooklyn Museum to Show Civil War-Related Artworks and Historical Objects

An exhibition of nearly thirty artworks and historical objects celebrating the contributions of Union women to a Civil War relief effort known as the Sanitary Movement is the subject of the latest exhibition in the Herstory Gallery of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Healing the Wounds of War: The Brooklyn Sanitary Fair of 1864, on view from January 29 through September 12, focuses on one of the many sanitary fairs held in Northern cities to raise money to aid the Union troops,

Panama Canal Collection Exhibit To Be Shown At Adelphi

Adelphi University will showcase *Global Passage: Selections from the Robert R. McMillan Panama Canal Collection,* beginning Wednesday, December 2, 2009 and ending Sunday, January 10, 2010, in the Ruth S. Harley University Center Gallery, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY. The timing of the exhibit coincides with the tenth year from the transfer of the Canal to Panama per the Torrijos-Carter Treaties. The exhibit will feature holdings from the Robert R. McMillan Panama Canal Collection in Un

Tormented Italian Master Caravaggio and Francis Bacon Connect in Rome Show

Portraits by Italian master Caravaggio and Irish-born 20th-century painter Francis Bacon stand side-by-side in new exhibition connecting their tormented views of humanity despite contrasting approaches to realism. The show at Rome's Galleria Borghese marks 400 years since Caravaggio's death and 100 years since Bacon's birth and at its heart lies their shared fascination with the human form and their predilection for the expressive portrait. Both were radical for their

Information Highway: Camel Speed but Exotic Links (Silk Road Exhibit NY)

“You are about to make an unusual journey,” a wall label proclaims at the beginning of an exhibition that opens on Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History. Normally that promise would provide reason enough to be wary. But this is something different. You are welcomed by life-size camels laden with worn canvas sacks, their bodies framed by sand dunes stretching into the distance. A while later, near a 17-foot-long wooden Chinese loom, you find bowls filled with mulberry l

BBC’s Berlin Season

It’s 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the extraordinary moment when the Cold War symbolically ended. The anniversary was covered extensively by the BBC: from television and radio to a magazine. And this by an organization Winston Churchill once mused was “honeycombed with Socialists – probably with Communists.” Watching, listening and reading the material on events as they transpired in Berlin, it becomes clear that the producers and editors had a choice between one of tw

FDR's stimulus package for artists: No cause for nostalgia

The visitors comment book at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's exhibition "1934: A New Deal for Artists" has taken on a distinct note of nostalgia. "America needs another public works art program now," wrote Gene, from Maryland, after looking at paintings created for President Franklin Roosevelt's Public Works of Art Project, the first of several New Deal programs that supported artists during the Great Depression. "Do we need another public art program

Siegfried Sassoon Collection unveiled at the University of Oxford

November 11 is Armistice Day, which marks the cessation of Great War hostilities in 1918. (Here in the United States, of course, this is now Veterans Day.) In honor of the day and the dead, the First World War Poetry Digital Archive, housed at the University of Oxford, chose today to unveil its Siegfried Sassoon Collection. Although it contains photographs and other materials, the collection centers on manuscripts of Sassoon's poems, drawn from holdings at Oxford's Bodleian Library

Lincoln’s History, Melded With a Choreographer’s

Past, present, future. History, memory, experience. The recasting of history through memory and experience. All of these slippery subjects are the matter of Bill T. Jones’s “Serenade/The Proposition,” an hourlong work that reaffirms this artist’s gift for creating powerful theater but reveals little of sustained choreographic interest. Perhaps that’s because the dance never quite feels like the point of the piece, which opened at the Joyce on Tuesday night. “Serenade,” a Joyce commi

He Was the Great Connector ( Composer Henry Cowell)

Which composer exerted the greatest influence on 20th-century American classical music? Thursday and Friday, Other Minds, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to such music, will make the case for Henry Cowell. Cowell, who died in 1965, was a prolific composer whose own music was eclipsed by the works of his students. Other Minds director Charles Amirkhanian discovered Cowell through the pioneering percussion music of the composer's famous pupils John Cage and Lou Harrison.

Mythical End for Legendary Route 66

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The question of where the old Route 66 officially ended in the West has been the subject of debate among history buffs and roadsters. On Wednesday it was resolved in a quintessentially American way, by placing the terminus in a place where it can best be monetized. A Route 66 sign embossed with “end of the trail” was dedicated at the Santa Monica Pier, a popular tourist destination, marking the 83rd anniversary of the road’s opening and what James M. Conkle, t

Bill T. Jones celebrating Lincoln

Past, present, future. History, memory, experience. The recasting of history through memory and experience. All of these slippery subjects are the matter of Bill T. Jones’s “Serenade/The Proposition,” an hourlong work that reaffirms this artist’s gift for creating powerful theater but reveals little of sustained choreographic interest. Perhaps that’s because the dance never quite feels like the point of the piece, which opened at the Joyce on Tuesday night. “Serenade,” a Joyce commi

The Anguish of War for Today’s Soldiers, Explored by Sophocles

The ancient Greeks had a shorthand for the mental anguish of war, for post-traumatic stress disorder and even for outbursts of fratricidal bloodshed like last week’s shootings at Fort Hood. They would invoke the names of mythological military heroes who battled inner demons: Achilles, consumed by the deaths of his men; Philoctetes, hollowed out from betrayals by fellow officers; Ajax, warped with so much rage that he wanted to kill his comrades. Now officials at the Defense Departme

Dress Code: This Just in From the 1890s

IT’S usually easy to distinguish between clothes and costumes: either you’re Spider-Man, or you’re not. Drawing the line between polish and pretension is trickier, especially when last year’s costume can be this year’s classic, and next year’s yawn. Just consider the steady infiltration of 19th-century haberdashery into the 21st-century wardrobe. Garment after garment has arrived on the scene that one might think more Gilbert and Sullivan than Bergdorf and Goodman, only to be taken

D-Day historian: 'Ryan' not best war film

(CNN) -- Some reviewers have called "Saving Private Ryan," Steven Spielberg's World War II film about D-Day and the search for a soldier, one of the greatest war movies. Military historian Antony Beevor begs to differ. Not only is it not the greatest war movie, it's not even the best cinematic depiction of D-Day, says Beevor, author of the newly published "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy" (Viking). He admires the famed Omaha Beach opening

A new exhibit at Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie Museum is dedicated to the Gipper

A few blocks from where the Wall stood is the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, which commemorates the more than 1,000 people who died trying to cross the deadly East German border. A group of important Berliners gathered over the weekend to inaugurate a new exhibit on the Gipper and his famous efforts to end the division of Berlin. The collection tells a fascinating story of just how focused Ronald Reagan was on tearing down the Wall. He first visited Berlin in November 1978, and spent ma

A 'Prisoner' With New Questions

Ian McKellen had already read the script of a new version of the late-1960s cult television series “The Prisoner” when he met the author, Bill Gallagher, last year at a London restaurant to discuss the project. As Mr. Gallagher recalls their first encounter, Mr. McKellen hugged him, then gently patted him on the head and asked, “What goes on in that mind of yours, Bill?” Don’t be surprised if television viewers have a similar reaction when the resulting six-part mini-series, “The P