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

Spanish poet's grave to be opened in private at request of family

The common grave where Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, murdered at the outbreak of Spain's 1936-39 civil war, is thought to be buried will be opened in private at the request of his family, a court has ruled. National Audience judge Santiago Pedraz ordered that "measures be taken that guarantee the privacy and the dignity of the victims and their family members" during the opening of the grave in southern Spain where three others are also believed to be buried.

HBO is preparing a new documentary on the President-Elect

HBO is known for pushing the envelope of television, and they are acting fast on the historic occasion of Barack Obama winning the presidency. The new documentary is co-produced by Edward Norton, and documents Obama's campaign, path to the presidency, and election victory. Since 2006, Amy Rice and Alicia Sams have had the camera eye on Obama, following him from Africa to Election Night. During that time, the duo has had deep access to Obama and his family, friends, and campaign tea

Mustafa the movie divides Turkey with a portrait of the 'real' Ataturk

Turks venerate Ataturk, the founder of the republic and architect of arguably the most successful social modernisation programme of the 20th century. How much they really want to know him is questionable, however, judging from the furore that has erupted since a new documentary on his life was released in cinemas last week. Directed by Can Dundar, a leading documentary-maker with an until now spotless secularist record, Mustafa is the first Turkish film to emphasise the private side

Ben Hur Live to premiere in London

Visitors to the building formerly known as the Millennium Dome know a preposterously expensive, unnecessary folly when they see one. But who is to say that in these straitened times what the world really needs is not a £5 million stage version of Ben Hur, complete with live chariot race, massed gladiatorial combat, sea battle, heaving bazaar, crucifixion and, for good measure, an orgy. Fifteen years in the making, Ben Hur Live will receive its world premiere next September at the O

Virtual Rome: Gladiator fights return to the Colosseum

Vestal Virgins, bloodthirsty gladiators grappling with tigers and a portly toga-wearing guide are the highlights of a new high-tech attraction which aims to bring Ancient Rome to life. "3D Rewind Rome" opens this month in the Italian capital within sight of the Colosseum, the scene of fights to the death between gladiators, slaves and wild animals. It blends video-game technology with Hollywood animation to recreate life in the temples, tribunals and market

Who Wrote 'Frankenstein'? New Edition Is Present at the Creation

Nobody shouts "It's alive!" in the novel that gave birth to Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, does not feature mad scientists messing around with beakers in laboratories, nor does it deliver any bug-eyed assistants named Igor. Hollywood has given us those stock images, but the story of the monster and his maker owes its essential power to the imagination of an 18-year-old woman and the waking nightmare she had by the shores of Lake Geneva one rainy summer

In German Hearts, a Pirate Spreads the Plunder Again

STRALSUND, Germany — Filthy, bearded actors with broadswords and cellphones milled outside the 14th-century brick Gothic gabled house at dusk here last week, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee from plastic cups to stay warm as the sun set. Inside the house, a landmark, a film crew was preparing to start rolling again on “13 Paces Without a Head,” the story of a peculiarly German hero, the egalitarian pirate Klaus Störtebeker. The feature-film production is just the latest sign of

You're cruel, Britannia: Robin Rhode's art attack

Robin Rhode spent quite some time in London in the months leading up to his show now on at the Hayward Gallery. He cycled along the Embankment, he strolled about the West End. It reminded him of all the times when, as a child, he had visited the city from his native South Africa - and it irked him. “My first language is English,” he says. “I played cricket, watched football, yet I'm a person of mixed race and I was brought up under the colonial system. So I've always felt a friction with British

Tate 'turned down Rothko paintings worth $1 billion'

Trustees at the Tate Gallery turned down 21 paintings by the American artist Mark Rothko in the late 1960s which could now be worth as much as $1 billion (£630 million), according to notes written by its late director. Rothko was in talks with Sir Norman Reid to bequeath 30 works to the London gallery, but in the end Tate took only nine, according to The Art Newspaper. Now it has emerged that the abstract artist, who painted vast canvases of reds, mauves, blacks and greys, "to

Rare Beatles film fetches 4,100 pounds

A rare 8mm film reel of a gig by The Beatles in the US has sold at auction for £4,100. The two-minute long footage, taken in Kansas City during the Fab Four's first tour of the US in 1964, went under the hammer in Reading, Berkshire. It was found in a drawer by fan Drew Dimmel who, as a boy, smuggled the movie camera into the concert hall. The silent footage shows John, Paul, George and Ringo playing at the Municipal Stadium in Kansas City.

18th century obits created modern celebrity culture

Public fascination with celebrity figures such as Kerry Katona and Jade Goody can be traced back to the rise of newspapers and magazines in the 18th Century and their popular obituaries section. Obituaries provided an insight into the lives of high profile personalities who became the objects of scandal and public fascination, or the first "celebrities", according to findings published in the International Journal of Cultural Studies. Researchers from Warwick

Edvard Munch work sells for record 25 million pounds

Vampire, seen by many as the sister of Munch's fabled painting The Scream, went under the hammer for the first time in New York after more than 70 years in the hands of a private collector. It fetched 38.2 million dollars (£24.3m), including the buyer's premium, and broke the existing Munch record of 30.8 million dollars (£19.6m), which was set by Girls on a Bridge in May, a Sotheby's spokesman said. He added that the work represented love, sex and death" and that

Original Pooh sketch under hammer

An original sketch of favourite AA Milne character Winnie the Pooh, featuring Tigger and Piglet, is expected to fetch £20,000 at auction. The pencil drawing of the bear dipping a paw in a honey pot is being sold at Bonhams auction rooms in London by the family of the artist, EH Shepard. A specialist at Bonhams said it will appeal to five generations of readers. The sale on Tuesday also includes a first sketch for Kenneth Grahame's story The Wind in the W

Never too late: Cops crack 25-year-old clock theft

It took time, but Israeli police detectives have cracked one of the country's greatest crimes — the legendary heist of a priceless clock collection from a Jerusalem museum a quarter century ago. The 1983 theft, the costliest in Israel's history, saw 106 timepieces worth millions of dollars disappear from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art. Among them was a pocket watch made for French queen Marie Antoinette that museum officials value at more than $30 million. Altho

Cast your eyes over priceless ancient treasures in the UK

Arts Editor Joe Riley reveals the treasures of Liverpool World Museum’s new Egyptian Gallery which opens next month HEAVILY guarded in a north Liverpool ware-house, within a special container power-sealed with a dozen rivets, there lies a treasure greater than either of its counterparts from Tutan-khamen’s tomb. The battle girdle worn by the last of Egypt’s great battling pharaohs, Rameses III, is delicately coiled on a bed of layered tissues: a 3,000-year- old gem as p

Painting by Italian Master Turns Up in Texas After 300-Year Journey

A painting by Italian master Sebastiano Ricci, long presumed to be lost, has turned up in Texas after a 300-year journey from the hands of a European nobleman playboy to a fur trader and finally through generations of one family. Ricci's "The Vision of St. Bruno" will be offered by Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries on Nov. 20. Heritage officials say the painting has been conservatively estimated to fetch at least $600,000. The family that owns the work

Archie Bunker, Mr. Clean, and more of history's greatest fictional presidential candidates.

One of the top story lines of the 2008 campaign has been a possible surge of fake voters. But as we concern ourselves with voter fraud, let us not forget our country's long history of fake presidential candidates. The San Diego-based Museum of Hoaxes just named its top 20 satirical political candidates of all time, noting that comedians Will Rogers (1928), Gracie Allen (1940), and Pat Paulsen (1968) paved the way for this year's ill-fated bid by Stephen Colbert—and perhaps even Al Franken's seri

Chevy Chase: I wanted Carter to win

Chevy Chase didn't look like Gerald Ford and didn't sound like Gerald Ford. But in the mid-1970s, when"Saturday Night Live" first went on the air, Chase -- then a writer and cast member of the show -- made his impression of the president, rife with pratfalls and slapstick, the talk of the country. He also made the president a butt of jokes, which was intentional, Chase told CNN in an interview."[Ford] was a sweet man, a terrific man -- [we] became good friends after, but ... he just

House Packed With Stuff Is Annual Draw in Nevada

LAS VEGAS — Sandy Hammargren is the definition of a patient, long-suffering wife, except when it comes to Big Bertha. Her husband, Dr. Lonnie Hammargren, built Big Bertha, a black 10-foot-tall model locomotive, in their backyard from a disparate collection of parts: a rail car believed to have brought Howard Hughes to Las Vegas, part of a road girder, a piece of an 1890 steam tractor, a boiler “from something entirely different, I can’t remember what,” Dr. Hammargren said. The wheel

Writer's voices: listen to rare recordings from the British Library

To hear Florence Nightingale pronounce her own name with such precise, emphatic enunciation — “Florence [dramatic pause] Nightingale” — takes you straight into her living presence and tells you in an instant what a powerfully self-possessed character she must have been. The speech she is giving, In Aid of the Light Brigade Relief Fund, recorded in 1890, is just one among the British Library’s unrivalled sound archives, running to a mind-boggling 1m discs and 200,000 tapes. The library has releas