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

Babylon exhibition at the British Museum

No city has been demonised quite like Babylon, nor any king so denounced as the incarnation of evil as Nebuchadnezzar. Neither the scriptures nor the myths have spared them: for more than 2,000 years Babylon has been a byword for vice, excess and well-deserved ruin while legend has created a ruler consumed by pride, folly and cruelty. Yet Babylon was once the cultured capital of a flourishing empire, majestic in its architecture, rich in works of art and peopled by thinkers who pio

Waltz with Bashir: an animated film about the 1982 Lebanon war

He had served in the army, either as a full-time soldier or as a reservist, for 22 years when he finally decided he wanted out. In 2003, Ari Folman, who had just turned 40, asked his commanders in the Israel Defence Forces to release him from the obligation to do a month's military service every year. They agreed - "so long as you go to the army therapist and talk about everything you went through". Folman, already an acclaimed film-maker and screenwriter whose service con

Zeppelins return to the skies in San Francisco

Zeppelins, the giant floating airships used to carry passengers and drop bombs until the 1930s, haven't been seen in American skies for more than 70 years. Now, a California company is bringing the iconic aircraft back to the United States, with plans to offer aerial tours of the San Francisco Bay area in a newly built zeppelin. It's one of just three in the world; the others are in Germany and Japan. Airship Ventures Inc.'s zeppelin arrived in the Bay Area on Saturday

Historic home of Shakespearean actor David Garrick in blaze

A fire which ravaged an historic villa that was once home to Shakespearean actor David Garrick was described as "a tragedy" by English Heritage. The Grade I listed Garrick's Villa in south-west London was badly damaged in the blaze, which was attended by 70 firefighters. Built in the Middle Ages, the building was converted into apartments in 1969. English Heritage said its structural engineers would assess the damage as soon as it was safe.

German Libraries Hold Thousands of Looted Volumes

Hundreds of thousands of book stolen by the Nazis are still in German libraries. A few librarians are acting like detectives, searching for the books and hoping to return them to the former owners or their families. However, many libraries have shown little interest in the troubling legacy tucked away on their shelves. Book, books, nothing but books. Detlef Bockenkamm is walking along a long shelf in the storage room at Berlin's Central and Regional Library. Suddenly he stops and sa

A masterpiece's renaissance: Raphael's 'Madonna of the Goldfinch' returns after painstaking 10-year restoration

After 10 years of painstaking study and restoration that tested both cutting edge technology and human patience, one of the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance is returning to the public. Raphael's 'Madonna of the Goldfinch' is a survivor. The 107 cm by 77 cm oil on wood, showing the Madonna with two children caressing a goldfinch bird, has outlived everything from the collapse of a house in 1547 that shattered it to the ravages of time and the mistakes of

'Work of the Gods' on display in the UK

A collection of gold artefacts excavated from a Bronze Age grave near Stonehenge is to go on show in the Wiltshire Heritage Museum for the first time in over 25 years. One of the pieces, a decoration for the handle of a dagger, was put aside in the desk drawer of an archaeological professor in the 1960s, only to be 'unearthed' again recently. As well as this collection of gold pins, there are decorative items such as a gold lozenge and a gold belt-hook, as well as a bronze axe head

America's five best fictional black presidents

The first movie to imagine a black president of the United States at any length was Joseph Sargent's satirical drama The Man in 1972. There, Douglass Dilman, president pro tempore of the Senate, happens into the Oval Office after the president and the speaker of the House die in a ceiling collapse. Unavailable on DVD, The Man is now a rarity, and yet it clearly forecasts the screen existences of subsequent black presidents. James Earl Jones uses his commanding, paternal, universally

Harlem's Apollo theater to create oral history

Columbia University and the Apollo Theater Foundation plan to create an oral history of the famed Harlem theater that launched the careers of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and other music legends. The Apollo Theater Oral History Project will feature interviews with performers as well as cultural figures and politicians who helped make Harlem one of the nation's most vibrant communities. Planned as part of the landmark theater's 75th anni

The Underground Ansel Adams – Famous Photographer's Cave Photos Now Available for Public Viewing

The name Ansel Adams has become justifiably synonymous with photographic excellence, and his work is recognized and admired throughout the world. Most of us probably associate him most closely with Yosemite National Park, but he practiced his gift with lens and film in other areas as well. A new exhibit opening this weekend at Carlsbad Caverns National Park will give the public its first look at a different part of the natural world through the eyes of Ansel Adams, along with work b

Happy Days return as the Fonz and Richie Cunningham are reunited

Standing in front of a vintage car and sporting his leather jacket and unmistakable coif, Winkler briefly reprises his character from the 70s show on entertainment website www.FunnyOrDie.com Winkler, still having some trouble with his pronunciation, tells Howard this election is everyone's chance to right a wr-wr-wrong. Stepping back out of character, Howard says he and Winkler returned to their television roots to urge support fo

The Hyped Panic Over 'War of the Worlds'

[Michael J. Socolow is an assistant professor in the department of communication and journalism at the University of Maine at Orono. He is completing a manuscript on regulation and competition in the first two decades of American network radio.] Frank Stanton sensed trouble. Sitting in his living room on the night of October 30, 1938, the young CBS executive tuned in to catch Orson Welles's adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds. The program sounded crisp and engaging — but a

British architect to redesign New York Public Library building

Norman Foster, the eminent British architect who has made something of a specialty out of inserting contemporary designs into historic buildings, has been selected for a major renovation of the New York Public Library's landmark 1911 main building, on Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets. Foster and his London firm, Foster & Partners, are to create a new circulation library in a space below the library's Rose Reading Room and overlooking Bryant Park that now houses seven l

Rare Film Shows 1904 London Life

Sat next to me as the projector starts up is the man who found this piece of cinematic history, Professor Ian Christie. The historian stumbled on the footage, 104 years after it was filmed, while doing a routine search in the Australian National Film Archive. He was not expecting to find anything of merit. "You go along to an archive and you say: 'Show me your rubbish, show me the stuff you've never identified'," he tells me as the film plays on t

Onassis foundation buys prized El Greco

The Alexander S. Onassis foundation has bought an El Greco painting once owned by the Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos to return it to the artist's home country of Greece. The Crowning of the Virgin is to be given on long-term loan to the national gallery of Greece, said Anthony Papadimitriou, the foundation's chairman. The 17th-century painting was bought from an unidentified American art dealer in the summer. “We were informed the painting was for sale and acted q

Titian masterpiece comes to London National Gallery for 100 million pounds fundraising drive

Titian's Renaissance masterpiece Diana and Actaeon has gone on show at the National Gallery in London to help accelerate a campaign to keep it in Britain. The London public has just four weeks to view the painting, which is on loan from the National Gallery of Scotland. The galleries need to raise £50 million by New Year's Eve to buy the mid-16th century work from the Duke of Sutherland to prevent it being sold abroad. That is one third of its estimated value on the op

William Holman Hunt exhibition at Manchester, UK

Among the three leading members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, it's the one whose imagery is the most abrasive who is generally accorded the highest stature in the history of art. John Everett Millais sets out to charm and Dante Gabriel Rossetti to seduce, but William Holman Hunt is more powerful than either because he doesn't care whether you like his pictures or not. As eminent a Victorian in his way as Florence Nightingale or Thomas Carlyle, Hunt didn't know ho

IOUSA Not OK: An Analysis of the the Deficit Disaster Story

The movie IOUSA portrays a picture of the United States as a country hopelessly addicted to debt. According to the film, the country is about to fall off a cliff if the budget and the economy continue on their current course. While there are certainly many grounds to be concerned about the country’s economic condition, the view presented in IOUSA is one-sided and misleading. This analysis puts many of the issues raised in the movie in a broader context and featu

Pensioner loses compensation bid after claiming police damaged her signed photo of Hitler during raid on house

A pensioner has lost a battle for compensation from the police over allegations that they damaged her signed photograph of Adolf Hitler, it was revealed today. Dorothy Phillips, 77, from Clandown, near Bath, took Avon and Somerset Police to court three times over claims the photo, which they seized during an investigation connected to her son. Mrs Phillips valued the photo at £10,000 and claims it faded while it was held at Bath police station as evidence.

London exhibit of Byzantine art trumps bureaucracy

A dazzling exhibition of a thousand years of Byzantium's art is in the final stages of assembly in London after months of labyrinthine complications. In fact the very definition of the word byzantine. This effort to bring Byzantium to Britain culminates in the opening Saturday of a major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. And on Tuesday, with four days remaining before the official opening, the trials had not ended. "This was one of the most comp