Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ...
Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits
This page features links to reviews of movies, documentaries and exhibits with a historical theme. Listings are in reverse chronological order. Descriptions are taken directly from the linked publication. If you have articles you think should be listed on the Pop Culture page, please send them to the editor editor@historynewsnetwork.org.
SOURCE: The New Republic (9-29-10)
“Abstract Expressionist New York,” the huge new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, is three-quarters brain dead. That is better than entirely brain dead. My advice is to begin with the strongest material, which you will find in galleries on the second and third floors at MoMA. Walking through “Rock Paper Scissors” and “’Ideas Not Theories’: Artists and The Club, 1942–1962”—with their excitable mix of works in multiple media by midcentury painters, sculptors, and architects—you can feel the gritty romantic spirit of downtown Manhattan in the years during and after World War II. The Museum of Modern Art is more than justified in saluting the artistic forces at play in New York City in that period, even if an accompanying book, Abstract Expressionism at the Museum of Modern Art, makes the museum’s relationship with the city’s avant-garde appear considerably less rocky than it actually was. In our recession-conscious times the idea of a major show drawn exclusively from the museum’s...
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - 09:54
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SOURCE: Lee P Ruddin (3-25-10)
Last year was a big one for significant bicentenaries, with Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, William Ewart Gladstone and Alfred, Lord Tennyson all born in 1809. Summer university conferences aside, however, it is the three-month long show opened on Tuesday 29th December – 200 years on from the date of the birth of the three times Chancellor of the Exchequer and four times British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, which concerns us here.
The free exhibition is staged at St George’s Hall, less than a mile from his birthplace at 62 Rodney Street. Hosted in the Gladstone Gallery of the Grade I-listed Hall it features items such as records, diaries and books from his career. Newspaper cuttings of the day and a bust donated by Liverpool John Moores University only adds to the spectacle, making a visit almost obligatory between now and Saturday (27th March).
After the weekend, though, you would hope that exhibits from the Gladstone Exhibition, together with the...
The free exhibition is staged at St George’s Hall, less than a mile from his birthplace at 62 Rodney Street. Hosted in the Gladstone Gallery of the Grade I-listed Hall it features items such as records, diaries and books from his career. Newspaper cuttings of the day and a bust donated by Liverpool John Moores University only adds to the spectacle, making a visit almost obligatory between now and Saturday (27th March).
After the weekend, though, you would hope that exhibits from the Gladstone Exhibition, together with the...
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 - 07:20
SOURCE: Lee P Ruddin (9-24-10)
I will leave it for film critics to decide whether or not Michael Sheen improves upon his earlier incarnations as Tony Blair in Peter Morgan’s third dramatisation of New Labour. It is appropriate here, however, given the montage of news snippets and recreations of public speeches in the docudrama The Special Relationship, that we look at Blair’s lobbying, Bill Clinton’s dilly-dallying, and the legacy of liberal interventionism more generally. The fact that the British playwright says “we were fact-checked to death on this,” is reason enough.
John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s “The Israel Lobby” is one of the most controversial articles of the decade. Notwithstanding Osama bin Laden’s endorsement of the 2007 book version on the one hand and allegations of anti-Semitism on the other, though, talk of individuals working on behalf of a country to influence the policy process of the world’s only superpower is valid. We see this recently with the publication of Mitchell Bard’...
John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s “The Israel Lobby” is one of the most controversial articles of the decade. Notwithstanding Osama bin Laden’s endorsement of the 2007 book version on the one hand and allegations of anti-Semitism on the other, though, talk of individuals working on behalf of a country to influence the policy process of the world’s only superpower is valid. We see this recently with the publication of Mitchell Bard’...
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 - 14:22
SOURCE: Time.com (9-24-10)
Eddie Fisher was the golden boychik of mainstream pop, the dimpled troubadour from Philadelphia. Pretty and poised, he had the packaging and the product: a clear, confident tenor that could turn powerful or intimate at will. In the 1950-54 prerock period — the most tepid five years in the history of 20th century music — he had 19 songs reach the Top 10, including four ("Wish You Were Here," "I'm Walking Behind You," "Oh! My Pa-Pa," "I Need You Now") that went to No. 1. When he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War, President Harry Truman proclaimed him "my favorite PFC." He transferred his vinyl popularity to a TV variety show and then to movies. Fisher's covenant with Hollywood mythology was sealed with his 1955 marriage to Debbie Reynolds, Hollywood's princess of pert. It marked the perfect merger of adorable and adorabler.
Show-business legend-making is dreams plus lies. Sometimes the truth slithers out from...
Show-business legend-making is dreams plus lies. Sometimes the truth slithers out from...
Monday, September 27, 2010 - 14:39
SOURCE: Reuters (9-24-10)
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – A new exhibit featuring massive statues, dragon-shaped roof ridge ornaments and art from the Yuan dynasty gives visitors a glimpse of ancient China that the first Westerners would have seen 700 years ago.
"The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art features 200 works of art. Many are being shown outside of China for the first time.
It focuses on the era spanning the birth in 1215 of Khubilai Khan, Gengis Khan's grandson and the Mongol founder of the Yuan dynasty, to its fall in 1368....
"The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art features 200 works of art. Many are being shown outside of China for the first time.
It focuses on the era spanning the birth in 1215 of Khubilai Khan, Gengis Khan's grandson and the Mongol founder of the Yuan dynasty, to its fall in 1368....
Monday, September 27, 2010 - 14:37
SOURCE: NYT (9-25-10)
[Alex Ross, the music critic for The New Yorker, is the author of “Listen to This.”]
ON Monday night, “Das Rheingold,” the first part of a mammoth new production of Richard Wagner’s opera cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” will thunder down on the Metropolitan Opera. A 45-ton set will test the theater’s foundations; a reported $16 million budget will test the company’s finances. In the midst of economic troubles, is it seemly to spend such a vast amount on a spectacle that will be seen by a relatively small, elite audience?
Such questions inevitably arise whenever an opera company forges the “Ring” anew. Last season, the Los Angeles Opera completed its presentation of the cycle, spending $31 million. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors became embroiled in arguments over Wagner’s anti-Semitism, and the singer David Byrne asked on his blog whether the money might have been better spent on arts education. “There is a greater value for humanity,” Mr. Byrne...
ON Monday night, “Das Rheingold,” the first part of a mammoth new production of Richard Wagner’s opera cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” will thunder down on the Metropolitan Opera. A 45-ton set will test the theater’s foundations; a reported $16 million budget will test the company’s finances. In the midst of economic troubles, is it seemly to spend such a vast amount on a spectacle that will be seen by a relatively small, elite audience?
Such questions inevitably arise whenever an opera company forges the “Ring” anew. Last season, the Los Angeles Opera completed its presentation of the cycle, spending $31 million. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors became embroiled in arguments over Wagner’s anti-Semitism, and the singer David Byrne asked on his blog whether the money might have been better spent on arts education. “There is a greater value for humanity,” Mr. Byrne...
Monday, September 27, 2010 - 14:05
SOURCE: Culture Kiosque (9-20-10)
NEW YORK, 20 SEPTEMBER 2010 — A little over a decade ago when a Culturekiosque editor in Madrid asked the Spanish baroque music specialist Eduardo Lopez Banzo if he had any advice for classical musicians on the performance practice of the complex and constant rhythmic changes in Iberian baroque music, he replied, "They need to spend some time in Cuba!" Thanks to the on-going PBS series, American Masters and the Cuban-American film actor Andy Garcia, North American audiences will grasp the significance of this remark. Scheduled to air across the U.S. as of 20 September 2010 (check local PBS listings), American Masters takes an in-depth look at the Grammy winning bassist Israel "Cachao" López, who died in March 2008.
Entitled Cachao: Uno Más, the documentary is produced and narrated by Andy Garcia, a close friend and ardent fan, who helped reinvigorate Cachao’s career in the 1990s. The spine of his film is a sold-out 2005 concert at Bimbo’s 365 Club, a...
Entitled Cachao: Uno Más, the documentary is produced and narrated by Andy Garcia, a close friend and ardent fan, who helped reinvigorate Cachao’s career in the 1990s. The spine of his film is a sold-out 2005 concert at Bimbo’s 365 Club, a...
Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 21:19
SOURCE: NYT (9-23-10)
You can’t be an Atlantic City historian these days without a Nucky Johnson experience, so both Allen Pergament and Ralph E. Hunter Sr., retirees who became obsessive collectors of local artifacts and lore, come prepared with tales of the political boss, racketeer and kingmaker whose fictionalized spawn is at the heart of the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.”
At what he calls his “Booseum” — a phantasmagoria of 20,000 pictures, 10,000 postcards, the lost world of Miss Americas, diving horses, men in suits on a packed Boardwalk — Mr. Pergament, known as Boo, recalled the time his father, the chief clerk for the county board of elections, took him along when he visited the great man after Mr. Johnson’s release from prison in 1945.
Sure, Mr. Johnson, fictionalized as Nucky Thompson in the series, took bribes, flouted Prohibition and went to prison for tax evasion, but in real life he was far more charming and less menacing than the Sopranoesque figure in the HBO...
At what he calls his “Booseum” — a phantasmagoria of 20,000 pictures, 10,000 postcards, the lost world of Miss Americas, diving horses, men in suits on a packed Boardwalk — Mr. Pergament, known as Boo, recalled the time his father, the chief clerk for the county board of elections, took him along when he visited the great man after Mr. Johnson’s release from prison in 1945.
Sure, Mr. Johnson, fictionalized as Nucky Thompson in the series, took bribes, flouted Prohibition and went to prison for tax evasion, but in real life he was far more charming and less menacing than the Sopranoesque figure in the HBO...
Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 13:59
SOURCE: NYT (9-21-10)
The Medicis, a family of illustrious Florentine bankers that rose to power in the 14th and 15th centuries, produced popes, princes and two queens of France. Patrons of the arts and arbiters of taste and fashion over a period of more 300 years, they used art as a tool of diplomacy and as an expression of power.
On Sept. 29, the Musée Maillol in Paris, now under the direction of the Italian Renaissance expert Patrizzia Nitti, will open “Treasures of the Medicis,” a four-month-long show of art from the collection of the house of Medici, tracing their centuries-old influence on art, politics and everyday life.
The Medicis surrounded themselves with major figures in the arts: painters like Fra Angelico, Botticelli and Raphael; sculptors like Michelangelo; goldsmiths like Benvenuto Cellini; as well as musicians, poets and thinkers. Galileo was a protégé. Machiavelli wanted to be but found himself on the wrong side of the byzantine politics of the Medicis....
On Sept. 29, the Musée Maillol in Paris, now under the direction of the Italian Renaissance expert Patrizzia Nitti, will open “Treasures of the Medicis,” a four-month-long show of art from the collection of the house of Medici, tracing their centuries-old influence on art, politics and everyday life.
The Medicis surrounded themselves with major figures in the arts: painters like Fra Angelico, Botticelli and Raphael; sculptors like Michelangelo; goldsmiths like Benvenuto Cellini; as well as musicians, poets and thinkers. Galileo was a protégé. Machiavelli wanted to be but found himself on the wrong side of the byzantine politics of the Medicis....
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - 19:18
SOURCE: Time.com (9-17-10)
The news put Americans in a state of shock; they knew that, after that unprecedented day, they would never be the same. With this dastardly attack, and after the greatest loss of civilian lives the U.S. had ever known, the federal government abridged the liberties of those it suspected of giving aid and comfort to the nation's enemies. It tried civilians in military courts, deprived them of due process, suspended the right of habeus corpus. The few lawyers to speak up in defense of the accused were overruled or drowned out by high government officials who spun fantasies into imminent threats, predicting anarchy if the suspects were not railroaded to conviction. And when it couldn't find the real perpetrators of the attack, the government went after people who might slake the country's thirst for righteous revenge.
The news, of course, was of Abraham Lincoln's bloody death, a few days after the Civil War ended. The vindictive government officials included Secretary of War...
The news, of course, was of Abraham Lincoln's bloody death, a few days after the Civil War ended. The vindictive government officials included Secretary of War...
Monday, September 20, 2010 - 13:46
SOURCE: Salon (9-11-10)
"Without the continued support of good, decent women like you, men like me would be nowhere." This is Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) of HBO's new series "Boardwalk Empire" (premieres 9 p.m. Sunday, September 19), telling a crowd from the Women's Temperance League exactly what they want to hear. But behind the scenes, Nucky thinks good, decent women and other rule-followers and idealists are flat-out suckers, while realists (himself included) recognize that most people are simply governed by what they need. As Atlantic City's treasurer on the eve of prohibition, Nucky figures that the laws against alcohol are merely likely to raise the price per bottle, and he waves off the federal agents charged with enforcing the ban as powerless "dog catchers with badges." "We got a product a fella's gotta have," he explains to his fellow council members and city officials, most of whom soon join him in celebrating the new law with -- what else? -- a huge,...
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 - 14:57
SOURCE: Lee P Ruddin (12-25-09)
There will always be a collection of forces opposed to facing up to fascism. For all the talk of national unity pre-1939, the Second World War era was no different from today, post-2001, with Stop the War coalition, for instance.
But did the intelligence services really plot to keep Britain out of World War Two? Stephen Poliakoff believes so. So much, in fact, the acclaimed director dramatises how the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) did their utmost to stop Winston Churchill becoming Britain’s wartime leader in his latest outing.
There’s much to admire in Glorious 39. Poliakoff challenges the simplistic version of Britain’s entry into war just twenty years after the horrors of the Great War. Indeed, he should be applauded for accusing the aristocracy of near-treason in their attempt to forestall the end of what was for them a golden age. The main protagonist, Romola Garai, likewise, deserves praise for her utterly magnetic role as a child of the...
But did the intelligence services really plot to keep Britain out of World War Two? Stephen Poliakoff believes so. So much, in fact, the acclaimed director dramatises how the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) did their utmost to stop Winston Churchill becoming Britain’s wartime leader in his latest outing.
There’s much to admire in Glorious 39. Poliakoff challenges the simplistic version of Britain’s entry into war just twenty years after the horrors of the Great War. Indeed, he should be applauded for accusing the aristocracy of near-treason in their attempt to forestall the end of what was for them a golden age. The main protagonist, Romola Garai, likewise, deserves praise for her utterly magnetic role as a child of the...
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 - 11:11
SOURCE: Lee P Ruddin (9-15-10)
It is about time a movie chronicled the events surrounding the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. President Barack Obama’s gesture of conciliation when he admitted America’s (lead) part in the British-backed coup d’état which ousted Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and the rise of the Green Movement more generally, both in June last year, only add to the demand.
Enter Woman Without Men, a Persian drama exploring the limited range of options available to women in Mossadegh’s Iran. Based on the 1989 novel of the same title by Iranian writer Shahrnush Parsipur, the debut feature from director Shirin Neshat won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the 2009 Venice Film Festival. Notwithstanding the addition of the political import, however, the movie remains an art house one with limited appeal, cataloguing as it does the personal stories of four oppressed women – an activist, a traditionalist, an intellectual, and a prostitute – who seek freedom in,...
Enter Woman Without Men, a Persian drama exploring the limited range of options available to women in Mossadegh’s Iran. Based on the 1989 novel of the same title by Iranian writer Shahrnush Parsipur, the debut feature from director Shirin Neshat won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the 2009 Venice Film Festival. Notwithstanding the addition of the political import, however, the movie remains an art house one with limited appeal, cataloguing as it does the personal stories of four oppressed women – an activist, a traditionalist, an intellectual, and a prostitute – who seek freedom in,...
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 - 11:09
SOURCE: Lee P Ruddin (8-31-10)
I do not have much time for famed Liverpudlian Roger McGough. Not since 2006, anyways, when he bowed to the anti-war mob and boycotted a concert he originally agreed to compere in honour of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On this particular occasion, however, the Mersey poet deserves praise for narrating what is a fascinating programme on containerization as part of Sea Fever – a major new season on BBC Four which looks at the crucial ways in which the sea has helped to shape modern Britain.
Historian Dan Snow’s Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World takes all the headlines, though. And deservedly so, viewers would agree. The four-part documentary tells the story of how the navy grew from a simple outfit into the most complex industrial enterprise on the face of earth; of how the need to manage it laid the foundations of the British civil service; and of how it transformed Britons’ sense of national identity and Britain’s democracy. It is, in short,...
Historian Dan Snow’s Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World takes all the headlines, though. And deservedly so, viewers would agree. The four-part documentary tells the story of how the navy grew from a simple outfit into the most complex industrial enterprise on the face of earth; of how the need to manage it laid the foundations of the British civil service; and of how it transformed Britons’ sense of national identity and Britain’s democracy. It is, in short,...
Thursday, September 9, 2010 - 09:23
SOURCE: Hollywood Reporter (9-7-10)
The story of Ronald Reagan's life -- from boyhood to Hollywood actor to leader of the free world -- is about to spill out on the big screen in a way quite different from the miniseries that caused such a stir seven years ago.
The feature film, titled "Reagan" and sporting a $30 million production budget, is set for release late next year and will be based on two best-selling biographies of the 40th U.S. president by Paul Kengor: "The Crusader" and "God and Ronald Reagan."
Mark Joseph, who optioned the books four years ago, is co-producing with Ralph Winter and Jonas McCord wrote the script....
"Only in Hollywood could you make an insulting, condescending movie about a much-loved historical figure, hire an actor who loathes the man, watch it flop and then somehow conclude that Americans don't want to see a movie about him," Joseph said. "I watched Americans line up and wait for 10 hours for the simple...
The feature film, titled "Reagan" and sporting a $30 million production budget, is set for release late next year and will be based on two best-selling biographies of the 40th U.S. president by Paul Kengor: "The Crusader" and "God and Ronald Reagan."
Mark Joseph, who optioned the books four years ago, is co-producing with Ralph Winter and Jonas McCord wrote the script....
"Only in Hollywood could you make an insulting, condescending movie about a much-loved historical figure, hire an actor who loathes the man, watch it flop and then somehow conclude that Americans don't want to see a movie about him," Joseph said. "I watched Americans line up and wait for 10 hours for the simple...
Thursday, September 9, 2010 - 01:09
SOURCE: NYT (8-30-10)
All students of fashion know how the 20th century transformed women’s clothing in the West. Corsets were loosened, hemlines rose, and designers like Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent famously dressed ladies in trousers and tuxedo jackets.
Less documented was a similar fashion overhaul in China, which is now the subject of an exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of History. “The Evergreen Classic: Transformation of the Qipao,” showing until Sept. 13, is a beautifully presented, and sometimes humorous, display of 280 Chinese gowns created over the last 130 years. The exhibition is augmented by photographs and commentary showing how the bulky Qing Dynasty robe — which covered everything but a woman’s face and hands — altered and shrank until it became the slinky “cheongsam” worn today, while retaining the gown’s distinctive diagonal lines. Unlike the Western dress, which has a vertical construction, the qipao follows the flow of wrapped fabric.
“We wanted to...
Less documented was a similar fashion overhaul in China, which is now the subject of an exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of History. “The Evergreen Classic: Transformation of the Qipao,” showing until Sept. 13, is a beautifully presented, and sometimes humorous, display of 280 Chinese gowns created over the last 130 years. The exhibition is augmented by photographs and commentary showing how the bulky Qing Dynasty robe — which covered everything but a woman’s face and hands — altered and shrank until it became the slinky “cheongsam” worn today, while retaining the gown’s distinctive diagonal lines. Unlike the Western dress, which has a vertical construction, the qipao follows the flow of wrapped fabric.
“We wanted to...
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - 14:24
SOURCE: Atlanta Journa-Constitution (9-2-10)
Senior military historian and curator Gordon L. Jones is standing in the middle of an Atlanta History Center gallery packed with powerhouse documents, literal pages from early American history, his eyes focusing on something almost invisible.
It's a string, not much more than a thread really, tying the left temple to the frame of Abraham Lincoln's wire-rimmed spectacles, one of the items in his pockets the night he was assassinated.
"It's probably Lincoln's repair. His glasses broke and he got a piece of string and fixed it," Jones speculates. "Here's a guy who's literally installed in marble, memorialized, but he literally put his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us, and this is a reminder of that."
"With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition," opening Saturday, delivers both what Jones calls the "big-ticket stuff" (such as the Gettysburg Address) and more human-scale...
It's a string, not much more than a thread really, tying the left temple to the frame of Abraham Lincoln's wire-rimmed spectacles, one of the items in his pockets the night he was assassinated.
"It's probably Lincoln's repair. His glasses broke and he got a piece of string and fixed it," Jones speculates. "Here's a guy who's literally installed in marble, memorialized, but he literally put his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us, and this is a reminder of that."
"With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition," opening Saturday, delivers both what Jones calls the "big-ticket stuff" (such as the Gettysburg Address) and more human-scale...
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - 14:22
