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

Wallis Simpson was wrongly maligned by history, claims Madonna at Venice Film Festival

As a singer with one of the most enduring careers in pop, Madonna is a dab hand at reinvention.Which is why she feels uniquely placed to transform the image of Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee whose love affair with King Edward VIII plunged the monarchy into crisis.Madonna has written and directed a new film, W.E., which recasts Mrs Simpson as a romantic heroine and Queen Elizabeth as the bitchy sister-in-law.Explaining why she had made W.E. - the name is based on the couple’s monogrammed initials - Madonna said: “Wallis Simpson was much maligned in history books. I think people didn’t understand the choice the King made to give up his position and it changed English history - it changed the history of the world in many ways....

A Pharaoh Lords Over a Museum

A giant 4,000-year-old Egyptian visitor looms over the crowd of live humans milling antlike throughout the vast entry hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is an extraordinary specimen of regal manhood. Carved from a single block of dark gray granodiorite, he sits in a form-fitting kilt on a cubic throne covered by hieroglyphics. He has the broad shoulders, narrow waist and muscular legs of a well-developed athlete. Sporting a headdress of folded striped fabric, he gazes out over the masses with imperturbable self-assurance and open eyes set in a round, youthful face. He is as thrilling as anything in the Met’s great Egyptian collection.Scholars think this 10-foot tall, almost nine-ton monument originally portrayed the 12th-dynasty pharaoh Amenemhat II, who reigned from about 1919 to 1885 B.C. Later artists evidently altered the facial features to make him more like Ramesses II, the king who ruled from about 1279 to 1213 B.C. He has belonged to Berlin’s Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection since 1837. But now the courtyard in Germany where he usually presides is under reconstruction, so he will be a guest of honor in New York for the next 10 years.

Museum Shows History and Power of Wind Energy

LUBBOCK — A century ago, Texas was covered with windmills, which pumped water from aquifers so cattle could drink and gardens could grow. Thousands of these old-style models still exist in remote pastures, but in recent years far taller and more powerful turbines have sprouted atop western mesas, transforming this oil and gas state into the national leader in wind-generated electrical power.This evolution is on display at the American Wind Power Center in Lubbock, which bills itself as the world’s largest windmill museum. Dozens of old, clanking windmills occupy the grounds of a small, breezy hilltop, irrigating the grass, while a 165-foot-tall modern turbine, made by the Danish company Vestas, towers in the background and supplies the museum’s electricity. Long, sleek blades from another monster turbine, the first manufactured by General Electric, lie along the edge of the parking lot, awaiting the construction of a new wing the proprietors hope to build, finances permitting....

Hollywood turns to history

What do you associate with summer blockbuster movies? Non-stop action, special effects, superhero exploits? Probably. But it’s fair to say that nostalgia and a sense of history wouldn’t be high on anyone’s list.Which makes this summer’s crop of “tentpole” films somewhat unusual. None of them would quite qualify as sepia-tinted; yet at least four significant titles cast one eye back to a bygone age.The most notable example is Super 8 (opening August 5), set in 1979 in a small Ohio town, where a group of preteens are making their own short movie, a zombie flick with masses of fake blood. Shooting at night, they watch a freight train passing through town; it’s derailed, and then explodes spectacularly. As witnesses, they find themselves being pursued by sinister adults, possibly from the military, eager to question them about the incident.Shades of E.T. there, of course – and it’s no surprise to learn that Steven Spielberg is its producer. But its prime mover is its writer-director JJ Abrams, the man who created Lost and breathed new life into the ailing Star Trek franchise....

New museums to marvel over in Amsterdam, Rome and Paris

In a wide-ranging trip to Europe this year, I found three major new museums to love: in Amsterdam, the first satellite branch of Russia's celebrated Hermitage; in Rome, a long-awaited museum for contemporary arts that is a work of art itself; and in Paris, a picture gallery with a constantly changing program of special exhibitions meant to shake up the enterprise of art appreciation.The Hermitage Amsterdam

JFK miniseries gets Emmy nods

Hollywood doesn't know Jack."The Kennedys," the miniseries that was rejected by numerous networks until a St. Paul-based company scooped it up, received 10 Emmy nominations Thursday, including a nod for best miniseries or movie.It was the payoff to a gamble taken by Hubbard Broadcasting's ReelzChannel, which had previously never been a factor in the Emmy race. Stan E. Hubbard, CEO of the company, invested $10 million in an ad campaign, more than Reelz had ever spent in an entire year.In addition to a nod in the top category, Greg Kinnear (who played JFK) will compete for outstanding actor in a movie, and Tom Wilkinson was recognized in the supporting-actor race....

Not Ready to Change Baseball History?

“The Curious Case of Curt Flood,” a new HBO Sports documentary (Wednesday, 9 p.m.), raises a tantalizing question: what if Flood’s legal challenge to baseball’s reserve clause had had a better advocate before the United States Supreme Court than Arthur J. Goldberg, a former associate justice?Flood lost the case by a 5-to-3 vote. Would a better argument have swayed two justices to rule against Major League Baseball? Had Flood won, free agency would probably have arrived a few years before it was achieved in arbitrators’ rulings in favor of Catfish Hunter, and for Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally.

Jubilee Exhibition Reveals a Familiar, Yet Unknown Queen

If you take into account her image on stamps, coins and banknotes, Queen Elizabeth II is the most depicted person in all human history."Since her birth in 1926," says art historian Paul Moorhouse, in his introduction to the catalog of a National Portrait Gallery exhibition celebrating the queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, "she has been portrayed more frequently than any other sitter in history."Part of the reason is her longevity. In modern times, only one other monarch, Queen Victoria, has achieved her 60th jubilee. In his own catalog essay to the show, "The Queen: Art & Image" (starting its national tour at Edinburgh's National Gallery of Scotland), historian David Cannadine points out that the queen is also "the only British monarch yet to complete the grand ceremonial and commemorative slam of a Silver, a Golden and a Diamond Jubilee."The other part of the story is that, during her reign, the means of making, mass-producing and disseminating images has gone from photography to the Internet....

Nim Chimpsky: The chimp they tried to turn human

If your cultural memory goes back to the 1970s, here's what you already know, or think you know, about the subject of James Marsh's film "Project Nim": An infant chimpanzee called Nim -- or Nim Chimpsky, in joking homage to linguist Noam Chomsky -- was raised entirely by humans and taught elements of American Sign Language, as part of an experiment that aimed to determine whether an ape could acquire language the same way we do. (If one could, that might disprove Chomsky's contention that humans are uniquely hard-wired for language.) The results of the experiment were controversial at the time and remain so today. Herbert Terrace, the Columbia University psychologist who designed the project, ultimately decided that Nim hadn't gotten anywhere near a syntactical understanding of human language and used his vocabulary of 125 or so signs merely as a primitive code to achieve short-term goals, such as a piece of fruit or a play session.

'The Iron Lady' Trailer: Meryl Streep As Margaret Thatcher Teaser Trailer (VIDEO)

Nominated 13 times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, more than anyone else in history, Meryl Streep is taking her penchant for standout performances as strong, decisive women to new heights -- and, if all goes according to plan, a 14th nod from the Academy.Streep plays former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the upcoming film, "The Iron Lady." Directed by "Mama Mia!" helmer Phyllida Lloyd, the film follows Thatcher's rise to power in the late seventies to become the first and only woman Prime Minister in Britain's history. An arch conservative Tory, her reign was a divisive one, drawing protests from the left and accolades from the right....

History accents positive in "Kennedy Home Movies"

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap) - The History cable channel is making nice with the Kennedys.The folks who almost brought you the dark side of the would-be dynasty in "The Kennedys" miniseries is taking an altogether more positive look at America's royal family, "The Lost Kennedy Home Movies."Assembled from four decades of private film shot mostly by the family and its friends, the documentary, which premieres at 9 on Wednesday night, ignores stuff like John F. Kennedy's womanizing and allegations that father Joe engineered the theft of the 1960 presidential election.Instead, we get the Kennedys at play: tanned, debonair, carefree and privileged, letting their guard down in footage rarely if ever seen publicly....

How We Picked Our Presidents, 1960s Style

Few students of popular culture, amateur or professional, consider the 1960s a period when creativity flourished on American television. Westerns of the kind that did not threaten to obscure the legacy of John Ford prevailed, speaking to the pastoral fantasies of millions of Americans who had vacated decaying cities for the tempered pleasures of suburban life. The same demographic realities could be held accountable for the absurdist escapism of something like “Green Acres.” Between 1950 and 1960, the United States population swelled by about 28 million; two-thirds of that growth occurred in suburbia. Television had come to occupy a place in 44 million homes....

Laogai Museum in D.C. focuses on human rights abuses in China

The faded patchwork coat and pants once belonged to an accused counterrevolutionary named Liu Zhuanghuan, who spent a decade at a forced labor camp during China’s brutal Cultural Revolution.His son was confined to the same camp but never allowed to see his father. One exception was made: He was allowed to identify his father’s body and collect his belongings after Zhuanghuan committed suicide in 1973.

Recreating the Civil War at an Indiana Theme Park

FISHERS, Ind. — The drama unfolding here on the outskirts of Indianapolis involves a dashing, Kentucky-born guerrilla fighter, ruthless in plunder and genteel in manners. There’s a pioneer fur trader, too, a man who negotiated with the Lenape Indians to move them out of central Indiana and lost his Lenape Indian wife and children in the bargain.

Squeezing 4-Wheeled Masterpieces Into the Museum

PORTLAND, Ore.BRINGING vintage cars to the parks, estates and golf course fairways where they can flaunt their beauty and compete for honors in the summer’s many concours d’élégance events is a well-rehearsed process.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: X-Men a Great Work of Historical Fiction

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor at The Atlantic, is a guest columnist for the NYT. Last weekend, like seemingly half the country, I took my son to see “X-Men: First Class,” the latest, and best, big-screen incarnation of the popular comic book franchise....

Movie Review: 'Nuremberg: Its Lesson For Today'

Never before seen on U.S. screens, the documentary "Nuremberg: Its Lesson For Today" compels us as much because of its complicated and fascinating history as for what it has to show, which is a lot.

David Pryce-Jones: La Rafle

David Pryce-Jones writes a column for the National Review.

At the National Archives, Life, Liberty and Carp

MORE than 80 years before “Got Milk?” there was “Eat the Carp!”The slogan was dreamed up by the United States Department of Fisheries in 1911 as part of an effort to push the uncomely fish into the American kitchen, just one of scores of ways the federal government has tried over the last two centuries to direct how Americans eat through promotional campaigns, nutritional admonitions, factory regulations and gardening tips.

Old-Time Stuff Is Not Forgotten on "History"

THE big names — Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Lee, Grant — are getting much of the focus during television’s Civil War spring and summer, as they always do when this pivotal conflict comes up. But to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war, the programming that resumes with a burst this weekend and continues over the next several months also has much smaller things on its mind: a child’s doll, an aging tintype, a faded letter.