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

New Da Vinci Code book ‘to break publishing records’ amid unprecedented security

More than 6.5 million copies have been printed of the highly anticipated sequel to the 2003 mega hit, as book stores around the world brace themselves for an unprecedented stampede from hungry fans. As well as being one of the largest first print runs in publishing history, an electronic version of the novel, which took Brown five years to write, will be released on the same day. It is also already at the top of Amazon’s best seller list. “The Lost Symbo

Andy Warhol paintings of sporting stars stolen

The 11 colour screen-prints, thought to be worth several million pounds, were taken from businessman Richard Weisman's home between September 2 and 3. Ten of the portraits, each 40 inches by 40 inches, feature famous athletes of the 1970s, including golfer Jack Nicklaus, soccer star Pele and figure skater Dorothy Hamill. The other is of Mr Weisman. A $1 million (£600,000) reward is being offered for information leading to the return of the artwork. The o

New Charles Darwin film is 'too controversial' for religious American audiences

A new British film about Charles Darwin has failed to land a distribution deal in the States because his theories on human evolution are too controversial for religious American audiences, according to the film's producer. Creation follows the British naturalist's 'struggle between faith and reason' as he wrote his 1859 book, On The Origin Of The Species. The film, directed by Jon Amielm was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has now been sold to almost every

9/11 museum to give visitors content warnings

NEW YORK — Visitors will be warned about graphic images at the World Trade Center memorial, and will have a choice whether to view them. The foundation that's building the memorial has gathered hundreds of hours of amateur videos, images and stories. On Thursday, the foundation launched a Web site with a collection of citizen journalism. It's also appealing for more 9/11 stories from all over the world. Organizers say one of the most difficult tasks they've faced is how

Voice memories part of National September 11 Memorial & Museum

Everyone who went through that horrific day has stories and memories that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Now, officials at the 9/11 memorial planned for the Trade Center site want to hear them. A new Web site (911history.org) allows you to upload recollections from that bright, sunny day that turned disastrous when the terrorists attacked. "They say that 9/11 was the most digitally documented event of all time," said Alice Greenw

New quarters will feature Hot Springs National Park

Quarters dropped into fountains at Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas next year could feature the park itself. The U.S. Mint announced Wednesday that the first in its "America the Beautiful" series of quarters will feature Hot Springs, which was set aside for preservation by the federal government in 1832. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming will be featured second. Other sites to be honored in the 56-coin series include Washington's Olympic Mountains, the

Controversial Berlin exhibition explores WWII in the developing world

Billed as a portrayal of “a forgotten chapter in history,” the exhibition “The Third World in the Second World War” is the culmination of several years of research across more than thirty countries, initially undertaken by a group of freelance journalists based in Cologne. Karl Rössel from the group described their work as an attempt to dispel the “Eurocentric view” of World War II. He said they were inspired while working on another project decades ago about protests against the Vi

Return of Faberge

Fabergé, jeweler to the last Russian czar and creator of the legendary Imperial Easter eggs, made a comeback of sorts on Wednesday when it presented its first jewelry collection in more than 90 years. The collection is the result of a two-year effort by Fabergé’s owners, a group of investors led by the British private equity firm Pallinghurst Resources, to revive the brand by reuniting it with two heirs of the Fabergé family.

Gregory McNamee: Getting Back to Roots: Alex Haley’s Epochal Novel Roots Turns 33

[Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor for Encyclopædia Britannica, for which he writes regularly on world geography, culture, and other topics. An editor, publishing consultant, and photographer, he is also the author of 30 books, most recently Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food (Praeger, 2006).] If you are of a certain age and were anywhere near the United States in early 1977, you probably remember the phenomenon that was the first airing of the television

WWII Museum lands an ally

It was a fundraising match so perfect it could have been confected in Hollywood: Movie-theater magnate Theodore "Teddy" Solomon and his family wanted to give money to the National World War II Museum, and the museum needed cash for a high-tech theater. The outcome: The family gave $5.5 million for a new 242-seat auditorium, which will be called the Solomon Victory Theater. It marks the biggest private gift for the Warehouse District museum's $50 million expansion, spokeswo

Richard Bernstein: Sadism Gets a Pass at the Movies (a review of Inglorious Basterds)

NEW YORK — Am I being overly fastidious, or does Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, “Inglourious Basterds,” which earned $38 million in its first weekend in the United States — more than double the nearest competitor — provide a more unapologetic justification for torture than Dick Cheney has been articulating lately? The Basterds of the mysteriously misspelled title, eight Jewish soldiers plus Brad Pitt parachuted into Nazi-occupied France to terrorize the Wehrmacht, carve swastikas on the foreheads of their victims and beat them to death with baseball bats. They also take scalps, Apache fashion, even as they laugh at the sufferings of their enemies. Moreover, unlike Mr. Cheney, who claims that “enhanced interrogation” produced invaluable information in the war on terror, the Basterds do their deeds simply to make the Germans afraid of them, and it seems that gross violations of the Geneva Conventions are the best way to do this. Or, as Mr. Pitt’s character, Aldo the Apache, who leads the American Jews into battle, puts it near the beginning of the film, “We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are.”

Manga Version of Hitler's Mein Kampf Sells 45,000

The Japanese publisher East Press has sold 45,000 copies of the manga version of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's manifesto Mein Kampf, amid renewed calls to drop the manifesto's ban in Germany. It has been illegal to publish Mein Kampf in Germany since 1945, and the government enforces the ban through an unusual application of copyright laws. Since the German state of Bavaria inherited the printing rights upon Hitler's suicide towards the end of World War II, the copyright holder (whic

Movie: 'Berlin 36' tells how Nazis replaced Jewish woman athlete for man in drag

She showered alone, shaved her legs several times a day and had a gruff, deep voice. It soon became clear why: the Nazis conscripted a man in drag to replace a star Jewish high jumper before the Berlin 1936 Olympics. The film Berlin 36, which will be shown in German cinemas from next week, tells the extraordinary story of Gretel Bergmann, who was heading for an Olympic gold medal before she was bounced out of the squad. The Nazis wanted to ensure that Hitler would not be embarrassed

How the Beatles rocked the Eastern Bloc

While the Beatles were at the height of their success in the West, back in the USSR they were a forbidden influence. But that did not stop them from being heard. Presiding over his"John Lennon Temple of Peace and Love" in St Petersburg, Kolya Vasin is Russia's ultimate Beatles fan. An affable bear of a man with a wild beard, Mr Vasin sits amid his fantastic collection of Beatles memorabilia - ceramic statues of the"Fab Four", an All You Need is Love teapot, an Ab

Beatlemania is back as hits become available online for first time

The music of the Beatles is to be made available for digital download for the first time with the launch of a computer game today that allows fans to play along to their favourite tracks. Retailers are bracing themselves for a new wave of Beatlemania with today’s release of 14 of the group’s digitally remastered albums and the launch of a video game, The Beatles: Rock Band. Record label EMI has already shipped five million albums across the world in an attempt to meet huge demand f

Following the Steps of John Lennon and Yoko Ono at Market Biron: An Exhibition of 100 Photographs

On the occasion of the 4th Mondial de l’Antiquité (Worldwide of Antique), the Market Biron, located in the Flea markets of Saint-Ouen, introduces an exhibition of 100 photographs of the mythical couple John Lennon and Yoko Ono taken by Henry Pessar during their passage in Paris in 1969. The exceptional fund of the 100 photographs of Henry Pessar constitutes an evidence of one of the turns of John Lennon’s life. Indeed One of the photographs taken by Henry Pessar was published exclu

Harvard's "New Literary History of America"

Linda Lovelace and James Fenimore Cooper. Together at last. Welcome to Harvard’s wacky “New Literary History of America,’’ arriving in bookstores as we speak. “Deep Throat,’’ “Roll Over, Beethoven,’’ the election of Barack Obama - it’s all literature now. What exactly is this wildly uneven, 1,100-page doorstop retailing for a mere $49.95? It’s certainly not a textbook, not unless you are teaching Andrew Jackson’s bank veto, the story of the Winchester rifle, Hurricane K

Claire and Jim Castagnera review 'Inglorious Basterds'

[Jim Castagnera is a university attorney, author of Al Qaeda Goes to College, and frequent contributor to the History News Network. His daughter Claire, with whom he frequently writes, is a senior creative-writing major at Washington College.] Some years ago the tenth anniversary issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History asked a group of eminent historians to opine upon the most important what-ifs of warfare. Out of that exercise came a collection entitled The Collec

How E.L. Doctorow Does It

On the release of his new novel Homer & Langley, Eric Alterman talks to the great novelist about how he travels back in time and slips into the imaginations of his characters. Some writers enjoy talking about works-in-progress, but most do not. Other writers tend to understand this, but others oftentimes perceive this reticence to be rudeness. Ed Doctorow is an extremely polite fellow but also a private one. He solved this problem deftly, however. Ask Edgar what he’s working on

The thoughts of Chairman Mao (starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li)

There has never been a movie quite like Jiangguo Daye. The blockbuster features nearly 200 of China's top movie stars, including action heroes Jackie Chan and Jet Li plus a host of directors, comedy stars and even journalists. There is Zhang Ziyi of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Stephen Chow of Kung Fu Hustle, and Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau. Imagine a Hollywood film featuring the entire celebrity audience at the Oscars and you get the idea. But The Founding of a Republic – the