Matt Damon has been cast in an upcoming biopic about Robert F. Kennedy from Eastern Promises writer Steven Knight and Seabiscuit director Gary Ross. The film will follow RFK’s life exclusively (no major JFK role to cast here), as he lived in the shadow of his brother and was killed while running for president in 1968.
AP Photo (2)
On Thursday, the Obamas revealed the National Endowment for the Arts’ selections for the National Medal of Arts winners, an honor handed down directly from the White House. Bob Dylan, who had just sung at the White House two weeks before, was a recipient. Other winners, The New York Times notes, included designer Milton Glaser; artist and architect Maya Lin; singer and actress Rita Moreno; soprano Jessye Norman; artist Frank Stella; conductor Michael Tilson Thomas; composer and conductor John Williams; and Joseph P. Riley Jr., mayor of Charleston, S.C. Clint Eastwood also got an award, but could not be present at the ceremony—when you are one of the leaders of Hollywood, you can’t always clear your datebook simply because the Obamas call.
Retna Ltd. & AP Photos
This week came the news that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita is headed back to the Broadway stage by next year (the rumors are that it will take over for West Side Story, which may close soon). Don’t expect to see Madonna on stage, however—Argentine singer Elena Roger will play the title role. She apparently shone in London when she starred in Evita in 2006, but as Roger is yet unknown in America, the New York Post reports that producers are desperately seeking a bold-faced male star to play Che Guevara. Their leading candidate? Ricky Martin.
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As Vancouver winds down, the art world Olympics are just beginning: The Whitney Biennial, America’s most prestigious survey of contemporary art, began Thursday and runs through May 30. Unlike past years, the exhibition does not follow a specific theme. Instead, veteran curator Francesco Bonami simply called the show 2010, and along with his co-curator (the remarkably young Gary Carrion-Murayari, who is only 29), decided to present a straightforward overview of the modern art scene. After two years of searching, the curators chose the lineup of artists for the event (being included can be considered “making it” as an artist), and some interesting names include darkroom “photogram”-maker Josh Brand , feminist installation artist Kate Gilmore, and the mysterious prankster art collective that goes by The Bruce High Quality Foundation. For more on the Biennial in all its glory, visit Art Beast.
Pae White / Courtesy of The Whitney Museum
Lowbrow alert: This week on television, American Idol’s top 24 contestants began to face off in earnest, but all anyone could seem to talk about was The Bachelor. On Monday night, the “Girls Tell All” episode of the show aired (the finale is next week), and disgraced contestant Rozlyn Papa (who was asked to leave the show due to an alleged sexual incident involving a show producer) came with gloves on. After being sequestered from the other contestants, who all spoke negatively of Papa in her absence, she came onto set to boos and proceeded to deny all allegations that the show had made against her, firing back with her own gripes. She claimed that the show kept her from calling her son, and never had proof of her affair despite having cameras around 24/7. She then accused Bachelor host Chris Harrison of hitting on that same producer’s wife, and things got really uncomfortable. We’ve known the show was trashy for some time now, but this season has taken things to a new level. Read all the dirt (in its smutty glory) over at the Daily News.
Or at least the museum erected in her honor! This week, we learned that in Cumbria, England, the Armitt Museum, which houses the archive of beloved children’s author and watercolor artist Beatrix Potter, needs £10,000 to stay afloat—and due to a recent flood, may sink permanently. If the museum cannot re-open, Potter’s collection (which includes the original Tale of Peter Rabbit) may be in peril, despite the writer having bequeathed her works for safekeeping before her death in 1943.
Another day, another masterwork discovered in the shadows. This week, a tiny museum in the Dutch city Zwolle came to the shocking realization that it owns a never-before catalogued Van Gogh painting made in 1886. A painting of the blue-fin windmill in Paris, the painting was for many years considered a joke. NRC International reports that museum curator Dirk Hannema was convinced that the painting, which he bought from a Paris dealer in 1975 for less than €1,000, was a certified Van Gogh. Experts rebuffed him, until this week, when both the highest experts and a computer analysis program have dubbed the artwork a genuine Van Gogh.
Courtesy of Museum de Fundatie
We didn’t see this one coming. One of the nation’s most famous teen mothers, Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, will appear as a guest on ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a soap about, well, the consequences of teen pregnancy. Palin will play a herself in an episode that airs this summer, in a scene where the show’s leading actress meets a new friend at a music class for teen moms. No word from her roguish mom on this one, but we’re sure she’s more happy with Bristol’s programming choice than she was with Family Guy last week.
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In music this week, Sade is still No. 1, but in Philadelphia, a classic soul studio, where Teddy Pendergrass and Patti LaBelle recorded, went up in flames. The damage was “in the millions,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and an arsonist has been named—a drunk man who was on the third floor of the building when it burned. One upside for soul music lovers: The studio's master recordings were kept off-site, and are still safe.
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
This week in questionable movie deals; George Lopez has signed on to be the voice of Speedy Gonzales in a new, full-length adaptation of the Loony Tunes classic. Gonzales was originally voiced by Mel Blanc, who also played Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, and Yosemite Sam, among others (he passed away in 1989). As The New York Times reports, Anne Lopez, George’s wife and producer, has said that voicing Gonzales will finally give the character his “Latino seal of approval,” and she clarified that the new version will not carry stereotypical overtones. “We wanted to make sure that it was not the Speedy of the 1950s, the racist Speedy,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. This Speedy “comes from a family that works in a very meticulous setting, and he’s a little too fast for what they do.”
Warner Bros / Everett
