Music & Film News Updates | Smithsonian Magazine

There’s Great Drama Within the Truths of “The Looming Tower”

How filmmaker Alex Gibney brought a documentarian’s eye to the story of the 9/11 attacks

February 28, 2018

Moviegoers familiarize themselves with the joystick that will allow them to interact with the film I’m Your Man during its premiere on Dec. 16, 1992.

Smell-O-Vision, Astrocolor and Other Film Industry Inventions That Proved To Be Flops

Sound, color and special effects transformed the moviegoing experience. These innovations decidedly did not.

February 28, 2018

Latest IMAX Film Studies History of American Music

Air and Space Museum makes way for the Flying Elvi

February 23, 2018

Joe Leahy at his Kilima coffee plantation at the height of his wealth and power.

The Reckoning

Thirty years ago, an acclaimed series of documentaries introduced the world to an isolated tribe in Papua New Guinea. What happened when the cameras left?

March 2018

The film is equal parts 21st-century technology and late 19th-century art

How the Creators of <em>Loving Vincent</em> Brought the First Fully Painted Animated Film to Life

Vincent van Gogh’s swirling coats of paint really move in the Oscar-nominated film thanks to 62,450 original oil paintings

February 20, 2018

Costume designer Ruth Carter says she found inspiration in the tradition and costume of African peoples. She thrilled over Ndebele neck rings, Suri face paint, and Zulu headgear and blankets and asked her crew to stay true to these traditions.

The New Director of the Smithsonian’s African Art Museum Reflects on the Look and Fashion of <em>Black Panther</em>

The blockbuster movie borrowed from multiple African peoples to create a unique Wakandan style

February 20, 2018

What the First Radio Commercial Jingle Sounded Like

Wheaties was one of the first companies to recognize the enormous potential of radio as an advertising tool

February 2, 2018

Europe

These Musical Instruments Are All Made of Ice

Chill out at Norway's Ice Music Festival this February

January 31, 2018

Tommy Wiseau clutches a football in ‘The Room,’ the 2003 film he wrote, produced and starred in.

Why Is Some Art So Bad That It’s Good?

Sometimes a work of art is characterized by a string of failures, but nonetheless ends up being a gorgeous freak accident of nature

January 19, 2018

Black Lightning's costume favors style over subtlety.

The TV Show ‘Black Lightning’ Gives the Superhero World a Jolt of Social Justice

For the protagonist of WB’s new comic book show, community and family come first

January 17, 2018

In 1997, the world gasped as Gianni Versace was shot to death on the doorstep of his Miami mansion.

The True Story of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace”

Did the designer meet his killer seven years earlier?

January 17, 2018

In December 1957, Lymon appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” to sing “Goody Goody,” nearly two years after “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” was a hit debut single.

Teen Idol Frankie Lymon's Tragic Rise and Fall Tells the Truth About 1950s America

The mirage of the singer's soaring success echoes the mirage of post-war tranquility at home

January 2018

John Lennon chats with Mike Love (far right, in dark blue) as the Beatles sit for a photo with Maharishi and other course participants.

1968: The Year That Shattered America

The Ashram Where the Beatles Sought Enlightenment

Beach Boys singer Mike Love recalls what it was like to be at the Indian locale, which remains a destination for fans of music and meditation

January 2018

In the nothingness of space, sound waves have no medium by which to travel.

Science in the Movies

The Science of Silence in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'

The soundless lightspeed attack that baffled some fans was actually the film's most scientifically accurate moment

January 2, 2018

Based on a True Story