LONDON – They are icons of Britain: a Victorian-era statesman, a World War I soldier-poet, fish and chips.

They’re also Jewish — evidence of the 1,000-year history of Jews in Britain, whose story is told in a museum reopening this week after a 10 million pound ($15 million) expansion.

“Fish and chips, which everyone thinks of as very English, is in fact Sephardic Jewish,” said celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, who helped relaunch the London Jewish Museum on Tuesday after a two-year closure. Many believe that Britain’s national dish has its origins in fried fish introduced to the country by Spanish and Portuguese Jews.

Food and the nature of Britishness both play a significant part in the museum, which has expanded from a Victorian house in London’s Camden Town to a former piano factory next door, tripling its floorspace. Among the interactive displays is a chance to smell chicken soup cooking in a recreated East End immigrant’s kitchen.

There also is a cavalcade of historical figures, both famous and obscure, including 19th-century Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli; war poet Isaac Rosenberg, killed on the Western Front; and Daniel Mendoza, an 18th-century boxing champion of England.

Their stories sit alongside those of humbler figures — laborers, seamstresses, trade unionists, entertainers.

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LOS ANGELES – Alice is still ruling the movie palace.

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” easily remained the No. 1 weekend draw with $62 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Disney fantasy has climbed to a $208.6 million total domestically, becoming the first $200 million hit released this year.

In its second weekend in theaters, “Alice in Wonderland” pulled ahead of the $206.5 million domestic haul of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” to become the top-grossing of Depp and Burton’s seven films together, which include “Edward Scissorhands,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Corpse Bride.”

“I believe it’s literally the magical, if you would, pairing of Tim and Johnny,” said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney. “When you take those two, they always seem to make something really out of the ordinary.”

“Alice in Wonderland” added $76 million overseas to bring its international total to $221 million and its worldwide gross to $430 million.

A rush of new movies had so-so openings, led by Matt Damon’s Iraq War thriller “Green Zone,” which debuted at No. 2 with $14.5 million domestically. Released by Universal, “Green Zone” stars Damon as the leader of a U.S. Army team who stumbles onto a conspiracy over the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

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LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) –
Unlike lightning, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom” does strike twice.

More than 23 years after “Phantom of the Opera” became a worldwide sensation, the British composer has delivered a sequel in “Love Never Dies.” As handsome as the original and filled with infectious melodies, startling images and wonderful performances, it’s running through October 23 at the Adelphi Theater.

The sequel is set in the early years of the 20th Century a decade after the ending of the original, with the key players from the first show caught up in a Gothic drama set in a spooky theater on Coney Island.

Soprano Christine (Sierra Boggess) arrives for a special performance bringing along her gambler husband Raoul (Joseph Millson) and their 10-year-old son Gustave. Unknown to them, the show’s impresario is the Phantom (Ramin Karimloo). It is revealed in the first act that the scarred composer and his muse shared a night of passion before she got married and went away, and the question of who is the boy’s father drives the story.

Further complications come from the current star of the Phantom’s show, Meg (Sierra Russell), whose mother Madame Giry (Liz Robertson) fears that Christine’s arrival will lead to their being abandoned.

Lloyd Webber gives credit to comedian/writer Ben Elton for coming up with the plotline for the show and he brings not the guile of “Blackadder” but the simplicity of another hit stage musical he wrote, the Queen show “We Will Rock You.”

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MOSCOW – A fatal car crash in downtown Moscow has exposed growing public anger at officials who seem to live above the law, as they flout the rules of the road and endanger the lives of ordinary Russians.

A black Mercedes with a flashing blue light on the roof and a VIP inside collides head-on with a little hatchback, killing the two women in the car. The VIP — a vice president of Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company — leaves in another car, and police blame the hatchback for swerving into oncoming traffic.

But civic activists have disputed the official version, and a rap song condemning the oil executive to hell has become an instant YouTube sensation, with more than 300,000 hits by Friday afternoon.

In recent years, numerous government officials, powerful businessmen or their relatives have been involved in fatal accidents, often caused by drunken driving, and gotten away with fines or reprisals. But this time people are saying “enough.”

Bloggers are urging Russians to boycott Lukoil gas stations, and opposition activists are calling on the Kremlin to stop the “lawlessness” of officials and rich businessmen who flout traffic rules and avoid responsibility for accidents they cause.

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LOS ANGELES – Spread 10 ways, the phrase “nominated for best picture” hasn’t had much of a box office effect.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doubled the number of nominees this year in hopes of drawing more attention to more movies. But the revenue bump for this year’s crop is less than the one enjoyed by last year’s five best-picture hopefuls.

And of that $135 million, all but about $24 million went to the one film in least need of an Oscar bump: the record-smashing “Avatar.” The figures were generated between the nominations Feb. 2 and the last weekend before Sunday’s awards.

Last year’s best picture nominees pulled in $146 million over a comparable period, and most of that went to a film Oscar helped turn into a sensation: “Slumdog Millionaire.” Three of the five 2009 nominees at least doubled their take in that period, something no film in this year’s batch even came close to doing.

“The bottom line is adding five more movies didn’t necessarily add two times the gross to the crop of films,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box office president for industry tracker Hollywood.com.

One possible explanation is that a best-picture nod may be less valuable now with more films getting one, but several other factors lessened the honor’s financial impact.

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