The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie Halper:

“The First Time I Every Saw Your Face” May Be the First Time You Hear About Ewan MacColl

California’s Gay Marriage Ban Overturned & 5 Ways To Take Action

* * *
Nicole Hughes:

“Bottlemania” Book Takes Bottled Water Industry To Task

Arnold Tells Automakers To “Stop Whining” About Tougher California Emissions Standards

* * *

Andy Kondrat:

Department of Energy Forecasts Large Increase In Wind Power Usage

Edward Norton & Gavin Newsom Speak To Congress About Environmental Building Practices

* * *

Jon Popham:

Spencer Tunick Strips Hundreds Naked

Lichtenstein Sculptures At Fairchild Garden In Miami

* * *

Giulia Rozzi:

Does Being Ethical Pay?

Is the Anti-Female Genial Mutilation Campaign Offensive?

* * *

Gina Telaroli:

A Global Look At Media On Pangea Day

Everything Cinema: Brody Takes On the Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard

Spencer Tunick stripped hundreds of willing participants naked over the weekend for a new photography installation shot in Austria. The American photographer, who has taken nude to a whole new level, snapped photos of 1,800 disrobed subjects in an Austrian soccer stadium that will play host to this year’s 2008 Euro Cup Finals. Tunick arranged the subjects throughout areas of the stands, having been prohibited from using the grass playing field due to official’s concerns about wear and tear. According to the photographer’s website:

“This very special ephemeral installation that we are inviting you to be part of is devised to capture and combine the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures,”

It is indeed one of this writer’s great regrets to have not taken an invitation to appear in Tunick’s 1997 installation in Times Square, NYC seen above. At the time the photographer’s works were much more guerilla-style affairs, which involved the invitees showing up in robes at 5AM at the selected location, and quickly stripping and running out into the street for the shots like a (literal) flash mob. Since then both Tunick’s fame and the scale of his work has grown immensely, to the point where his 2007 Mexico City - Zocalo, MUCA/UNAM Campus installations (shown below) included upwards of 18,000 subjects.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cinco de Mayo, May 5, is the official holiday which commemorates the history of the Mexican militia’s victory over the French army at the Battle Of Puebla in 1862. In Mexico, it is mainly celebrated in Puebla, the site of the battle. In the United States, however, it has taken on a life of its own and is actually celebrated more broadly, especially along the U.S.-Mexico border. Cinco de Mayo in the U.S. celebrates the Mexican and Mexican-American and history culture that enriched the United States. Cinco de Mayo is often confused with Mexican Independence Day, which is actually September 16th.

If you want to celebrate Mexican and Mexican-American cinematic culture on Cinco de Mayo, then check out these top cinco movies.

1. Ahí está el detalle (1940), directed by Juan Bustillo Oro, is considered the best film of the comic genius Cantinflas, and established him as the “Charlie Chaplin of Mexico.” In the film, which is filled with physical comedy and social satire, Cantinflas’s character assumes the identity of the master of a household where his girlfriend is actually a made. The results, which include killing a rabid dog, and blackmailing a gigolo, are hysterical.

2. Los Olvidados (1950), directed by Luis Buñuel is a both surrealistic and neo-realistic depiction of the empoverished and marginilaxized children living in the slums of Mexico City. This film was a success at Cannes where it won Best Director and Best Film and is part of UNESCO’s Memory Of The World Register.

Read the rest of this entry »