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- CRITICS' CHOICE, Page 11
-
-
- BOOKS
-
- THE END OF TRAGEDY by Rachel Ingalls (Simon & Schuster;
- $16.95). Four novellas by an author who already commands a
- formidable cult following. This time out, as before, she rubs
- against the grain of tired old plots and creates electrifying,
- hair-raising results.
-
- RICHARD BURTON: A LIFE by Melvyn Bragg (Little, Brown;
- $22.95). This meticulous biography includes generous quotations
- from the subject's letters and a 350,000-word private diary;
- the result is a portrait of a vivid actor who approached
- language with the same passion he lavished on Elizabeth Taylor.
-
- THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie (Viking; $19.95).
- Charges of blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad have put
- Rushdie's book into international headlines. But the author's
- relentless artistry pervades this encyclopedic fiction about
- the explosive, often comic, meetings of East and West.
-
- ART
-
- ANDY WARHOL: A RETROSPECTIVE, Museum of Modern Art, New York
- City. The first comprehensive look since the artist's 1987 death
- at what made him the top of the pops. Through May 2.
-
- THE HUMAN FIGURE IN EARLY GREEK ART, the Art Institute of
- Chicago. Sixty-seven choice works from Greek museums trace the
- emerging lineaments of the classical style. Through May 7.
-
- HISPANIC ART IN THE UNITED STATES: THIRTY CONTEMPORARY
- PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The
- artists grasp their ethnicity with color, vitality and fantasy,
- but this show is art, not sociology, and much of it is a
- revelation. Through April 16.
-
- TELEVISION
-
- PROMISES TO KEEP (PBS, March 1, 10 p.m. on most stations).
- Mitch Snyder, the Washington advocate for the homeless who was
- portrayed by Martin Sheen in a TV movie, is profiled again --
- for real this time -- in an Oscar-nominated documentary.
-
- DAY ONE (CBS, March 5, 8 p.m. EST). The development of the
- A-bomb, retold as a three-hour TV movie. Brian Dennehy stars as
- the general who headed the Manhattan Project; Michael Tucker
- (L.A. Law) plays a top scientist; and David Ogden Stiers
- handles the F.D.R. impression.
-
- THE APPOINTMENTS OF DENNIS JENNINGS (HBO, starting March 6,
- 10 p.m. EST). Deadpan comic Steven Wright plays a paranoid
- writer trying to sort out his life in this short, also an Oscar
- nominee.
-
- MOVIES
-
- TRUE BELIEVER. The ambiguities are as unsettling as a
- crack-house mugger in this humdinger about a sleazy attorney who
- bends the system to wreak justice. But the real drama is in the
- demonic intensity and haunted eyes of James Woods, a criminally
- gifted actor who may be too edgy to become a Hollywood star in
- this era of the Really Cute Guy.
-
- LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. David Lean's 1962 biopic, starring Peter
- O'Toole as adventurer T.E. Lawrence, was the first and finest
- epic of ideas. Now the film has been lovingly restored to 217
- minutes, every one of them glorious.
-
- THEATER
-
- SHIRLEY VALENTINE. Pauline Collins (Upstairs, Downstairs)
- brings to Broadway the funny and poignant performance that won
- her London's version of the Tony as a discontented housewife
- breaking free.
-
- OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. Not much is new in this off-Broadway
- tale of an old family company menaced by corporate raiders, but
- the acting is superb, especially by Mercedes Ruehl (Married to
- the Mob).
-
- MACBETH. Joseph Ziegler and Nancy Palk play the murderous
- couple off-Broadway. He's intriguingly nervy, she's seductive
- and plain unforgettable.
-
- MUSIC
-
- LOU REED: NEW YORK (Sire). Savage lyricism in the sharpest
- Reed style, with a startling overlay of tough social
- commentary. A hard rocker musically and, lyrically, a real nail
- spitter.
-
- MANDY PATINKIN: MANDY PATINKIN (CBS). The Broadway (Sunday
- in the Park with George) and movie (Alien Nation) actor lets
- fly with a fearlessly melodramatic song cycle chosen from
- sources as various as Stephen Sondheim and Al Jolson. Some are
- a bit florid, but the best tunes (like Anyone Can Whistle) have
- a delicacy that lingers.
-
- BOB DYLAN AND THE GRATEFUL DEAD: DYLAN & THE DEAD
- (Columbia). Live recordings from the summer tour two years ago.
- Casual, lovely and intense, with a particularly astute
- reworking of Dylan's great tune I Want You.
-
- MOZART AND SCHNABEL, VOLS. 1-4 (Arabesque). The great Artur
- Schnabel in memorable performances of Mozart piano concertos and
- solo music, recorded in London between 1934 and 1948.
-
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-