home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- CRITICS' CHOICE, Page 8
-
-
- MOVIES
-
- HEATHERS. There's a disturbing mortality rate among
- Westerburg High's snooty elite. A rash of suicides? Or is
- someone killing the prom queens of Ohio? Daniel Waters' witty
- script touches two stark teen issues: the need to be accepted
- and the urge to end it all.
-
- 84 CHARLIE MOPIC. In the jungles of Viet Nam, a lost patrol
- finds enemies on both sides of combat. But the main character of
- Patrick Duncan's war movie is a documentary-film camera. Through
- its unblinking eye, a familiar horror story gains raw immediacy.
-
- THEATER
-
- GHETTO. Joshua Sobol's Nazi-era tragicomedy, seen across the
- U.S. in an Israeli production, makes its English-language debut
- on Broadway, with the same vibrant staging.
-
- JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE. Director Claude Purdy's backyard
- realism suits August Wilson's lyric text, at the Los Angeles
- Theater Center.
-
- MEMBER OF THE WEDDING. Esther Rolle (Good Times) and
- newcomer Amelia Campbell glow as nanny and budding adolescent in
- this deeply moving off-Broadway revival of Carson McCullers'
- coming-of-age story of the pre-civil rights South.
-
- ART
-
- THOMAS HART BENTON: AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL, Nelson-Atkins
- Museum of Art, Kansas City. He said he wished his work could be
- exhibited in saloons, but the colorful, cantankerous Benton
- (1889-1975) is being honored in his centennial year not only
- with a biography and a PBS special but also with this
- full-dress retrospective in his native state. Featured: the
- stylized murals of American history and daily life for which he
- was best known. Through June 18.
-
- WHISTLER AND HIS CIRCLE, Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul.
- Etchings, lithographs and paintings representing Whistler's high
- achievements in those media, as well as his influence on other
- late-19th century artists, chiefly such Americans as Joseph
- Pennell, Charles Keene and John Marin. Through June 25.
-
- NELL BLAINE: RECENT OILS AND WORKS ON PAPER, Fischbach
- Gallery, New York City. Forty-eight works by a premier American
- artist whose spontaneous brushstrokes and brilliant colors
- enrobe nature in a tender intimacy. Through April 26.
-
- LIKE A ONE-EYED CAT:PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEE FRIEDLANDER
- 1956-1987, Seattle Art Museum. Surprising perspectives on
- everyday images -- street scenes, jazz musicians, empty motel
- rooms, public monuments -- by a modern American master. Through
- May 7.
-
- MUSIC
-
- SAM KINISON: HAVE YOU SEEN ME LATELY? (Warner Bros.).
- Abusive, scurrilous and hilarious: postpunk comedy meets
- primal-scream therapy. Offensive? You betcha. But there are
- wonderful bits about sexism and heartbreak, as well as the best
- riffs on organized religion since Lenny Bruce.
-
- ROSANNE CASH: HITS 1979-1989 (Columbia). She's got a
- half-past-4-in-the-morning voice and a knowing way with a song
- that can make any listener wish the night would go on forever.
-
- ANTONIN DVORAK: AMERICAN SUITE, SYMPHONY NO. 9 (Virgin
- Classics). Libor Pesek conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
- Orchestra in exuberant renditions of these powerful works, whose
- brooding Slavic soul belies their New World theme.
-
- TELEVISION
-
- UNFINISHED STORIES (various cable and PBS stations, April
- 23, 5 p.m. EDT). The work of artists and performers who have
- died of AIDS will be celebrated in this 13-hour telethon,
- produced jointly by the Bravo cable network and several PBS
- stations. Tommy Tune, Christopher Reeve and Cheryl Tiegs are
- among the hosts.
-
- MURDERERS AMONG US: THE SIMON WIESENTHAL STORY (HBO, April
- 23, 8 p.m. EDT). The famed Nazi hunter is portrayed by Ben
- Kingsley in a properly reverent TV-movie bio.
-
- MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE (TNT, April 24, 8 p.m. EDT). Farrah
- Fawcett plays the globe-trotting LIFE photographer in a
- made-for-Turner movie that dwells equally on her career and her
- long-term relationship with writer Erskine Caldwell (Frederic
- Forrest).
-
- BOOKS
-
- CITIZENS, A CHRONICLE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION by Simon
- Schama (Knopf; $29.95). Exactly 200 years after the bloody
- facts, a Harvard historian offers a fascinating, often
- surprising account of what went right -- and wrong -- during
- one of the world's most celebrated social convulsions.
-
- A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving (Morrow; $19.95). In
- this inventive, indignant novel, a boisterous cast and a
- spirited story line propel a sawed-off Christly caricature
- through two decades of U.S. foreign policy debacles.
-
- THE JOY LUCK CLUB by Amy Tan (Putnam; $18.95). A bright,
- sharp-flavored first novel on the subject of growing up ethnic
- in the U.S. The topic sounds familiar, but the Chinese spice
- added to this old recipe is invigorating and refreshingly true.
-
-
-