home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- CRITICS' VOICES, Page 18
-
-
- MOVIES
-
- MILLER'S CROSSING and GOODFELLAS. A pair of aces about the
- Mob. The first film, from Joel and Ethan Coen, has gangsters of
- the '20s spitting out aphorisms and wrestling with ethics. The
- second, Martin Scorsese's bullet train of a cautionary comedy,
- shows the Mafia in its rapacious decline. Both make offers no
- moviegoer should refuse.
-
- HARDWARE. A junk sculpture turns into a ravening home
- wrecker in this spiky Brit sci-fi parable. First-time filmmaker
- Richard Stanley has an eye for the macabre and a mind full of
- undigested ideas. Oh, well, next time . . . This time he has
- made an arresting exercise in horror on the cheap.
-
- TEXASVILLE. The sequel to The Last Picture Show, with the
- same cast (including Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd) and the
- same director (Peter Bogdanovich). That old Texas movie house
- should have stayed closed.
-
- MUSIC
-
- GEORGE MICHAEL: LISTEN WITHOUT PREJUDICE, VOL. 1 (Columbia).
- Michael's previous album, Faith, was a monster hit, and the biz
- expects this new record to push him into rock's commercial
- pantheon. Maybe. It's a schizy piece of work: part bombast, part
- hypercharged pop. Pop prevails, but it's a struggle.
-
- SITTING PRETTY (New World Records). Conductor John McGlinn
- deserves some kind of sainthood for resurrecting this 1924
- Jerome Kern delight. Amid its jolly ebullience, moments of
- gentler lyricism look ahead to such works as Show Boat and
- Roberta. Perfectly cast and impossible to resist.
-
- ROY HARGROVE: DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH (Novus). Watch out,
- Wynton! This 20-year-old trumpet phenomenon from Waco, Texas,
- is nipping at your heels with a horn full of soul and fire. A
- well-crafted album, featuring penetrating solo work from
- alto-saxman Antonio Hart and three strong compositions by
- pianist Geoffrey Keezer.
-
- TELEVISION
-
- MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYOFFS (CBS, starting Oct. 4, 8 p.m. EDT).
- For baseball fans, it's all CBS from now on. Jack Buck and Dick
- Stockton will handle the play-by-play for the network's first
- postseason coverage in 40 years.
-
- RACE TO SAVE THE PLANET (PBS, Oct. 7-11, 9 p.m. on most
- stations). Everything you wanted to know about the environment
- but were afraid to find out, in 10 hours with Meryl Streep as
- host. (The series is being repeated in weekly hour-long segments
- on Thursday evenings.)
-
- WHEN YOU REMEMBER ME (ABC, Oct. 7, 9 p.m. EDT). A youngster
- with muscular dystrophy battles against "inhumane" treatment in
- nursing homes. Fred Savage (The Wonder Years) stars in this
- junior-varsity version of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
-
- THEATER
-
- MICHAEL FEINSTEIN. Songs from Broadway musicals may never
- again top the pop charts, but no other artist around understands
- better why they used to. Articulate in what he says and
- emotionally evocative in what he sings, Feinstein returns to
- Broadway for a four-week solo engagement.
-
- CLASSICS IN CONTEXT. Among the most novel programs by any
- U.S. regional troupe is the annual mini-festival in which Actors
- Theater of Louisville focuses on some slice of the (typically
- European) past. This year's theme, Italian traditions in tragedy
- and comedy, embraces not only plays but also opera, ballet,
- symphony concerts, art exhibits and more. Through Oct. 29.
-
- ART
-
- RECKONING WITH WINSLOW HOMER: HIS LATE PAINTINGS AND THEIR
- INFLUENCE, Cleveland Museum of Art. Often considered an isolated
- original, Homer is here seen as a figure of continuity. Fifteen
- of his views of the Maine coast are hung alongside 44 works by
- painters on whom he left his mark -- among them John Sloan,
- Edward Hopper and John Marin. Through Nov. 18.
-
- KAZIMIR MALEVICH, 1878-1935, National Gallery of Art,
- Washington. The biggest U.S. retrospective yet of a brilliant,
- protean member of the Russian avant-garde, too long shrouded in
- Soviet ideological disfavor. Through Nov. 4.
-
- ET CETERA
-
- THE CLASSICAL DANCE COMPANY OF CAMBODIA. The ancient arts
- of Cambodian dance and music, all but annihilated by the Khmer
- Rouge, are preserved in these graceful, vivid performances. At
- New York City's Joyce Theater, Oct. 9-14.
-
- TEXAS STATE FAIR, Dallas. Grab your 10-gallon hat for the
- largest (1989 attendance: 3.5 million) and splashiest state fair
- in the U.S. Texas-scale events include laser shows, pig races,
- college football in the Cotton Bowl and the entire touring
- company of the musical Cats. Through Oct. 21.
-
- TREASURES OF ETON COLLEGE LIBRARY: 550 YEARS OF COLLECTING,
- the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City. For the first time
- in the U.S., books, manuscripts, drawings and objects from the
- famous college (prep school, to Americans) that has been molding
- the English elite since 1440. Among the choice displays: the
- holograph of Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751), by
- onetime Eton schoolboy Thomas Gray. Through Nov. 25.
-
- LIST-O-MANIA
-
- THE LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN BOOK OF TOP TEN LISTS
- (Pocket Books; $8.95). Ever since they were introduced in 1985,
- Letterman's nightly Top 10 lists have been his show's most
- reliable laugh getters, a shrewd mix of topical satire and
- frat-house nuttiness. Recycled in book form, they are just as
- funny to read. Here again are Jim Bakker's Top 10 Pickup Lines
- ("Pray here often?"; "Your eyes are the same color as my leisure
- suit"), Princess Diana's Top 10 Complaints about Prince Charles
- (always calls Pizza Hut before we've decided on topping we want;
- that phony British accent), and the Top 10 Least Popular
- Attractions at Disney World (Oprah Mountain; Peter Pan's
- All-Male Cinema; Muggyland). For connoisseurs, there's the very
- first list (Top 10 Words That Almost Rhyme with Peas); for
- doubters, a list on the back cover explaining the Top 10 Reasons
- to Buy This Book (No. 5: you're mentioned on page 43). Maybe not
- the funniest book ever written, but certainly in the Top 10.
-
-
- By TIME's Reviewers. Compiled by Andrea Sachs.
-
-
-