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- CRITICS' VOICES, Page 14
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- ART
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- LE CORBUSIER: PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, GRAPHICS, Nahan
- Galleries, New York City. Yes, the great modern architect, who
- died in 1965, was also a painter. He kept this activity a
- secret for years, but in these 32 canvases and drawings and 52
- graphics, one can see why he regarded it as the "foundation"
- of his architecture. Through Dec. 26.
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- SIGMAR POLKE, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The first
- major North American survey of a restlessly eclectic German
- artist, 49, whose work ranges from Pop-related imagery through
- psychedelic fantasy. Polke's recent "alchemical" works
- incorporate materials (silver oxide, sealing wax, even rat
- poison) that change color and texture as climatic conditions
- vary. Through Jan. 13.
-
- LILLA CABOT PERRY: AN AMERICAN IMPRESSIONIST, the National
- Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington. Through her friendship
- with Monet, Perry (1848-1933), a wellborn Bostonian, wife and
- mother of three, became a pioneering exponent of Impressionism
- in the U.S. This handsome exhibition aims to restore her once
- eminent reputation. Through Jan. 6.
-
- TELEVISION
-
- ABORTION DENIED: SHATTERING YOUNG WOMEN'S LIVES (TBS, Dec.
- 7, 10:05 p.m. EST). Ted Turner, who has enraged
- antiabortionists before (he once called them "bozos"), courts
- another outcry with this pro-choice documentary focusing on the
- issue of parental consent.
-
- COLUMBO GOES TO COLLEGE (ABC, Dec. 9, 9 p.m. EST). Peter
- Falk, a new Best Actor Emmy on his mantel, returns as the
- rumpled cop.
-
- THE TRAGEDY OF FLIGHT 103: THE INSIDE STORY (HBO, Dec. 9,
- 9 p.m. EST). The events leading up to the Lockerbie crash are
- recounted in this docudrama, a co-production with Britain's
- Granada TV, which presents a strong indictment of the security
- precautions taken by Pan Am and the Federal Aviation
- Administration.
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- MUSIC
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- HOROWITZ: MUSSORGSKY/TCHAIKOVSKY (RCA Victor Gold Seal). A
- more breathtaking display of the piano's orchestral powers can
- hardly be imagined than Vladimir Horowitz's 1951 Carnegie Hall
- performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. He
- summons a galaxy of dynamics and colors from the instrument
- until, in the finale, he builds a mountain of gloriously
- controlled sound. The disk also includes Tchaikovsky's popular
- Concerto No. 1, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. A piano lover's
- dream.
-
- JANOS STARKER (Mercury Living Presence). Accompanied by
- Antal Dorati and the London Symphony Orchestra, the splendidly
- patrician Starker restores freshness to three warhorses:
- Dvorak's Cello Concerto, Bruch's Kol Nidrei and Tchaikovsky's
- Variations on a Rococo Theme. This is one of several remarkable
- recordings immaculately transferred from the Mercury Living
- Presence series (1951-68), which for sound quality remains
- unsurpassed.
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- THEATER
-
- FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. The years have only burnished the
- virtues (and rendered quaint the occasional silliness) of this
- portrait of Russian village life at the turn of the century.
- The Israeli actor Topol, who starred in the film, headlines a
- meticulously crafted and dazzlingly danced revival, on Broadway
- after a national tour.
-
- SHOGUN. You paid for the book, you sat through the
- mini-series, now applaud the costumes, scenery and special
- effects. Oh, yes, there's also a musical going on, but despite
- the efforts of an able (and authentically Asian) Broadway cast,
- the show remains as passive and emotionless as the unseen
- puppet Emperor.
-
- BOOKS
-
- VICTORIES by George V. Higgins (Henry Holt; $19.95).
- Higgins' dictum, "Dialogue is character is plot," could be no
- better illustrated than in his latest political novel, about
- a congressional election in Vermont during the 1960s, when the
- voters and candidates square off over the Vietnam War.
-
- VOICES IN THE MIRROR by Gordon Parks (Doubleday; $22.95).
- In this latest memoir, filmmaker-photographer Parks produces
- a fast narrative of a career that took him from playing the
- piano in Kansas brothels to the staff of LIFE, where, as the
- magazine's first black staff photographer, he distinguished
- himself with coverage of crime, poverty and the upheavals of
- the counterculture.
-
- MOVIES
-
- HOME ALONE. First you have to get past the preposterous
- premise and spurious sentiment. Then you can enjoy the comic
- spectacle of an eight-year-old (Macaulay Culkin) fighting off
- a pair of inept burglars (Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern) with the
- kind of sadistic inventiveness that used to enliven old Bugs
- Bunny cartoons. The final 20 minutes revive the almost lost art
- of fall-down-funny physical comedy.
-
- THE SHELTERING SKY. Bernardo Bertolucci has made a swank,
- sexy, bleak and very beautiful film from Paul Bowles' novel of
- a married couple on an existential quest for romantic
- catastrophe in North Africa. Debra Winger and John Malkovich
- powerfully portray the forlorn souls who languish under the
- desert's pitiless grandeur.
-
- VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS
-
- This month The Nutcracker will swirl into cities all around
- the country. Even the plainest staging will boast Tchaikovsky's
- rapturous score, the party scene's gentle lesson in golden-rule
- manners and, for little girls, the chance to dress up in winter
- finery. The New York City Ballet will have George Balanchine's
- exquisitely aristocratic Russian version (where dance
- aficionados often get their first chance to see new corps
- members perform solos). Across the river in Brooklyn, a new
- offshoot of the Bolshoi Ballet will show off its own simpler
- production. The Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle will feature
- Maurice Sendak's charming sets, and the Houston Ballet will
- move the family into a turn-of-the-century farmhouse and scale
- down their bourgeois comforts (presents will be homey food).
- Sleighs, as usual, will be the favorite transport, but a new
- conveyance is gaining favor: the Atlanta and Boston ballets and
- the Joffrey, in Iowa City and Los Angeles, are pumping up
- hot-air balloons for this year's fantasy trips through space.
-
-
- By TIME's Reviewers. Compiled by Andrea Sachs.
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