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- <text id=89TT0449>
- <title>
- Feb. 13, 1989: Critics' Choice
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 13, 1989 James Baker:The Velvet Hammer
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- CRITICS' CHOICE, Page 25
- </hdr><body>
- <p>THEATER
- </p>
- <p> THE TAFFETAS. Goofy and winsome and ever so tuneful, this
- off-Broadway spoof biography of a fictional '50s girl group is
- superbly arranged and sung.
- </p>
- <p> BLACK AND BLUE. Three great singers, two dozen top dancers,
- 28 bluesy numbers and a zillion sequins add up to Broadway's
- hot new musical revue.
- </p>
- <p> DARKSIDE. Stars twinkle all around, and the big blue marble
- of earth eerily arises in a set designer's triumph in this
- haunting new play about astronauts on the moon, at Denver
- Center Theater Company.
- </p>
- <p>MOVIES
- </p>
- <p> 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. Military strategy was never
- so movie-compelling. Sand was never so sexy.
- </p>
- <p> WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. Strange people
- and situations pile into a Madrid penthouse until the place
- looks like the stateroom in A Night at the Opera. Carmen Maura
- is the put-upon heroine in this glossy farce by Spain's naughty
- new auteur Pedro Almodovar.
- </p>
- <p> THE JANUARY MAN. Not a conventional whodunit. The mysteries
- in this spitball comedy are matters of the eccentric heart: How
- will a New York City fireman (Kevin Kline) win back his
- ex-girlfriend (Susan Sarandon) or find accommodating love with
- the mayor's daughter (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio)? John
- Patrick Shanley, whose luminous script for Moonstruck won an
- Oscar, scores again here.
- </p>
- <p>ART
- </p>
- <p> CEZANNE: THE EARLY YEARS, 1859-1872, National Gallery of
- Art, Washington. The least-known period of one of the best-known
- painters: his restless 20s and early 30s, when he disciplined
- his huge talent. Through April 30.
- </p>
- <p> GOYA AND THE SPIRIT OF ENLIGHTENMENT, Museum of Fine Arts,
- Boston. This superb show rescues the Spanish master from the
- romantic shadows of the Goyaesque and presents him as a man
- immersed in the liberal currents of his time. Through March 26.
- </p>
- <p> WALKER EVANS: AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHS, Museum of Modern Art,
- New York City. These spare, poetic images from the Depression
- era gave American photography a candid new spirit and a lasting
- legacy. Through April 11.
- </p>
- <p>BOOKS
- </p>
- <p> CAT'S EYE by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday; $18.95). A
- middle-age painter is lured back to Toronto, where she grew up,
- by a retrospective showing of her works, and falls into a
- quirky, brilliant meditation on childhood as seen from the
- middle distance.
- </p>
- <p> THIS BOY'S LIFE by Tobias Wolff (Atlantic Monthly Press;
- $18.95). This memoir by a highly praised author in his early 40s
- evokes the bizarre details of his upbringing, dwelling not on
- hardships but on the promise of awakening every morning in a
- vast land where people are prepared to forget the past and
- believe anything.
- </p>
- <p>TELEVISION
- </p>
- <p> ASK ME AGAIN (PBS, Feb. 8, 9 p.m. on most stations). A boy
- and girl cope with some aggressive parental matchmaking in this
- American Playhouse comedy, scripted by Broadway newcomer
- (Eastern Standard) Richard Greenberg.
- </p>
- <p> TALKING HEADS: BED AMONG THE LENTILS (PBS, Feb. 12, 9 p.m.
- on most stations). Maggie Smith holds the stage for nearly an
- hour, portraying a vicar's frustrated wife in a monologue
- written and directed by Alan Bennett.
- </p>
- <p> HIJACKING OF THE ACHILLE LAURO (NBC, Feb. 13, 9 p.m. EST).
- The docudrama mill churns on, this time reprising the 1985
- terrorist attack that resulted in Leon Klinghoffer's murder.
- Karl Malden, Lee Grant and E.G. Marshall head a sturdy cast.
- </p>
- <p>MUSIC
- </p>
- <p> THE LILAC TIME: THE LILAC TIME (Mercury). Bouncy,
- folk-tinged Brit pop, with jagged political subtext. Return to
- Yesterday has the jubilant rhythm and incidental melancholy of
- prime Simon and Garfunkel.
- </p>
- <p> JASCHA HEIFETZ: THE DECCA MASTERS, VOL. 2 (MCA Classics).
- Jascha plays Gershwin! And Stephen Foster! And Irving Berlin!
- The greatest violinist who ever lived, in dazzling arrangements
- of It Ain't Necessarily So, Old Folks at Home and White
- Christmas, among other American bonbons. Those were the days.
- </p>
- <p> BANGLES: EVERYTHING (Columbia). Cool sex and hot rhythm from
- four women rockers. Crash and Burn tells the story: funny,
- flinty and slick enough to slide into your heart like a knife.
- </p>
- <p> MILT JACKSON: BEBOP (East-West). The Modern Jazz Quartet's
- eminent vibes man dives deep into the bop era, working fresh
- wonders on eight vintage tunes, mostly by Dizzy Gillespie and
- Charlie Parker. If Bird lives in Clint Eastwood's recent film
- biography, he gets a neat new lease on life here.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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