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- <text id=89TT0587>
- <title>
- Feb. 27, 1989: Critics' Choice
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 27, 1989 The Ayatullah Orders A Hit
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- CRITICS' CHOICE, Page 1
- </hdr><body>
- <p>BOOKS
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie (Viking; $19.95).
- Charges of blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad have earned a
- death threat for Rushdie and international headlines for his
- book, an artfully written encyclopedic fiction about the
- explosive, often comic, meetings of East and West.
- </p>
- <p> THIS BOY'S LIFE by Tobias Wolff (Atlantic Monthly Press;
- $18.95). A vivid memoir of a bizarre 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>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>ART
- </p>
- <p> 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, for better or worse, the top of the pops.
- Through May 2.
- </p>
- <p> THE HUMAN FIGURE IN EARLY GREEK ART, the Art Institute of
- Chicago. Sixty-seven choice works from Greek museums trace the
- emerging lineaments not only of the classical style but also of a
- civilization's self-image. Through May 7.
- </p>
- <p> HISPANIC ART IN THE UNITED STATES: 30 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.
- </p>
- <p> VICTOR PASMORE, the Phillips Collection, Washington.
- Honoring his 80th birthday, a recap of the influential British
- painter's journey through realms of naturalism and abstraction.
- Through April 2.
- </p>
- <p>MUSIC
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </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> MOZART AND SCHNABEL, VOLS. 1-4 (Arabesque). The great Artur
- Schnabel in Mozart piano concertos and solo music, recorded in
- London between 1934 and 1948.
- </p>
- <p>THEATER
- </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> 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>TV
- </p>
- <p> THE GRAMMY AWARDS (CBS, Feb. 22, 8 p.m. EST). Bobby McFerrin
- and Tracy Chapman copped the most nominations; Billy Crystal
- will host the gala from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
- </p>
- <p> TIMELINE (PBS, debuting Feb. 22, 8:30 p.m. on most
- stations). The Crusades, the Mongol invasion of Europe and
- other hot stories of the Middle Ages are covered as TV news
- might do it today, sound bites and all, in this six-part series.
- </p>
- <p> GET SMART, AGAIN! (ABC, Feb. 26, 9 p.m. EST). Would you
- believe? The '60s spy take-off, starring Don Adams and Barbara
- Feldon as secret agents, is back as a TV movie. You would?
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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