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- <text id=89TT1675>
- <title>
- June 26, 1989: Critics' Choice
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- June 26, 1989 Kevin Costner:The New American Hero
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- CRITICS' CHOICE, Page 15
- </hdr><body>
- <p>ART
- </p>
- <p> HELEN FRANKENTHALER: A PAINTINGS RETROSPECTIVE, Museum of
- Modern Art, New York City. In the '50s, Frankenthaler's lyrical
- washes of color had a decisive influence on abstract expressionism;
- today she ranks as America's best-known living woman artist. These
- 40 canvases from four decades show why. Through Aug. 20.
- </p>
- <p> L'ART DE VIVRE: DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN IN FRANCE,
- 1789-1989, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York City. Jewelry
- commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, cutlery from Maxim's, art
- nouveau furniture and haute couture gowns are among 500 objects
- displayed in glittering tribute to France's bicentennial. Through
- July 16.
- </p>
- <p>BOOKS
- </p>
- <p> THE GOOD TIMES by Russell Baker (Morrow; $19.95). What
- propelled Baker from the childhood he so memorably described in
- Growing Up (1982) to his present distinction as a columnist for the
- New York Times? Here is the answer, in a winsome memoir of his
- early newspapering days, including big-league stints in London and
- Washington.
- </p>
- <p> THE LIFE OF GRAHAM GREENE, VOL. 1: 1904-1939 by Norman Sherry
- (Viking; $29.95). Greene may be the most elusive big fish still
- swimming in the shrinking pond of English letters, but this
- fascinating, obsessively detailed biography hooks him solidly.
- Hardly a question about the author goes unanswered, and Greene's
- best years, those of The Power and the Glory and The End of the
- Affair, are yet to come.
- </p>
- <p> MY SECRET HISTORY by Paul Theroux (Putnam; $21.95). Theroux
- has grown famous writing both novels and travel books. Now he
- produces an entertaining fiction about a man who does both, a
- teasingly autobiographical portrait of the artist as a young stud.
- </p>
- <p>MUSIC
- </p>
- <p> CLINT BLACK: KILLIN' TIME (RCA). Real nice, unassuming,
- go-to-meeting country music, by a new Nashville hotshot. Black
- sounds like Randy Travis with a few more years of book learning,
- and he's got a knack for cozy melodies too.
- </p>
- <p> DR. JOHN: IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD (Warner Bros.). When jazz meets
- up with rhythm and blues, it's usually less a shoot-out than a
- sellout: one or the other gets sold short. Dr. John, a surgical
- master at the piano and a good, gruff vocalizer, is one physician
- with a solid prescription to do both styles right -- and proud.
- </p>
- <p> 10,000 MANIACS: BLIND MAN'S ZOO (Elektra). Love songs like
- petitions, songs of conscience that come straight from the heart.
- This is a band with folkie inclinations, rock grit and a graceful
- way with a cry of pain. Poison in the Well, an unfortunately timely
- tune about environmental pollution, ought to be piped into the
- Exxon boardroom.
- </p>
- <p>THEATER
- </p>
- <p> CYMBELINE. A mildly punkish off-Broadway version of
- Shakespeare's odd tragedy stars Oscar nominee Joan Cusack (Working
- Girl) as a wife wrongly accused of infidelity.
- </p>
- <p> THE LISBON TRAVIATA. Terrence McNally's homosexual tragicomedy
- features opera, violence and a terrific cast of off-Broadway
- veterans.
- </p>
- <p> ON THE TOWN. Washington's Arena Stage gives a fizzy revival to
- the whole of the classic musical that is exuberantly excerpted in
- Jerome Robbins' Broadway.
- </p>
- <p>TELEVISION
- </p>
- <p> RACHEL RIVER (PBS, June 21, 9 p.m. on most stations). Pamela
- Reed (Tanner '88) and Craig T. Nelson (Call to Glory) are featured
- in this brooding American Playhouse drama about small-town
- Minnesota.
- </p>
- <p> TRAVELING MAN (HBO, June 25, 9 p.m. EDT). A soul-searching
- veteran salesman (John Lithgow) learns some painful lessons from
- a back-stabbing newcomer in a comedy-drama directed by Irvin
- Kershner (The Flim-Flam Man).
- </p>
- <p> BROADWAY'S DREAMERS: THE LEGACY OF THE GROUP THEATER (PBS, June
- 26, 9 p.m. on most stations). American Masters launches its fourth
- season with a chronicle of the innovative 1930s company that
- introduced method acting to the U.S. and forever changed American
- theater.
- </p>
- <p>MOVIES
- </p>
- <p> DEAD POETS SOCIETY. Robin Williams is a Mr. Chips with a
- mission: to inspire his '50s prep school students with reckless
- passion. Like director Peter Weir, Williams is dead serious this
- time, donating his celebrity to an imperfect but valuable
- adolescent drama.
- </p>
- <p> SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS. Not much
- class, but plenty of struggle at the Lipkin mansion, where
- everybody upstairs sleeps with everybody downstairs. The setting
- is swank, the appetites gross in director Paul Bartel's clever
- comedy of sexual manners.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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