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- <text id=90TT1814>
- <title>
- July 09, 1990: Critics' Voices
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- July 09, 1990 Abortion's Most Wrenching Questions
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- CRITICS' VOICES, Page 10
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>MOVIES
- </p>
- <p> GREMLINS 2. Those anti-Muppets are back, terrorizing a
- Manhattan high-rise run by a zillionaire who blends all the
- worst tendencies of Donald Trump and Ted Turner. It's ingenious
- fun, but relentlessly noisy. After an hour or so, you may feel
- like a captive teacher at a kindergarten in hell.
- </p>
- <p> JESUS OF MONTREAL. An avant-garde theater troupe performs
- its own radical updating of the Passion play. Now, shouldn't
- a film with that story enrage a few conservative zealots? Alas,
- Denys Arcand's French-Canadian satire is so solemn that it is
- not worth patronizing--or even picketing.
- </p>
- <p> DICK TRACY. Forget the marketing campaign, which has blitzed
- everyone this side of Burkina Faso. Forget Warren Beatty's
- reputation as an indefatigable Don Juan. Just plunk down your
- money and enjoy a suave, splendid movie romance.
- </p>
- <p>ART
- </p>
- <p> MAURICE PRENDERGAST, Whitney Museum of American Art, New
- York City. Prendergast evolved from a sign painter to one of
- the pathfinders of post-impressionism in the U.S. This
- retrospective traces the full arc of his progress. Through
- Sept. 2.
- </p>
- <p> NICOLAS DE STAEL IN AMERICA, the Phillips Collection,
- Washington. A gathering of the brilliantly colored canvases
- that made the French-based De Stael a rising star in America
- until his suicide at 41 in 1955. Through Sept. 9.
- </p>
- <p> BLACK ART: ANCESTRAL LEGACY, High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
- The influence of an older, African culture shapes these
- paintings and sculptures by 20th century black artists in the
- U.S. and the Caribbean. Through Aug. 5.
- </p>
- <p>THEATER
- </p>
- <p> PRICE OF FAME. Movie star Charles Grodin headlines
- off-Broadway in his own play about a movie star being
- interviewed by a reporter (the beguiling Lizbeth Mackay) who
- he realizes is out to do him in. He returns the favor more
- literally in a glib, genial formula comedy.
- </p>
- <p> FOREVER PLAID. Even if you don't remember the bland, white,
- close-harmony boy pop groups, Ed Sullivan Show variety acts and
- '50s squeaky-cleanness being sent up in this off-Broadway
- review, the daffy humor and deft musicianship should prove
- charming.
- </p>
- <p> SHE ALWAYS SAID, PABLO. Frank Galati, winner of two Tony
- Awards in June as adapter and director of The Grapes of Wrath,
- performed the same tasks for this dizzyingly beautiful blend
- of imagery from Picasso's paintings, and poetry and music from
- the Gertrude Stein-Virgil Thomson Four Saints in Three Acts.
- Originally staged for the Goodman troupe in Chicago, it plays
- through July 22 at Washington's Kennedy Center.
- </p>
- <p>MUSIC
- </p>
- <p> THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: FLOOD (Elektra). When they're good,
- they're winningly whimsical and goofy. When they're off the
- mark (as in their current cover of the old novelty item
- Istanbul, Not Constantinople), you just want to lock these guys
- in their room so they can't come out and play.
- </p>
- <p> CHOPIN: PIANO CONCERTOS NOS. 1 & 2 (Sony Classical). Ably
- accompanied by Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, Murray
- Perahia shows a pianistic warmth, incisive brilliance and
- mastery of these pieces unrivaled since Rubinstein's heyday.
- </p>
- <p> PEGGY LEE: THE PEGGY LEE SONGBOOK (Musicmasters). Peggy Lee
- is an American icon. Her singing, no longer as seemingly
- effortless as it once was, now combines its sultry smokiness
- with the quality of having lived life with a capital L. These
- 13 songs, most co-written by Lee, have been beautifully
- recorded with a knockout team of studio musicians. Her fans
- should pounce.
- </p>
- <p>TELEVISION
- </p>
- <p> ON THE 4TH OF JULY WITH CHARLES KURALT (CBS, July 4, 10 p.m.
- EDT). CBS's road master celebrates the holiday with a
- collection of favorite vignettes of Americana.
- </p>
- <p> ALIVE FROM OFF CENTER (PBS, debuting July 5, 10 p.m. on most
- stations). A sixth summertime season of this series of offbeat
- video works gets under way with Postcards, Mark Rappaport's
- clever chronicle of a deteriorating romance as told through the
- couple's postcard correspondence.
- </p>
- <p> PIECE OF CAKE (PBS, debuting July 8, 9 p.m. on most
- stations). It's back to the Battle of Britain in a new six-part
- Masterpiece Theatre series about RAF flyers during the first
- year of World War II.
- </p>
- <p>ET CETERA
- </p>
- <p> NEW YORK CITY BALLET/SUMMER. Every year this fleet, elegant
- troupe packs its trunks and heads to Saratoga, N.Y., for an
- open-air season. Upcoming highlights include two fine new works
- by artistic director Peter Martins, Fearful Symmetries and Four
- Gnossiennes, and seven ballets from the Jerome Robbins
- Festival, a popular and critical hit in New York City. July
- 10-28.
- </p>
- <p>JAZZ
- </p>
- <p> THE COMPLETE BLUE NOTE RECORDINGS OF GEORGE LEWIS (Mosaic).
- Frail, soft-spoken and self-taught, clarinetist George Lewis
- seemed an unlikely candidate for stardom. While many other New
- Orleans-born musicians left town in the 1920s to seek fame and
- fortune in the North, Lewis stayed behind, playing parades,
- dances and club dates, and working as a stevedore to make ends
- meet. Yet a series of recordings he made in the early '40s
- helped spark a revival of interest in traditional New Orleans
- music and made Lewis a folk hero and model for hundreds of jazz
- clarinetists around the world, including Britain's Sammy
- Rimington, Butch Thompson (of Prairie Home Companion fame) and
- Woody Allen. This three-CD (or five-LP) set contains some of
- Lewis' greatest recorded work, much of it previously unissued,
- in a digital remastering that beautifully captures the
- relentless drive and haunting tone that were his trademarks.
- Mosaic Records, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Conn. 06902; phone
- (203) 327-7111.
- </p>
- <p>By TIME's Reviewers. Compiled by Andrea Sachs.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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