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- <text id=89TT2531>
- <title>
- Sep. 25, 1989: Critics' Voices
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Sep. 25, 1989 Boardwalk Of Broken Dreams
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- CRITICS' VOICES, Page 1
- </hdr><body>
- <p>MUSIC
- </p>
- <p> HECTOR BERLIOZ: SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE (Angel/EMI). Lean,
- brisk and idiomatic: Roger Norrington leads the London Classical
- Players in Berlioz's virtuoso ear grabber.
- </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 a cozy way with a melody.
- </p>
- <p> BOB DYLAN: OH MERCY (Columbia). He started the decade with
- a great album (1981's Shot of Love), and closes it with another.
- The record is structured like an intimate revival meeting
- between Dylan and listener: there are messages of devotion and
- political sermons; parables of the spirit and love songs; and,
- in Shooting Star, a luminous benediction. Dylan continues to
- make heavy demands -- these ten songs are the most intensely
- introspective work anyone has done in rock this year -- but asks
- only what he brings from himself: some reckless imagination, a
- sense of playful mystery and a full measure of passion.
- </p>
- <p>BOOKS
- </p>
- <p> JERUSALEM: CITY OF MIRRORS by Amos Elon (Little, Brown;
- $19.95). "Where there is so much destructive memory, a little
- forgetfulness may be in order," concludes one of Israel's
- best-known writers in this anecdotal history chronicling 4,000
- years of trouble in his hometown.
- </p>
- <p> AMONG SCHOOLCHILDREN by Tracy Kidder (Houghton Mifflin;
- $19.95). In this close-up view of a typical fifth-grade class,
- the Pulitzer-prizewinning author portrays living, breathing
- children, often overwhelmed by homegrown problems, and an
- outstanding teacher who scores an A for dedication.
- </p>
- <p> LORD BYRON'S DOCTOR by Paul West (Doubleday; $19.95). A
- tour de force about the cruelty of genius, starring Lord Byron,
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary (author of Frankenstein) and
- the narrator, an indiscreet physician.
- </p>
- <p>TELEVISION
- </p>
- <p> SATURDAY NIGHT WITH CONNIE CHUNG (CBS, Sept. 23, 10 p.m.
- EDT). CBS's long-struggling magazine show, West 57th, has
- re-emerged with a new name and a new star as host and chief
- correspondent. One added element certain to cause a stir:
- dramatized re-creations of news events.
- </p>
- <p> THE PREPPIE MURDER (ABC, Sept. 24, 9 p.m. EDT). The tabloid
- shows had a field day with it. Now the case of Jennifer Levin
- -- the New York City teenager killed during a session of "rough
- sex" in Central Park -- is rehashed as a TV movie.
- </p>
- <p> SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: 15TH ANNIVERSARY (NBC, Sept. 24, 9
- p.m. EDT). Still crazy -- or at least trying to be -- after all
- these years, the once groundbreaking comedy show waxes nostalgic
- in a prime-time special.
- </p>
- <p>ART
- </p>
- <p> PICASSO AND BRAQUE: PIONEERING CUBISM, Museum of Modern
- Art, New York City. The title tells all: two giants, and the
- origins of a style that shook -- and shaped -- the rest of the
- century. Through Jan. 16.
- </p>
- <p> CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS: CULTURES OF SIBERIA AND ALASKA,
- Seattle Center Pavilion. Art and artifacts by native peoples on
- both sides of the Bering Strait, assembled jointly by the U.S.
- and the Soviet Union. Through Oct. 15.
- </p>
- <p>MOVIES
- </p>
- <p> A DRY WHITE SEASON. A white liberal turns radical after
- confronting the brutality of South African racism. Hard-edged
- drama that couples the pulse of popular fiction with the jolt
- of moral outrage.
- </p>
- <p> THE ADVENTURES OF MILO AND OTIS. Milo is a barnyard kitten
- and Otis his dogged friend in this live-action children's film
- narrated by Dudley Moore. If cute were still a word of approval,
- Masanori Hata's charming parable would earn it.
- </p>
- <p> WIRED. The saddest thing about John Belushi's death might
- be this grotesque requiem.
- </p>
- <p>THEATER
- </p>
- <p> THE COCKTAIL HOUR. Nancy Marchand's sozzled, sardonic
- portrayal of a grande dame enriches A.R. Gurney's Wasp family
- tale at Washington's Kennedy Center.
- </p>
- <p> SWEENEY TODD. Stephen Sondheim's unlikeliest musical, a
- sympathetic look at a murderous barber and the woman who
- recycles his victims as meat pies, returns to Broadway in a
- shrewdly staged chamber version.
- </p>
- <p> THE LADY IN QUESTION. Just what is the pleasure of a drag
- show? If the leading "lady" is unconvincing, it's gross. If he's
- too convincing, there's no coy guessing game. And if he's just
- campy enough, the joke is over in five minutes. Alas, this
- off-Broadway farce lasts two hours.
- </p>
- <p> THE GEOGRAPHY OF LUCK. The drifters and hustlers in Marlane
- Meyer's desert panorama mingle the doomed banality of Sam
- Shepard characters with the quixotic blessings of William
- Saroyan's The Time of Your Life. At the Los Angeles Theater
- Center.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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