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- <text id=90TT3059>
- <title>
- Nov. 12, 1990: Critics' Voices
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Nov. 12, 1990 Ready For War
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- CRITICS VOICES, Page 22
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> ART
- </p>
- <p> VICTOR PASMORE: NATURE INTO ART, Center for International
- Contemporary Arts, New York City. A small retrospective of one
- of Britain's leading Modernist painters, designers, teachers and
- theorists. Nov. 9 through Feb. 17.
- </p>
- <p> REVELACIONES: THE ART OF MANUEL ALVAREZ BRAVO, Friends of
- Photography Museum, San Francisco. In Bravo's great photos, a
- modern eye schooled in Surrealism meets a timeless place soaked
- in the myths of church, folklore and revolution. Yet this
- uncanny locale is still recognizable as the harsh and tender
- world of Mexico. Now this is magical realism. Through Dec. 30.
- </p>
- <p> BOOKS
- </p>
- <p> IN PRAISE OF THE STEPMOTHER by Mario Vargas Llosa (Farrar,
- Straus & Giroux; $18.95). The loser of Peru's presidential
- election returns to his typewriter with a sexy novel that proves
- the brain is also an erogenous zone.
- </p>
- <p> BUFFALO GIRLS by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster; $19.95).
- Calamity Jane joins Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in
- another wistful novel by an author who, almost single-handedly,
- keeps the legendary West alive in an age of revisionist
- historians.
- </p>
- <p> MOVIES
- </p>
- <p> THE NASTY GIRL. A Bavarian schoolgirl starts poking into her
- hometown's Nazi past and becomes the local scourge. Michael
- Verhoeven turns social satire into exhilarating comedy. And Lena
- Stolze is a perky paradigm for young Germans unafraid of old
- demons.
- </p>
- <p> THE KRAYS. The sun set on the British Empire, and the vermin
- came out to play. In the 1960s these Cockney twins ruled the
- London underworld with silken sadism. Peter Medak's docudrama
- underscores the mom-obsessed brutality of the Krays.
- </p>
- <p> TUNE IN TOMORROW. Like the soap operas it parodies, this
- broad comedy teases more than it delivers in its tale of a
- blowsy woman (Barbara Hershey), her avid nephew (Keanu Reeves)
- and a radio writer (Peter Falk) who loves mischief and hates
- Albanians. A savory score by Wynton Marsalis, though.
- </p>
- <p> MUSIC
- </p>
- <p> THE CALL: RED MOON (MCA). Mystical, mythic rock that stakes
- a strong claim in territory explored by the likes of the Band
- and Van Morrison. Wildly ambitious, the Call keeps well away
- from pretension with the unassuming vigor of its homespun
- rhythms.
- </p>
- <p> BRAHMS: SONATA NO. 3; INTERMEZZI, OP. 117 (Sony Classical).
- Emanuel Ax whittles Brahms' mightiest sonata down to size in a
- performance that combines majesty with might. Meanwhile, the
- mournful, enigmatic intermezzos of the composer's later years
- get tender, loving care.
- </p>
- <p> DEXTER GORDON: HOMECOMING--LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD
- (Columbia). Gordon's 1976 return to the U.S. after 14 years
- abroad produced a smashing live album. Now reissued with the
- latest batch of Columbia Jazz Masterpieces releases (other
- offerings include Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke
- Ellington and Dave Brubeck), this two-disk set features a
- throaty version of 'Round Midnight that ranks as one of the
- great tenor sax performances of all time.
- </p>
- <p> TELEVISION
- </p>
- <p> CHEERS (NBC, Nov. 8, 9 p.m. EST). While The Simpsons and
- Cosby try to clobber each other, this hardy perennial has
- quietly passed them both and grabbed the No. 1 ratings spot.
- Tonight the barroom gang marks its 200th episode with an
- hour-long special featuring talk-show host John McLaughlin.
- </p>
- <p> PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING (Showtime, Nov. 10 and 16, 9 p.m.
- EST). What was Norman Bates like as a child? Mother troubles,
- we suspect. Anthony Perkins is back in his most famous role, and
- Henry Thomas (E.T.) plays the young Norman in flashbacks.
- </p>
- <p> BIG ONE: THE GREAT LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE (NBC, Nov. 11 and
- 12, 9 p.m. EST). See a big American city reduced to rubble! See
- a sexy seismologist (Joanna Kerns) warn people of the impending
- disaster! See a major TV network stretch a hokey disaster movie
- into two boring nights!
- </p>
- <p> THEATER
- </p>
- <p> ABUNDANCE. Beth Henley (Crimes of the Heart) switches from
- Southern Gothic to Old West revisionism in this off-Broadway
- portrait of desperate mail-order brides and lonely plainsmen who
- seek them, starring Amanda Plummer, Tess Harper and Keith
- Reddin. Behind the stoic pioneer myth lay pain, privation and
- poverty.
- </p>
- <p> SHADOWLANDS. Late in life, the confirmed bachelor C.S.
- Lewis, author of The Screwtape Letters and the fantasy classics
- The Chronicles of Narnia, found love with American poet Joy
- Davidman. Then sadness struck. Nigel Hawthorne and Jane
- Alexander repeat their London roles on Broadway in this poignant
- tale.
- </p>
- <p> TWO TRAINS RUNNING. The year is 1968, one of the most
- turbulent of the century, but outwardly nothing much goes on in
- the black luncheonette that is the setting for this beguiling,
- comic slice of life from Pulitzer prizewinner August Wilson
- (Fences, The Piano Lesson.) Yet the show at Boston's Huntington
- Theater is rich in symbol and metaphor--the author's subtlest,
- shrewdest reflection yet about how to overcome the bitter past.
- Through Nov. 25.
- </p>
- <p> A MASTERPIECE RESTORED
- </p>
- <p> A somber wedding party makes its way to the riverside, where
- suddenly the bride (Dita Parlo) hitches up her dress, perches
- on a barge boom and swings onto the boat for a honeymoon on the
- Seine. Thus begins Jean Vigo's 1934 French film L'Atalante,
- which ends when the groom (Jean Daste) finds his restless spouse
- at an arcade, lifts her up and carries her out over his
- shoulder. In between are scenes of sweet, surreal comedy that
- dazzle with gorgeous movie movement. Vigo was tubercular from
- youth and died at 29, just as his saucy masterpiece was being
- mauled by the producers. But his love of life and film informs
- every frame of L'Atalante. It is evident in the vibrant
- camerabatics, in Maurice Jaubert's haunting score and in the
- performance of grouchy, ursine Michel Simon, the living relic
- of a lifetime happily misspent at sea. Last year the French
- restored L'Atalante to its original form, even adding nine
- minutes of footage. Now American audiences can savor this sweet
- enthraller of a river romance in all its radiant glory.
- </p>
- <p>By TIME's Reviewers. Compiled by William Tynan.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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