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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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040389
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04038900.045
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1990-09-22
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CRITICS' CHOICE, Page 13
MUSIC
ELVIS COSTELLO: SPIKE (Warner Bros.). God's Comic, Stalin
Malone, Miss Macbeth: even the titles sting. The songs are like an
acid bath; no quarter given or expected.
ROY ORBISON: MYSTERY GIRL (Virgin). This was g-oing to be
Orbison's first original solo album in ten years; it turned out to
be his farewell. A little slick, but at least one tune, She's a
Mystery to Me (produced by U2's Bono), is the perfect valedictory.
THE AMHERST SAXOPHONE QUARTET: BACH ON SAX (MCA Classics).
Purists, beware! Your prejudice against unorthodox instrumentation
could be shattered by this surprising set of Bach adaptations that
has nothing gimmicky about it but the concept.
ANDRES SEGOVIA: FIVE CENTURIES OF THE SPANISH GUITAR (MCA
Classics). The master as you have never before heard him: 26
digitally reissued performances, from 1952 to 1968, drawn from the
works of ten Spanish composers.
RADIO
THE BECKETT FESTIVAL OF RADIO PLAYS (NPR, debuting April 2).
Radio drama, alas, has largely gone the way of the gramophone. But
National Public Radio is doing its bit this month to revive it with
the U.S. premiere of five plays written for the medium by Samuel
Beckett. Billie Whitelaw and David Warrilow star in the opener, All
That Fall, about an aging woman meeting her blind husband at a
railroad station. Following it, on successive Sunday nights:
Embers, Words and Music, Cascando and Rough for Radio II.
MOVIES
HIGH HOPES. A dotty old woman fights to keep her home amid the
crush of gentrification. Working with a cast that has helped
improvise its roles, British director Mike Leigh creates a group
portrait of characters who live and breathe and squawk their
wayward humanity on the margins of Margaret Thatcher's England.
ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN. Lovers waltz in midair, a
servant (Eric Idle) outruns a speeding bullet and the King of the
Moon (Robin Williams) literally loses his head in this
wonder-filled fantasy from Terry Gilliam, late of Brazil.
NEW YORK STORIES. In this trio of vignettes, Francis Coppola
belly flops with his tale about New York City rich kids. But two
out of three ain't bad: Martin Scorsese's crafty sketch of a
downtown painter and Woody Allen's comedy about the ultimate Jewish
mother.
BOOKS
THE JOY LUCK CLUB by Amy Tan (Putnam; $18.95). A bright,
sharp-flavored first novel on growing up ethnic in the U.S. The
topic sounds familiar, but the Chinese spice added to this old
recipe is invigorating and refreshingly true.
FIRE DOWN BELOW by William Golding (Farrar, Straus & Giroux;
$17.95). The last leaf of a trilogy begun back in 1980. An
arrogant, young 19th century Englishman survives seaborne hardships
to arrive in Australia -- and at some condition of self-knowledge.
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS by John Updike (Knopf; $18.95). A wry,
haunting memoir by an author who decided while young that the
printed word would disguise his flaws, only to learn that success
leaves one painfully exposed.
THEATER
CAFE CROWN. This revival is not much of a play, but Anne
Jackson, Eli Wallach and Bob Dishy head a splendid cast that
adroitly and affectionately recalls the Manhattan heyday of Jewish
theater.
THE HEIDI CHRONICLES. Joan Allen's poignant playing turns
writer Wendy Wasserstein's feminist cliches into a touching glimpse
of baby boomers grown older if not wiser.
ART
LIKE A ONE-EYED CAT: PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEE FRIEDLANDER 1956-1987,
Seattle Art Museum. Surprising perspectives on everyday images --
street scenes, jazz musicians, empty motel rooms, public monuments
-- by a modern American master. Through May 7.
TREASURES FROM THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, National Gallery of Art,
Washington. Highlights of the collection built up by British
connoisseurs over two centuries at Cambridge University's
Fitzwilliam, including paintings by Titian, Rubens and Delacroix,
manuscripts, ceramics, sculpture and decorative arts. Through June
18.
GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.
Underappreciated in the modern era, Reni is restored in this
choice, 50-painting show to the high rank earlier centuries
accorded him as luminous colorist and elegant classical stylist.
Through May 14.
RICHARD DIEBENKORN: WORKS ON PAPER, Los Angeles County Museum
of Art. Some 180 works -- more than one-third of them never before
publicly exhibited -- by a contemporary master in his first
comprehensive show of drawings. Through May 7.