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- CRITICS' CHOICE, Page 13
-
- TELEVISION
-
- OLLIE HOPNOODLE'S HAVEN OF BLISS (PBS, May 31, 9 p.m. on most
- stations). An all-American family takes an ill-starred vacation in
- this Jean Shepherd-scripted comedy on American Playhouse.
-
- TONY AWARDS (CBS, June 4, 9 p.m. EDT). Broadway scarcely
- generated enough musicals to fill out the nomination list this
- year, but that won't stop TV from paying its annual tribute to the
- Great (sort of) White Way.
-
- ART
-
- AMERICAN PAINTINGS FROM THE MANOOGIAN COLLECTION, National
- Gallery of Art, Washington. Never publicly exhibited before, this
- notable collection of 19th century works ranges from Hudson River
- landscapes to frontier genre scenes, from Sargent to Raphaelle
- Peale. June 4 through Sept. 4.
-
- INIGO JONES: COMPLETE ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS, Drawing Center,
- New York City. Designer, painter, mathematician, engineer and
- antiquarian, Jones (1573-1652) was the greatest royal architect
- England ever produced. This impeccable show reveals the technical
- and pictorial skill with which he led English architecture into a
- new, classically based grandeur and amplitude. Through July 22.
-
- 10 + 10: CONTEMPORARY SOVIET AND AMERICAN PAINTERS, Modern Art
- Museum of Fort Worth. A double first: an unprecedented joint
- showcase of younger artists (including Americans David Salle,
- Donald Sultan and Ross Bleckner) and the first exhibit ever
- organized to tour museums in both countries. Through Aug. 6.
-
- MUSIC
-
- DION: YO FRANKIE! (Arista). The Wanderer is his own bad self,
- back with a fine album full of romantic street toughness and
- hard-edged nostalgia. This Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has still
- got one of the greatest voices that ever wopped a do.
-
- CYNDI LAUPER: A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (Epic). It takes a while for
- her to find her pace, but when she hits Side 2, Lauper burns up the
- tracks. Warmhearted, rambunctious and (in the words of one
- memorable tune) winningly Insecurious.
-
- BILLIE HOLIDAY: THE QUINTESSENTIAL BILLIE HOLIDAY, VOL. 5
- (Columbia Jazz Masterpieces). Working with legendary producer John
- Hammond and pianist Teddy Wilson, Billie turned out some of her
- greatest hits in these 1937-38 sessions: He's Funny That Way, My
- Man, Nice Work If You Can Get It. All that and more on this
- outstanding digital reissue.
-
- THEATER
-
- GRANDMA MOSES. Cloris Leachman portrays the centenarian
- farmwife and primitivist painter in a one-woman tour, this week in
- Los Angeles.
-
- ELEEMOSYNARY. Playwright Lee Blessing (A Walk in the Woods)
- encapsulates feminism through three generations of strong-minded
- women in a deft, dark comedy transferred from off-Broadway to the
- Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C.
-
- MOVIES
-
- HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING. While plotting a sales
- campaign for a new pimple cream, a British ad exec develops a
- bizarre ailment: a boil on the neck that has a mouth of its own and
- talks back with a vengeance. With black humor and a weird,
- Kafkaesque sensibility, director Bruce Robinson delivers a biting
- satire of Thatcherite society.
-
- EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY. Three fellows new in town meet the women
- of their fevered dreams. Except the guys are off a spaceship, and
- they've landed in the San Fernando Valley. Geena Davis and Jeff
- Goldblum star in this fizzy, frizzy musical comedy.
-
- THE RAINBOW. Twenty years after cinematizing Women in Love,
- Ken Russell returns to the questing eroticism of D.H. Lawrence.
- Given a story worth telling and a heroine (Sammi Davis) worth
- caring about, Russell can still direct with passion and poise.
-
- BOOKS
-
- THE RUSSIA HOUSE by John le Carre (Knopf; $19.95). A document
- discounting Soviet missile capabilities is smuggled to the West.
- Never mind glasnost, perestroika and the cold war thaw. Are these
- grubby notebooks full of facts and figures true? The quest for the
- answer produces the author's most hair-raising thriller since The
- Spy Who Came In from the Cold.
-
- SUMMER OF '49 by David Halberstam (Morrow; $21.95). A quirky
- and informal account of the American League pennant race between
- the Red Sox and the Yankees deepens into a nostalgic memoir of a
- vanishing era, when people listened to the radio, traveled by train
- and went around the corner to see a movie.
-
- T.E. LAWRENCE: THE SELECTED LETTERS edited by Malcolm Brown
- (Norton; $27.50). The enigmatic hero of Lawrence of Arabia tells
- his own story in letters that illuminate the shadows of his
- personality.