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To Do: Week of September 10-24, 2014

Twenty-five things to see, hear, watch, and read.


TV
1. Watch On the Run Tour: Beyoncé and Jay Z
In your casa.
Watch them not-divorce in high-def!
HBO. September 20.

Art
2. See Composing With Color: Paintings 1962–1963
Helen Frankenthaler, out on her own.
Helen Frankenthaler was hardly the only woman in the AbEx inner circle, but she was one of very few who had the respect of (most of) the macho boys in that crowd—even as she moved on to her pathbreaking deep-soaked stain paintings, and then the harder-edged forms you’ll see in this show.
Gagosian, 980 Madison Avenue, through October 18.

Classical Music
3. & 4. Hear the New York Philharmonic and Then Eighth Blackbird
Retro Italian music, followed by really retro Italian music.
The New York Philharmonic, always struggling to be at once modern and museumlike, opens its season with the perfect retro crowd-pleaser: a tribute to Italian film scores. With the help of Josh Groban, Renée Fleming, and Joshua Bell, the orchestra will strike up weepy passages from 8½, La Dolce Vita, and Cinema Paradiso, plus some cinematic opera passages. And then, the very next night, the indomitable chamber troupe Eighth Blackbird stirs 17th-century madrigals and Italian street theater together with fresh compositions and avant-garde stage antics in a program called “Heart & Breath.” —Justin Davidson
Avery Fisher Hall, September 16 and 17; Miller Theatre, September 18.

Dance
5. See Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
No looking glass necessary.
Christopher Wheeldon’s inventive mind comes out to play in this (very British, fantastical) staging of Lewis Carroll. —Rebecca Milzoff
David H. Koch Theater, through September 14.

Theater Onscreen
6. Watch A Streetcar Named Desire
Stellaaaaar!
Gillian Anderson has long since remade herself as a lady of the London stage; now (the West End reviews tell us) she’s a spectacular and feisty Blanche. Judge for yourself when National Theater Live broadcasts the Young Vic’s production. —Jesse Green
At BAM, Kips Bay 15 Cinema, and other venues (see ntlive.com for details) on September 16.

Movies
7. See 50 Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take?
Mucho mondo trasho.
In interviews, John Waters never ceases to marvel that films for which he was once arrested today play in museums. What the hell, they’re always worth enduring for pointedly wretched aesthetics and the presence of Divine, the late, great 400-pound transvestite who once represented everything that Middle America was afraid of. Actually, there is one masterwork, Female Trouble (September 10), the summation of his defiance. Waters will present the early films Mondo Trasho and Multiple Maniacs on September 11, along with one of my favorites, the unforgivably insensitive ten-minute short The ­Diane Linkletter Story.—David Edelstein
Film Society of Lincoln Center, through September 14; details at filmlinc.org.

TV
8. Watch The Mindy Project
After the big finish, the return.
Mindy and Danny finally got together in last year’s finale, with a scene right out of the Rom-Com Hall of Fame. Fingers crossed that the show isn’t going down the They Did It sinkhole.
Fox, premiering September 16.

Art
9. See Men in Armor: El Greco and Pulzone Face to Face
Just two paintings. Spend all day.
An amazing two-painting face-off between the inimitable Spanish mystic-master and his then-more-famous Italian contemporary Scipione Pulzone. (It’s also an amuse-bouche for the Met’s big show in the fall and the Frick’s smaller companion exhibition.) Here, El Greco’s world-changing lusciousness, daringly physical brushwork, and ­zeroed-in vision are pitted against fussy portraiture and verisimilar detailing. El Greco shunned the taste of the time in order to change that taste, and you can feel brilliant for seeing that shift take place right here. I did. —Jerry Saltz
Frick Collection, through October 26.

Movies
10. See Also Like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien
Not for home video.
Taiwanese New Wave auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien is a fave of pointy-heads, but he’s worth your time—and time is his métier. MMI is devoting a month to the 17 features he’s directed, best appreciated—given their long takes, static camera, and layered compositions—on the big screen. Look out especially for A Time to Live and a Time to Die as well as Edward Yang’s Taipei Story, which Hou co-wrote.—D.E.
Museum of the Moving Image, September 12 through October 17.

Video
11. See Grounded Pilots
Where they’ve landed.
The woes of pilot season are old news: to wit, this marathon of coulda-been gems from the ’60s and ’70s. Imagine the possibilities of Maggie Brown, starring Ethel Merman as a widowed, singing saloon owner; The Carol Channing Show, produced by Desi Arnaz in the mold of Lucy’s; and The Laughmakers, a Woody Allen script set at a Village club called—yes—the Freudian Slip.
Paley Center for Media; September 13 and 14.

TV
12. Watch Z Nation
It has brains, brains.
We direct-to-video action fans know all about John Hyams, whose Universal Soldier sequels added David Lynch art-house creepiness to the usual mix of sci-fi adventure and chop-socky gunplay. Hyams directed the pilot to this unheralded series about a group of heroes transporting the only survivor of a zombie plague. It’s got a fine air of menace, a nice cast of character actors, and a lot more visual intelligence than you expect from a scene-setting premiere. —Matt Zoller Seitz
Syfy, premiering September 12, 10 p.m.

Pop Music
13. Listen to Tyranny
Of the majority.
You just know that Julian Casablancas’s album with his new band, the Voidz, will be clobbered by critics. You probably want to hear it anyway.
Cult Records, September 23.