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(Photo: Patrick McMullan (Tinashe); Courtesy of Netflix (Pee Wee); Helen Maybanks (Hangmen); Wonge Bergmann (De Materie)) |
Pop
1. See Tinashe
And expect to hear hot new tracks.
We have Tinashe to thank for one of the best singles of 2014, the slinky, DJ Mustard–produced club jam “2 On.” Her vaporous vocals were a perfect fit for radio R&B’s move toward atmospheric production, as the songs on her aptly titled record Aquarius gave the impression they were liquefying before our very ears. Her next album, Joyride, is set for later this year; no doubt she’ll perform some of that material at this show. —Lindsay Zoladz
Webster Hall, March 12.
Movies
2. See A Brighter Summer Day
Four hours well spent.
Experience Taiwanese director Edward Yang’s expansive 1991 masterpiece on the big screen before its long-awaited Criterion Blu-ray release — especially since Yang (who died in 2007 at 59) has an Altman-like distaste for TV-friendly close-ups. It’s an intricate, intersecting, tragic saga of children left adrift who form street gangs for safety — complete with a movie-within-a-movie to add multiple, melancholic ironies. —David Edelstein
BAM Rose Cinemas, March 11 through 14.
TV
3. Watch And Then There Were None
Island intrigue!
Hothouse mystery queen Agatha Christie gets epic treatment in this two-part adaptation set in 1939 off England’s Devon coast. A group of strangers has been lured here, only to be offed one by one, and the cast is packed: Miranda Richardson, Charles Dance, Noah Taylor, Anna Maxwell Martin, Toby Stephens, and more. —Matt Zoller Seitz
Lifetime, March 13 at 8 p.m and March 14 at 9 p.m.
Art
5. See We Need to Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is
Glenn Ligon sounds an alarm.
Multiple screens illuminate a dark gallery with clips of Richard Pryor’s electric Live on the Sunset Strip. The crimson-colored suit and gorgeous hands dance, flitting from screen to screen, with no sound. We behold a man who recently set himself on fire, looks combustible in his anger and drive, and seems on the edge of a gravity that will pull him in and crush him alive. Silent White America is the invisible Kryptonite. —Jerry Saltz
Luhring Augustine Bushwick, through April 17.
TV
6. Watch American Crime
A stunning second season.
The fact that John Ridley’s anthology series is still so under the radar is the real crime; it covers sexual violence, gun violence, racism, classism, parenting, homophobia, and on and on, all with a sense of brutal normalcy and reality, and with a style that’s both deeply unsettling and artistically taut. —Margaret Lyons
ABC, Wednesdays at 10 p.m.
New Music
7. See De Materie
Making the most of the vast Drill Hall.
In the 1980s, the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen wrote a very loud chord. Then he repeated it, faster and faster … 144 times. That’s the high-minded punk introduction to his theatrical-orchestral extravaganza, which sweeps across much of Western-music history. The work gets its first U.S. staging by the composer and director Heiner Goebbels. —Justin Davidson
Park Avenue Armory, March 22 through 30.
Pop
8. Listen to Post Pop Depression
Iggy Pop won’t get you down.
I can’t help but hear David Bowie in “Gardenia,” the jauntily suave new single from his Berlin pal, Iggy Pop. But of course, there exists nobody on Earth quite like Iggy Pop, and his great new album is further proof. Collaborator Josh Homme’s barroom-brawl guitars blend seamlessly with Pop’s manic spoken-word preaching, especially during the closing number, “Paraguay.” —L.Z.
Loma Vista, March 18.
Art
11. See Nasreen Mohamedi
May she remain in the canon.
Revel in the work of a modern Indian woman artist few Westerners have heard of. Nasreen Mohamedi’s paintings, drawings, photographs — with their repetitive lines, serial structures, flat spaces opening to transcendental contemplation of pure pattern embedded in strong form — give us a new old master of Minimalism and post-Minimalism. —J.S.
Met Breuer, opens March 18.
Movies
12. Watch Short Term 12
Snapshot of a future star.
Brie Larson’s Oscar-winning turn in Room may have seemed like a shot out of the darkness, but she’d already delivered an award-worthy performance two years earlier. In this quietly heartbreaking film, Larson’s devastating portrayal of Grace — a young counselor at a kids’ group home who’s perhaps as lost as her young charges — is a study in delicacy and toughness, much like Room’s Ma.
On Amazon and iTunes.
TV
13. Watch Pee-wee’s Big Holiday
A loner and a rebel, on the road.
One of the more unexpected and welcome developments in pop culture has been the re-embrace of Pee-wee Herman creator Paul Reubens. His beloved character returns in this feature, in which Pee-wee decides to leave the small town of Fairville for his first-ever vacation (to New York City!), but gets carjacked. When our hero tries to finish his journey by a variety of transportation methods, the story basically turns into Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Pee-wee. —M.Z.S.
Netflix, March 18.
Books/Art
14. See Warhol by the Book
Judge him by his covers.
No soup cans here: instead, Andy’s lesser-known, but no less extensive, body of book work — drawings, screen prints, children’s books, rare dust jackets, among over 130 literary objects. Peep at imaginative illustrations of pink putty, smiling strawberries, witty scrawled captions, many pre-Pop art. If only he’d finished more books, the world might have known characters like Leroy, a Mexican jumping bean who longs for something more from life.
The Morgan Library & Museum, through May 15.
Opera
15. See Orlando
One of the best of the Baroque.
Handel’s sparkling opera, with its Roman-candle arias, love-mad warrior, and Arcadian wilderness, is always an exciting show. Conductor Harry Bicket has the score’s bright sun and midnight shadows at his fingertips, and he leads his own ensemble, the English Concert, with a cast featuring the superb countertenor Iestyn Davies and the irresistible Sasha Cooke. —J.D.
Carnegie Hall, March 13.
Theater
16. See Starting Here, Starting Now
It’ll be swell, it’ll be great!
Before Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire refocused their talents (Maltby as a director, Shire as a film composer), they wrote a bunch of stage musicals together that didn’t get produced. This terrific 1976 revue, which compiles the best of the songs from those shows, gets a brief return engagement thanks to the “Musicals in Mufti” series. —J.G.
York Theatre Co. at St. Peter’s, March 12 through 20.
Pop
17. Listen to Acid Rap
Get to know Chance the Rapper.
On Kanye West’s new The Life of Pablo, the 22-year-old Chicago MC Chance the Rapper steals the show with a virtuosic verse on “Ultralight Beam.” So if you’re unfamiliar with Chance, this is the perfect time to get acquainted, starting with his mixtape, which showcases his whipsmart wordplay and the warm, hard-won optimism with which he paints vivid pictures of his embattled hometown. —L.Z.
Self-released.
TV
18. Watch Recovery Road
Not the same old teen schlock.
Like its lead-in The Fosters, Recovery Road, based on a YA novel, is better than it has to be. Jessica Sula stars as a teen confronting her substance-abuse problems in a sober-living house. If it’s occasionally earnest, the savvy storytelling keeps it afloat. —M.L.
Freeform, Mondays at 9 p.m.
Art
19. See Open Plan
An 18,200-square-foot artists’ playground.
This bold, five-part cycle of exhibitions allows artists to do whatever they want with the whole fifth floor of the Whitney. First up, supersmart art provocateur Andrea Fraser, who works with audio recorded at a correctional facility; next, Lucy Dodd’s shamanic paintings and elixirs will be set up willy-nilly; then sculptor Michael Heizer; followed by genius pianist Cecil Taylor. A museum pushing this hard is beautiful to behold. —J.S.
Whitney Museum of American Art, through May 14 (for full schedule, go to whitney.org).
Classical Music
20. Hear Turangalîla-symphonie
Sound the drums.
Explosive, colorful, fierce, opulent, and reverent, Messiaen’s 75-minute masterpiece sounds as sublimely weird today as it did in 1948. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the New York Philharmonic, with pianist Yuja Wang and the orchestra’s SEAL-level percussion team. —J.D.
David Geffen Hall, March 10 through 12.
Movies
21. See New Directors/New Films
Emerging, excellent moviemakers.
Excitement is building for this annual festival, opening with breakout Sundance hit Under the Shadow, a “political horror story” in which a mother and daughter grapple with a malevolent spirit at the end of the Iran-Iraq War, and closing with Cameraperson, Kristen Johnson’s self-portrait of the artist as a battle-scarred globe-trotter. In between, Weiner — a documentary of Anthony’s misbegotten, borderline-absurdist run for mayor — sounds like a particularly special howl. —D.E.
Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA, March 16 through 27.
Art
22. See Life Is Elsewhere
Magical makings.
Since 2015, Annika Peterson has curated one fantastic, refreshing show after another; her latest showcases Swedish-born Carl Boutard, whose colorful paper-and-cardboard sculptures are whimsical in their references to cellular compositions.
Turn Gallery, through April 10.
Theater/Film
23. Watch Hangmen
Bring an arm to squeeze.
Surely a new London hit by Martin McDonagh will get here eventually. But if you can’t wait to see his macabre thriller about one of England’s last executioners, National Theatre Live gives you the chance to catch it in broadcast. —J.G.
Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, March 16.
Pop
24. See Dr. Dog and Hop Along
Get there early.
Dr. Dog has been one of Philly’s most consistent pop-rock bands, but the main event here is the opener, Hop Along. Frances Quinlan has one of the most powerful voices out there — as sweet as it is corrosive — and to hear it in a venue as large as T5 will be a rare treat. —L.Z.
Terminal 5, March 19.
Classical Music
25. Hear NYFOS at Home
A domestic art.
In the 19th century, songs were regularly performed at parties, often about fondly remembered houses, the innocence of the nursery, and, of course, bedroom intrigues. The New York Festival of Song fields five young singers and a small army of composers here to portray the delights and miseries of home life. —J.D.
Merkin Concert Hall, March 15.