ART
LIUBOV POPOVA RETROSPECTIVE, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Though she died at 35 in 1924, Popova is considered one of the leading artists of the Russian avant-garde. She was a determined painter with a passionate sense of the edge where formal research bursts into sparks and arpeggios of lyric feeling. June 23 through Aug. 18.
PLEASURES OF PARIS FROM DAUMIER TO PICASSO, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Paris in the late 19th century was a Mecca of entertainment, from cafes and cabarets to ballet, opera and theater. This exhibition captures that effervescent era in paintings, prints and drawings by such artists as Manet, Degas, Toulouse- Lautrec and Cassatt. Through Sept. 1.
BOOKS
THE IRONY TOWER by Andrew Solomon (Knopf; $25). Glasnost brought the best of times and the worst of times to the Soviet Union's avant-garde artists. While giving them new freedoms and access to lucrative Western markets, it has destroyed the sense of community that nurtured their artistic vision and shaped their values. Solomon shares their triumphs and disappointments in this vivid, poignant and often hilarious narrative.
WOODY ALLEN by Eric Lax (Knopf; $24). Seldom is heard an embarrassing word, but this biography gets its facts straight and -- in something of a literary coup -- reaps the benefits of its subject's cooperation. Now if Woody Allen would only consent to tell this story on his own.
THEATER
A DOLL'S HOUSE. Director Ingmar Bergman gives Ibsen's landmark drama of women's liberation a poignancy and tension comparable to the best in his films by trimming the chitchat and keeping all the clashing characters onstage at all times. The Royal Dramatic Theater of Sweden's production, in Swedish with English translation via headphones, is at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this week only.
THE MOST HAPPY FELLA. A Frank Loesser minifestival seems to be under way with a superb staging of this musical drama about a mail-order bride at Connecticut's Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam and another planned at the New York City Opera, and with a revival of his Guys and Dolls that is scheduled to open on Broadway next spring.
MOVIES
BEGOTTEN. The Authentic Weirdie award goes to this nightmare classic from E. Elias Merhige. In violent chiaroscuro images, the film tells a primal story of man's birth, torture, death and rebirth. This one-of-a-kind movie (you wouldn't want there to be more than one) makes Eraserhead seem like Ernest Saves Christmas.
WHAT ABOUT BOB? John Candy usually plays the man who came to dinner and stayed too long (and ate too much), but this time Bill Murray is the nerd determined to stick to his psychiatrist like Krazy Glue. Murray and Richard Dreyfuss are terrific in Frank Oz's pretty good comedy of discomfort.
MUSIC
VIOLENT FEMMES: WHY DO BIRDS SING? (Slash/Reprise). Ornery, typically strange and downright swell. When these three tie into a song like Life Is a Scream, they make the inside of your head sing like Janet Leigh in her Psycho shower.