BOOKS
- (^) Read The Chain
Ethical, moral, and existential quandaries.
Mulholland.
Adrian McKinty’s latest thriller feels as difficult to
pull off as the potentially gimmicky scheme at its
center: A woman’s child is kidnapped, and in
order to secure his release, she must kidnap a child
in turn, then have the next parent kidnap another.
If she fails, her son dies. b.k.
THEATER - (^) See Moulin Rouge
Under the red windmill.
Al Hirschfeld Theatre, opens July 25.
Director Alex Timbers follows up Beetlejuice with
another celebration of excess, this time with all
the tangos, cancans, spectacle, and silly love songs
you can eat. Baz Luhrmann’s glittery 2001 juke-
box-musical romance comes to Broadway, with
Karen Olivo and Aaron Tveit. s.h.
ART - (^) See Alex Katz
New works.
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, 439 West 127th Street,
through August 3.
No one does it more celestially suave, optically
overpowering, or intellectually rigorous (with
paint, space, color, and surface) than master
painter Alex Katz. Turning 92 in July and abso-
lutely at the top of the top of his pictorial and
CLASSICAL MUSIC - (^) Hear Mostly Mozart
Festival Orchestra
Playing Beethoven.
David Geffen Hall, July 23 and 24.
The summer symphony season gets going with
double-barreled Beethoven. Vilde Frang plays
the Violin Concerto and Andrew Manze leads
the Eroica Symphony. j.d.
THEATER - (^) See Coriolanus
A Roman rabble-rouser.
Public Theater at Delacorte Theater,
through August 11.
Shakespeare in the Park’s Coriolanus returns to
Central Park for the first time since 1979. Daniel
Sullivan directs this biting, boiling exploration of
power, pride, and populism—in which the citi-
zens of Rome, hungry for bread and change, are
given an arrogant war hero instead. s.h.
POP MUSIC - (^) See Howlin’ Rain
and Ryle y Wa l ker
Expert musicianship and roving jams.
Brooklyn Bowl, August 7.
Oakland rock quartet Howlin’ Rain makes
scrappy psych tunes deep fried in a dusting of
roots-rock grit. Chicago singer-songwriter and
guitarist Ryley Walker’s vision quests on electric
painterly powers, Katz shows us how hard it is to
paint what looks simple but still touches on suf-
fering, abstraction, the Zen sublimity of barren-
ness, the metaphysical anatomy of summer, and
a gathered-up visitation of a hand and mind that
has become a never-to-be-forgotten composed
world unto itself. Behold clarity. j.s.
BEYOND ‘MIDSOMMAR’
Vulture’s Jordan Crucchiola
on the other (arguably better) horror films
worth seeing this summer.
Crawl, in theaters.
It’s a perfect horror film for the summer,
and how can you argue with a father-daughter
survival story where the villains are played by
home-invading alligators?
Culture Shock, Hulu.
A group of migrants are imprisoned by government-
sponsored mad men running brutal experiments.
Knife+Heart, Amazon Prime.
This French gem stars Vanessa Paradis as a gay
porn producer in 1970s Paris who’s trying to win
back her girlfriend while confronting a serial killer.
The Perfection, Netflix.
The only movie of the year with erotic cello
duets and severed limbs. Logan Browning and
Allison Williams star.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,
in theaters August 9.
This adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s famous
children’s books unites Guillermo del Toro with
Trollhunter director André Øvredal.