Tulips might not be shooting through the Park Avenue median just yet, but spring has definitely arrived at your local multiplex. Over the next few weeks, comedy, action, romance, major franchises and—of course—comic-book superheroes will, ahem, spring into action on screens all over the city. In other words: wave buh-bye to the sludge that the studios have been spooning on us during the past few months, and say hello to the movies they’re hoping will pay for next year’s Oscar campaign.  read more »

Parisian-born sculptor Louise Bourgeois’ life and career have been remarkable. Born in 1911, four years after Picasso painted Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, Bourgeois came of age during a time when “avant-garde” had yet to become the empty boast of PR men. Influenced by the murkier tangents of Surrealism, Ms. Bourgeois, who studied at the École du Louvre and was Fernand Léger’s assistant before coming to the United States in 1938, pursues a fetishistic form of sculpture that touches upon childhood fantasy and bodily decrepitude. A couple of Ms.  read more »

With as many musical genres competing for your attention as there are iPods currently plugged into ears, there’s a huge demand today for aurally inclined curators. What regular person has time to sort through everything?  read more »

Would you be surprised to hear that a surging tide of books about politics is about to engulf us?

Later this month we’ll get a chance to peruse War and Decision, by Douglas Feith (HarperCollins, March 25). Mr. Feith, a neocon promoter of the Iraq War, was famously identified by Gen. Tommy Franks as “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet.” It’s unlikely that Mr.  read more »

As late winter’s doldrums penetrate the city, it’s becoming harder to find a reason to leave the house at night. But what if we told you Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were headlining the Plug Independent Music Awards tomorrow at Terminal 5? And then what if we told you it was only $10?  read more »

The writers’ strike might be over, but we can still feel the afttershocks—just look at what’s gonna be on the tube this spring (i.e., not much). Sure, Lost (ABC, Thursday, 9 p.m.) returned a few weeks back, but it’s still a truncated season (13 episodes instead of 16, boo!). And How I Met Your Mother, the best underwatched sitcom on television (don’t you need more Neil Patrick Harris in your life?), returns on Monday, March 17 (CBS, 8:30). But as for new offerings. Well … you decide.  read more »

On March 4, Mary-Louise Parker was sipping up some lobster bisque in a New York cafe when the man sitting in the seat next to her dropped dead. Or, shall we say, slumped dead at his table. His cell phone started to ring. Ms. Parker, playing a shy, retiring museum worker on the opening night of Sarah Ruhl’s oddball comedy at Playwrights Horizons, kicked off the spring theater season by answering that Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Ms.  read more »