Each week, there’s a fresh avalanche of films, books, theater, albums and art, enough for even the most culturally savvy to get lost in. But DuJour is here to help narrow down what truly deserves your attention, with this curated list of picks.
The Film: Martin McDonagh, the brilliantly dark British humorist, hasn’t released a film since 2008’s underappreciated In Bruges. Finally, on Oct. 12, he’s releasing his latest, Seven Psychopaths. The film follows a Los Angeles screenwriter who gets tangled up with the mob after a group of his ne’er-do-well friends dognap a crime boss’ Shih Tzu. Woody Harrelson, Michael Pitt, Christopher Walken and Colin Farrell star.
The Series: One fall TV show that looks especially promising is ABC’s Nashville, which features Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights, American Horror Story) as a past-her-prime country star who teams up with a hot young thing (Heroes alum Hayden Panettiere) to jumpstart her career. Since Thelma and Louise scribe Callie Khouri created this series, our hopes for a winning blend of drama, humor and moxie are especially high. The show debuts on Oct. 10, but the pilot is already streaming here.
The Album: After the success of her 2010 debut album Lights, U.K. songbird Ellie Goulding, known for her soaring vocals and electronic backing tracks, is releasing a follow-up, Halcyon, on Oct. 9. Between records, Goulding has been plenty busy: Touring with Katy Perry, making music with Mika and Skrillex and playing one extremely high-profile gig: Will and Kate’s wedding. Check out the video for her first single, “Anything Could Happen,” below.
The Exhibit: These days, we expect the images we see to have been manipulated, whether advertisements or the imaginary landscapes that make up so many modern movies. But toying with photos is nothing new. In Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop, which opens Oct. 11 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, more than 200 photographs have been assembled for this exhibit that demonstrates how artists have been colluding to trick the camera—and people’s eyes—long before computers could do the dirty work.
The Show: Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? debuted on Broadway in 1962, and it was an immediate hit, winning an armful of Tonys (but denied a Pulitzer despite the recommendation of the nomination committee). Come Oct. 13, the play about a boozy, abusive night among New England intellectuals is back on Broadway, courtesy of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. This new production stars August: Osage County playwright Tracy Letts, Amy Morton, Carrie Coon and Madison Dirks.
