Critics’ Picks: April 8 - April 14, 2016

Los Angeles Times entertainment, arts and culture critics choose the week’s most noteworthy openings, new releases, ongoing events and places to go in and around Southern California.

The animated favorite “Song of the Sea” is back for a special screening at UCLA, and our Video Games critic picks “Wizarding World of Harry Potter Hollywood.”

Click through to explore more and, where applicable, find directions to venues.

Hedieh Tehrani. (Grasshopper Film)

Fireworks Wednesday’

Though set in Iran, this fine early drama by “A Separation” director Asghar Farhadi compels with the universality of the emotions its characters display, and the familiarity of the situations they find themselves in. (In Persian with English Subtitles) Read more

Kenneth Turan

Film critic

Song of the Sea’ at UCLA ‘Family Flicks’ series

When it comes to films that demand to be experienced on the big screen, Irish director Tomm Moore’s 2014 “Song of the Sea” is high on the list, and this weekend provides an opportunity to see it both bigger than life and for free. Playing admission-free at the Hammer Museum in Westwood’s Billy Wilder Theater at 11 a.m. Sunday as part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s “Family Flicks” series, “Song of the Sea” is a wonder to behold. It’s a stunning example of hand-drawn animation, and its story of a brother and sister on an adventure is steeped in Irish myth, folklore and legend. Its gorgeous watercolor backgrounds so adroitly mix the magical and the everyday that to watch it is to be wholly immersed in an enchanted world, with a great soundtrack that employs the Irish band Kila adding to the mood of wonder. Read more

UCLA Film & Television Archive, Billy Wilder Theater, Theatre, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

Kenneth Turan

Film critic

Other recommendations:

'The Big Short'

Adam McKay, with the help of Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt, has made a very funny film about a very serious situation, 2008’s global financial collapse. Read more

'Brooklyn'

Impeccably directed by John Crowley, feelingly adapted by Nick Hornby from Colm Tóibín's fine novel and blessed with heartstopping work from star Saiorse Ronan and the rest of the cast, "Brooklyn" is about love and heartache, loneliness and intimacy, what home means and how we achieve it. Read more

'Embrace of the Serpent'

This Oscar-nominated Colombia film is a strikingly photographed black-and-white epic that intertwines a passionate attack on the depredations of invasive capitalism with a potent adventure story. Read more

'Hail, Caesar!'

A droll Coen brothers tribute to and spoof of Hollywood past that amuses from beginning to end with its site specific re-creation of the studio system and the movies that made it famous. Read more

'Midnight Special'

A Michael Shannon-starring drama that announces the arrival of Jeff Nichols as a filmmaker in total control of his technique as well as our emotions. A bravura science fiction thriller that explores emotional areas like parenthood and the nature of belief, it's a riveting genre exercise as well as something more. Read more

Anna Faris, left, and Allison Janney. (Darren Michaels / CBS)

Mom’ Third Season

It’s tough to imagine a more winning duo than the stars of “Mom,” in which Anna Faris plays Christy, a recovering addict and single mom, and Allison Janney plays Bonnie, her even more troubled mother. And indeed Janney has won two Emmys for the role. But if creators Chuck Lorre, Eddie Gorodetsky and Gemma Baker are happy to embrace mother-daughter dysfunction as a comedic trope, they were more interested in the comedy, and drama, of their characters getting better. With the same result for their show. The queasy joke of a familial twin set — not only are Christy and Bonnie both alcoholics, they both became single mothers at a very early age — is continually made but increasingly as an entry point for empathy and understanding as much as a punchline. CBS, Thursdays. Read more

Mary McNamara

Television critic

Robson Green, left, and James Norton in "Grantchester." (Des Willie / PBS)

Grantchester’

James Norton and Robson Green make a dynamic duo in this period mystery series, back for a second season on “Masterpiece Mystery!” Based on James Runcie’s stories and set in 1950s semirural England, it features tower-of-ginger Norton as a jazz-loving Anglican priest with a penchant for detection and a passion for old flame Morven Christie, inconveniently married off by her family for money, and Green, a police detective and religious doubter, somewhat worn and rumpled in the “Columbo” mode. (Grantchester is the village where it takes place, a real place, near Cambridge, on the picturesque River Cam.) The season comprises two independent mysteries, linked by some personal business. The first plays off modern concerns about the priests and sex and the walls the church throws up in front of police; the second is a Cold War thriller. PBS, Sundays. Read more

Robert Lloyd

Television critic

Other recommendations:

'Washington D.C. Live Bald Eagle Cam'

Live from a relatively remote corner of the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., two 24-hour cams focus on the nest of the mated bald eagles known since 2014, when they first arrived, as Mr. President and the First Lady. One egg hatched Wednesday; a second is expected to hatch this weekend. It's as if, as national birds, they're trying to remind the body impolitic that there's more to this country than the weird noises emanating from the current presidential campaign, halls of Congress, etc., something that predates and hopefully will survive human fecklessness. (Still, it was people who put these cameras up; there may be hope for us yet.) ( www.DCEagleCam.eagles.org, anytime) (Robert Lloyd) Read more

'Night Class'

Something's up at the network that, for its high concentration of World War II documentaries, has been called the Hitler Channel — a new streak of comedy, spearheaded by Craig Ferguson's historical panel show "Join or Die" and now joined by the weekly half-hour, after-hours omnibus "Night Class." I imagine a Big Boss (mutton chops, watch chain) waving an article on Comedy Channel's "Drunk History" at his subordinates, demanding, "Why wasn't this on our network? Get me one of these!" They have instead got two of those, gathered together as "Night Class" (it airs at 11:30 p.m.): Elizabeth Shapiro's "Crossroads of History," which elaborates upon real moments that changed the world for the worse, and "Great Minds With Dan Harmon," in which the creator of "Community" and "Rick & Morty" summons famous people temporarily back from the dead. Possibly as a nod to that network nickname, "Crossroads" began with Hitler (Josh Fadem) being turned down for a place in art school (Paul Scheer and Shapiro herself are the examiners who make him imitate Charlie Chaplin, then reject him, in terms suggestive of a new path: "I think you need some work on your execution skills.") In "Great Minds," Harmon, playing the difficult, dissolute version of himself you may know from his "Harmontown" podcasts, among other self-revealing, -lacerating or -referential appearances, has built himself a kind of time machine that lets the spiritual energy of figures from the past briefly inhabit a "simulacrum" of themselves. (They arrive naked, like the Terminator.) Beethoven (Jack Black) wonders why no one sings the lyrics to the Fifth Symphony or "Für Elise." (Robert Lloyd) (History Channel, Thursdays). Read more

Valerie Mahaffey, left, Raymond McAnally, James Snyder and Christian Clemenson. (Jim Cox /Pasadena P

‘Casa Valentina’

Harvey Fierstein’s 2014 Tony-nominated play about a community of cross-dressers at a bungalow colony in the Catskills at a crossroads in their political history in 1962 couldn’t have found more trustworthy hands than those of director David Lee. The West Coast premiere is an absolute marvel of lucid storytelling. The acting ensemble overflows with camaraderie, the set design vividly conjures the rustically eccentric milieu, and the all-important costumes help individualize these complex characters who feel in sync with themselves when given the freedom to release the woman within. Ends Sunday, April 10. Read more

Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena

Charles McNulty

Theater critic

Orson Bean. (Sean Smith)

‘Safe at Home: An Evening With Orson Bean’

In this gem of a solo show, master raconteur and television personality Orson Bean, an 87-year-old theatrical prodigy, takes his audience on an autobiographical stroll through his life. A natural performer who delights in enthralling a paying crowd, he has a twinkling manner even when his material is streaked with sadness. When the old childhood sorrow threatens to become too much, he performs goofy magic tricks, tells a few hoary jokes and captivates with the canny stage sense of an all-around entertainer who knows how to keep an audience in the palm of his hand. Ends Oct. 6. Read more

Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice

Charles McNulty

Theater critic

Other recommendations:

‘You Never Can Tell’

This buoyant, beautifully appointed take on George Bernard Shaw's early comedy is a textbook study in sprightly Shavian playing. Director Stephanie Shroyer understands that the secret to landing the ornate verbiage and ideological content is a light touch and absolute conviction of delivery. Her wonderful cast follows suit. The results, both elegant and tickling, are as definitive as we are likely to see any time soon. (David C. Nichols) (Ends Sunday, May 15) Read more

A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena

'The Mongoose'

Will Arbery's “The Mongoose” details the effects of a mystical talking mongoose on a troubled Dallas family — and while overwrought and unquestionably bizarre, the play is also memorable, a fever dream that seems poised to float into the ether at any given moment. Director Michael Thomas-Visgar and a superb cast moor Arberry's disgressive sprawl into a stringently realistic construct that emphasizes the play's humanity as much as its peculiarity. (F. Kathleen Foley) (Ends Sunday, April 17)Read more

The Road on Magnolia, NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood

'Summer and Smoke'

Although it may stand less high than it merits in the canon, this exceptional Actors Co-op revival of Tennessee Williams' 1947 drama certainly redresses the balance. Avoiding clichéd pitfalls, embracing the humanity that drives this symbology-ridden study of the eternal clash between spirit and flesh, director Thom Babbes unearths the mercurial yet specific qualities that make “Smoke” a masterwork, aided by a superb design team and a pluperfect ensemble the revelatory Tara Battani and excellent Gregory James as, respectively, the play's metaphoric soul and literal eros. Don't miss it. (David C. Nichols) (Ends Sunday, April 17) Read more

Actors Co-op, David Schall Theatre, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood

‘Past Time’

As deceptively slight and hilariously quirky as a shelf of painted unicorns, playwright Padraic Duffy's intergenerational romantic comedy is generally charming, funny and effective. Director Jeremy Aldridge pulls every color from the script's metaphoric palette, and his cast — Leon Russom and Ruth Silveira, Josh Weber and Julia Griswold, and a valiant French Stewart as the functionary character who carries the seriocomic point — does yeoman work. An ideal date show. (David C. Nichols) (Ends Saturday, April 9) Read more

Sacred Fools at the Lillian Theatre, 1076 N. Lillian Way, Hollywood

‘Tempest Redux’

Purists beware: “Tempest Redux” at the Odyssey Theatre boldly transposes Shakespeare's play into a darker, more unsettling key, but its inventive staging and solid command of source text make for a vivid, memorable re-imagining. (Philip Brandes) (Ends Saturday, April 23) Read more

Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A.

‘Pocatello’

Samuel D. Hunter sympathetically chronicles Middle America’s quiet despair. His sorrowful yet laugh-out-loud funny tale is set in a struggling branch of an oppressively generic chain restaurant where the manager, his family and his staff are losing their sense of self and their connections to one another. The performers disappear into these very real people. John Perrin Flynn directs Rogue Machine’s production with quiet insight. (Daryl H. Miller) (Ends Sunday, April 10) Read more

Rogue Machine at the Met Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford Ave., L.A.

'Man Covets Bird'

The 24th Street Theatre follows up last year's award-winning “Walking the Tightrope” with another play for families that touches on struggle and loss, “Man Covets Bird,” by the Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer. If the storyline is a bit poetic and meandering, the performers are winsome and the production elements (including live music as well as charming, cartoony video projections) are beautifully designed. Both children 7 and up and adults will find something to enjoy in the experience. (Margaret Gray) (Ends Sunday, May 15) Read more

24th Street Theatre, 1117 W. 24th St., L.A.

From the CD cover. (Domino Recording / AP)

Album: ‘Everything You’ve Come to Expect’

In the music video for “Aviation,” the first song on their new album as the Last Shadow Puppets, Alex Turner and Miles Kane play two men forced to dig what look like their own graves by a suave but sadistic crime-boss type. There’s a woman too, weeping in the back seat of a vintage Rolls-Royce, and we seem meant to understand that she’s been caught carrying on with one of these guys; now her wicked husband is punishing the whole lot. Whatever the specifics, Turner and Kane — both Jason Statham-soulful in their grimy undershirts — are clearly identified as the noble victims in this little drama. Yet that’s rarely what they look like on “Everything You’ve Come to Expect,” the second full-length from this British orchestral-pop duo. Due Friday, the album comes nearly a decade after the Last Shadow Puppets’ swooning 2008 debut, “The Age of the Understatement.” Read more

Mikael Wood

Pop Music Writer

Zayn Malik. (John Salangsang / Invision / AP)

Album: ‘Mind of Mine’

A year after Zayn Malik quit One Direction (which likely led to the remaining four band members hitting pause), this 23-year-old singer has become the first of the bunch to release a solo record. And listening to “Mind of Mine,” due Friday, it seems clear that Zayn left not because he couldn’t handle the pressure of global stardom, as he intimated at the time, but because he wanted to get serious — really serious — about music. Read more

Mikael Wood

Pop Music Writer

Gwen Stefani. (Jamie Nelson / IGA Publicity)

Album: ‘This Is What the Truth Feels Like’

Sixteen years ago, Gwen Stefani of No Doubt sang about wanting “a simple kind of life.” That’s not how things turned out. Sure, No Doubt — the Anaheim ska-pop band that blasted off in 1995 with the zillion-selling album “Tragic Kingdom” — continued its straightforward ascent for a few more years, racking up hit songs with impressive efficiency through the mid-2000s. But then Stefani launched a solo career that added new wrinkles to her sound and persona. She went into fashion and starting having children, which she’s said made a mess of her schedule. Following two huge solo records, she returned to No Doubt for a reunion album, 2012’s “Push and Shove,” which quickly fizzled, disrupting a narrative neatly defined to that point by success. Then last year, her life got really screwy: Stefani’s marriage to Gavin Rossdale, frontman of the band Bush, fell apart (reportedly because of his affair with the couple’s nanny), and she began dating Blake Shelton, the country star with whom she recently appeared on NBC’s “The Voice.” “Never thought this would happen … Don’t know what I’m feeling,” she sings in “Used to Love You,” a moody, down-tempo single released only months after she filed for divorce. Stefani dives deeply into those complications on her first solo album in a decade. Due Friday, “This Is What the Truth Feels Like” has songs about betrayal and disappointment, and songs about moving on from a broken relationship and falling in love again. Read more

Mikael Wood

Pop Music Writer

Other recommendations:

Album: 'Anti'

You can't name your album "Anti" without inviting your audience to think about what you oppose. So what is Rihanna standing against on her eighth studio record? A smoothly choreographed product rollout, for one. After repeated delays, "Anti" finally appeared online Wednesday night, first in an apparently unauthorized leak, then as an exclusive on the streaming service Tidal; Samsung also gave away a limited number of free downloads through a complicated promotion. By Friday, the album was available for sale through iTunes (where it quickly topped the chart) and Tidal, though it hasn't yet shown up on other streaming services such as Spotify, and a physical release date has yet to be announced. (Mikael Wood) Read more

Album: 'Blackstar'

There's something delightfully perverse that David Bowie waited until he was 69 to release what's being described as his first jazz album. It was at that age too when veteran rock stars who include Rod Stewart and Paul McCartney took up with big bands or reached for the Great American Songbook to demonstrate their taste and hard-won stature. Even Bob Dylan got in on the act last year with "Shadows in the Night," his lovely (if desolate) tribute to Frank Sinatra. So when you hear that Bowie hooked up with a New York saxophonist and his crew for “Blackstar,” out Friday (just two days before his death from cancer), you think perhaps that Bowie has joined the club — that after cycling through countless styles and personas over his half-century career, he’s finally become a finger-snapping crooner with Count Basie on his mind. Ah, no. (Mikael Wood) Read more

Album: 'HitNRun Phase Two'

Is this becoming a habit? That's the question Prince raised Saturday morning when without warning he released a new album, "HitNRun Phase Two," on the streaming-music service Tidal. As its title suggests, the 12-track set follows an earlier album, "HitNRun Phase One," which Prince had made available in similar fashion in September — proof, it would seem, that this legendary control freak has shed his once-famous disdain for the unruly Internet. Maybe this double-shot system is how Prince, as prolific as he's ever been, intends to roll from here on out. Works for me. A proudly organic companion to the EDM-inflected "Phase One," Prince's latest album shows that he hasn't lost his interest in (or his knack for) the creeping funk and lush R&B balladry he was making in the early 1990s on records like the great "Diamonds and Pearls." Read more

Album: '25'

When Adele sings on her new album, "25," about an emotional experience so vivid that "It was just like a movie / It was just like a song," she's probably thinking of a tune by one of her idols: Roberta Flack, say, or Stevie Nicks. But for fans of this 27-year-old British singer, such a moment could only be captured by one thing: an Adele song. With her big hair and bigger voice, Adele broke out in 2008 as part of the British retro-soul craze that also included Duffy and Amy Winehouse. Her debut album, "19," spawned a hit single in "Chasing Pavements" and led to a Grammy Award for best new artist. Yet she outgrew any style or scene with the smash follow-up, "21," which presented Adele as a great crystallizer of complicated feelings, an artist writing intimately about her own life (in this case about a devastating breakup) in a way that somehow made the music feel universal. Clearly, the pressure is on to duplicate that commercial success with "25," which comes after a long period of public quiet in which Adele recovered from throat surgery and gave birth to a son (and tweeted no more than a few dozen times). "Hello," the record's brooding lead single, set a record when it was released last month, racking up 1.1 million downloads in a week. But the song's enthusiastic embrace only underscored the other, more pressing demand on the singer as she returns: that her music still provide its trademark catharsis. Put another way, Adele's fans have been waiting for years for new Adele songs to explain their experiences to them. And they get a worthy batch on "25." (Mikael Wood) Read more

Album: 'Bob Dylan — The Cutting Edge'

Among the many things Thomas Edison famously said, he remarked that "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration," and he also insisted that "I have not failed once. I have simply found 10,000 ways that do not work." Both precepts are clearly evident in "1965-1966: Bootleg Series Vol. 12," the revelatory latest release of Dylan archival recordings that comes out Nov. 6. Culling a mind- and ear-boggling wealth of outtakes, alternate versions and rehearsal snippets during sessions over the 14 months of an astonishingly fertile period for Dylan, which yielded three of the most influential albums in rock history — "Bringing It All Back Home," "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde" — the new set throws open a panoramic window into the creative process of one of the 20th century's greatest artists. (Randy Lewis) Read more

Album: 'Crosseyed Heart'

On Keith Richards' first solo album in more than 20 years the Rolling Stones co-founder crafts songs using the same tools and templates he's employed throughout his creative life: blues, early rock 'n' roll, classic country & western and a pinch of reggae. You will not find a Diplo production credit or guest verse from Chance the Rapper anywhere on this album. But as Richards' reflexes suggest, the guitarist still possesses the skills to whittle a stick into a rock song if so inclined. That's a diplomatic way of saying that our hero is a creature of habit who knows what he does and doesn't like. Recent interviews suggest he's as dismissive of contemporary music as Frank Sinatra was to the sound of the Stones. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Album: 'Hall of Records'

Lionel Williams, who makes music and visual art as Vinyl Williams, crafts sparkly electronic beat music that exists in its own curious realm. "Hall of Records" is one of 14 tracks on his new album, "Into," and makes for a good portal. Tinted with the sonic tone of an overused Maxell cassette, rich with humming frequencies that recall German Krautrock and dense with muffle-tone beats suggestive of 1990s label Too Pure, the track swirls with synthesizers and waves of untethered noise. Williams is less skilled as a vocalist, though. He quivers in pitchy falsetto throughout "Into." It hardly matters, though. The stuff is mesmerizing. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Album: 'Heaven's Room'

Guitarist Matt Mondanile is perhaps best known for his work with New Jersey guitar pop band Real Estate, but his solo project Ducktails has generated equally sublime tracks across four albums. The fifth, "St. Catherine," is filled with many languid, jangled guitar lines. Among the best is "Heaven's Room," which features Los Angeles musician Julia Holter. Mondanile, who relocated to Los Angeles, is a master of smooth, shimmering guitar tones, but "Heaven's Room" blossoms through masterful arrangements and a sonic depth courtesy of producer Rob Schnapf. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Video: 'Baltimore'

While most other superstar artists are either on vacation, on tour or otherwise removed from the conversation, Prince is spending the summer focused on protest and injustice. The artist just released the lyric video for "Baltimore," his invective against police brutality that draws attention to the deaths of Freddie Gray, Michael Brown and others. The track, released earlier this year, is one of the most searing protest songs the Minneapolis artist has recorded, and the video is just as pointed. It documents the protests that followed Gray's death in the back of a Baltimore police van, matching shots of frustrated citizens with the artist's lyrical questions. "Are we going to see another bloody day? We're tired of crying and people dying — let's take all the guns away." (Randall Roberts) Read more

Album: 'The Longest River'

On its surface, the debut album from the British folk singer Olivia Chaney, released in April, is a simple affair. Featuring her graceful hand-picked acoustic guitar and piano work and a small backing band of strings and bass, "The Longest River" highlights an artist with a voice in harmony with rich traditions and eager to add her own pure-toned phrased accents. Below the surface, though, lay grim complications. (Randall Roberts) Read more

(Cheryl A. Guerrero/ Los Angeles Times)

Nersses Vanak

It is cold in Los Angeles. Rain is in the air. What you want to be eating is dizi, an Iranian lamb and chickpea stew, flavored with turmeric and dried lime — a popular street food dish from Tehran that seems to have a tonic effect against the chill. And for dizi, you should probably be at Nersses Vanak, a slightly faded restaurant in an industrial district of Glendale, where dizi, served with long-pickled garlic, platters of fresh herbs, and hot slabs of flatbread snatched smoking from the grill, is always the thing. Read more

Nersses Vanak, 6524 San Fernando Road, Glendale

Jonathan Gold

Restaurant critic

Other recommendations:

10 best dishes of 2015

A decade or two from now, when line-caught sea bass will seem as rare and unobtainable as sturgeon caviar is now, drive-through windows sell more lentil bowls than cheeseburgers and we have gotten used to the idea of Taylor Swift as the governor of Pennsylvania, 2015 may well seem in retrospect a fairly important year in Los Angeles restaurants. Menus just seemed to be mostly vegetarian without anybody talking about it much, and even French chefs began to talk among themselves about the primacy of Mexican cooking. The differences between high and low cuisine, which had started to crumble as far back as the 1980s, were utterly annihilated. Exotic fermentation techniques began to creep out of the lab. The idea of abolishing the practice of tipping took hold. And as always, there were 10 dishes that attempted to encapsulate it all. Read more

Jonathan Gold's 101 Best Restaurants, 2015

Your next great meal in Southern California is as likely to come from that tiny storefront next to the 7-Eleven as it is from a Beverly Hills gastronomic palace. Los Angeles, which is both where American ideas about food tend to be formulated and where they come back eventually to die, can be a spectacular place to eat. Read more

Pok Pok

Is it possible to become converted in a single bite? Because with a single fried chicken wing at the original Portland Pok Pok in 2007, I dropped my prejudices about non-European cooking in Oregon, the crossover potential of extreme Asian funk, and the ability of a non-Thai to prepare anything like upcountry Thai food. So eight years, many affiliated restaurants, a James Beard award, a Michelin star and a Chinatown noodle stand later, here we are at Pok Pok Los Angeles, an enormous restaurant in the old Fu Ling space in the Mandarin Plaza at the relatively deserted north end of Chinatown. Chef Andy Ricker's gift is the ability to make Thai food seem new again, to take it out of that comfortable place in the suburban strip mall, where it has become the default takeout comfort food for a huge chunk of Los Angeles, and put it back into the roadside stands and rural villages of Northern Thailand. Read more

Pok Pok, 978 N. Broadway, Los Angeles

Five of the tastiest Chinese restaurants in the SGV with the name 'Tasty'

In last week's column, I alluded to the flood of San Gabriel Valley Chinese restaurants with the word "Tasty'" tucked somewhere into their English-language names. Depending on whether you count doughnut shops, burger stands or branches of the same restaurant as Tasty, Not-Tasty or Tasty in their own right – well, there are a lot of them. Here are five of the tastiest. Read more

Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter (Robert Mapplethorpe)

Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium

Without classic 1960s Pop art, especially Andy Warhol’s, there would be no Robert Mapplethorpe photographs as we know them from the 1970s and 1980s. That’s the big takeaway from a visit to this impressive two-museum exhibition (The Getty Center and Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Ends Sun., July 31. Read more

The Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles

Christopher Knight

Art critic

Hanging sculptures by Ruth Asawa. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women’

Sometimes the seemingly simple act of occupying space can be a radical, profoundly political act. Space invasion is the savvy artistic subject of the fine inaugural exhibition at the sixth outpost for the Zurich-based Hauser & Wirth, which also has powerhouse galleries in London and New York. (Ends Sun. Sept. 4. Read more

Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, 901 E. Third St., Los Angeles

Christopher Knight

Art critic

Other recommendations:

Joan Brown Herself: Paintings and Constructions, 1970-80

The exhibition brings together nine great paintings and two wonderful sculptures that Brown made from 1970 to 1980. At George Adams Gallery's show at CB1-G, the straightforward show is at once enchanting and matter of fact. (David Pagel) (Through April 23) Read more

George Adams Gallery at CB1-G, 1923 S. Santa Fe Ave., Los Angeles

Erasing, Tracing, Racing Paint: Polly Apfelbaum & Dona Nelson

During the last 10 years an approach to art-making has been gathering force and gaining traction. It's called Deserted Island Abstraction, and its ethos is vividly displayed in one of the best two-person exhibitions to be staged recently. One glance at the wickedly wonderful stews of stuff each artist works with makes it clear that the two New Yorkers would paint and sculpt even if they were shipwrecked and had to scavenge for supplies on a deserted island. (David Pagel) (Through May 7) Read more

Michael Benevento Gallery, 3712 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles

Channing Hansen

The artist has a restless mind and restless fingers, which took up knitting a decade ago and now turn out wildly restless webs of line and color. His work emerges boisterously, brilliantly, at the intersection of chance, science, feminism and back-to-the-hand aesthetics. His first show here is enthralling. (Leah Ollman) (Ends Saturday, April 9) Read more

Marc Selwyn Fine Art, 9953 S. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills

Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957

The fit is ideal: A large and absorbing exhibition analyzes a legendary school that had a profound influence on the emergence of the midcentury American avant garde, and it opens in the city now known for a proliferation of first-rate art schools that have had a profound influence on the shape of late 20th and early 21st century international art. "Leap" offers an engrossing bit of back story to where we are today. Ends May 15. Read more

Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd

'Making Waves: Japanese American Photography, 1920-1940'

One of the most fascinating chapters in American art from the first half of the 20th century is also among the least known. An absorbing, must-see exhibition goes far in bringing the episode back into long-awaited view. Simply put: Issei photographers, most of whom immigrated to Los Angeles from Japan while still in their teens, went on to make some of the most adventurous avant-garde photographs in the years between the two World Wars. (Christopher Knight) (Through June 26) Read more

Japanese American National Museum, 100 N. Central Ave., Los Angele

Keith Sonnier

The artist calls his new wall drawings in neon, wire and electrical transformers "portals," and their design motifs and titles do refer to forms from ancient Roman and medieval architecture, often ecclesiastical. Elegant and deceptively simple, they display a masterful hand. Through May 7. Read more

Maccarone Gallery, 300 S. Mission Road, Los Angeles

Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV

Over the course of nearly 17 years, before he finally assumed the throne as Louis XIV in 1661, little Louis-Dieudonné had a front-row seat in the practical methods of pulling the levers of power. As an imposing exhibition at the Getty Museum shows with splendid pomp and circumstance, big and elaborately woven tapestries were one useful tool. Through May 1. Read more

The Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles

Svetlana Alexievich. (Markus Schreiber / AP)

Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices From the Afghanistan War’

I perceive the world through the medium of human voices,” Svetlana Alexievich declares near the end of “Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices From the Afghanistan War,” explaining both her method and her point of view. For Alexievich — who in October became just the third nonfiction writer and 14th woman to receive the Nobel Prize in literature — testimony may be as close as one can get to faith. “We’ve worshipped many gods,” she writes in this slender but vivid account, told in the voices of survivors of the Soviet Afghan war. “Some have been consigned to the scrapheap, others to museums. Let us make Truth into a god! A god before whom each of us shall answer according to his own conscience, and not as a class, or a university year, or a collective, or a people….” Read more

David Ulin

Book critic

Other recommendations:

'The Bazaar of Bad Dreams'

Stephen King, I've come to think, is at his most adept when writing in the midlength range. His big novels — "The Stand," "It," "11/22/63" — have always felt a little baggy to me, while his shortest work (he has published more than 200 stories, gathered in a number of collections) can feel sketchy, more idea than nuanced narrative. That middle zone, however: His finest efforts emerge from this territory, shorter novels "Misery," "Joyland" and "The Shining," novellas such as "The Body" or the chilling "A Good Marriage." In this material, King has the breadth to do what he does best, which is to evoke the very human underpinnings of terror, while also remaining constrained by certain limitations of space. As he explains in "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams," which gathers 20 pieces of fiction, along with brief reflections on their composition, "Only through fiction can we think about the unthinkable, and perhaps obtain some sort of closure." The key word there is not the unthinkable in which King traffics but "closure," the closure of the midrange form. Read more

'Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink'

New wave rocker, country crooner, balladeer, collaborator and showman: Elvis Costello has been all of these and more in the course of what is now a 40-year run. Of all the first-generation punkers, he remains (with Patti Smith and possibly David Byrne) among the few who can claim the longevity and diversity of, say, Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell, both of whom appear in this book. Like minds, perhaps, or water seeking its level. Either way, this is the company to which Costello belongs. And yet, if "Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink" has anything to tell us, it is that its author remains a fan. Here he is, for instance, on his first experience singing with Paul McCartney, a rehearsal duet on "All My Loving": "I locked on to the vocal harmony the second time around, as I'd done a thousand times before while singing along to the record. It never really occurred to me that learning to sing either vocal part on a Beatles record was any kind of musical education. I was just a kid singing along with the radio in our front room." Or this, recalling a good-natured cutting contest, trading lyrics with Bob Dylan: "It was just fun to be in the ring with the champ for a minute or two." Read more

The Hog Warts Castle. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

Wizarding World of Harry Potter Hollywood

The opening of Universal Studios’ new Wizarding World of Harry Potter Hollywood brings to the West Coast what many consider the grandest theme park attraction in North America. A mix of fully realized sets — including a steamy, fire-breathing dragon — as well as screens interspersed with actors from the “Harry Potter” films, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is a highly kinetic motion simulator that aims to re-create the sense of flying. Guests sit on what appears to be a bench, pull down an over-the-shoulder harness and are soon whisked into the air, gliding in and out of filmed moments and elaborately constructed scenes. Read more

Universal Studios Hollywood, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City

Todd Martens

Video game critic

"The Swords." (Sunhead Games)

A Few New Mobile Video Games

There are a lot of mobile games out there — last year more than 100,000 iOS games were released in North America. Here are a few recent mobile games worthy of exploration: “Love You to Bits” (Alike/Pati). Breakups stink. They’re worse when your girlfriend is scattered around the galaxy. In this iOS game a young boy tries to put back together his first love, a female robot, and learns to live on his own along the way. “Story Warriors: Fairy Tales” (Below the Game). Tales such as “Snow White,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella” and more get remixed in this text-driven puzzler about a young woman who gets trapped in folklore. Tap on words to bring them to life, and piece together nouns and adjectives as if they’re math problems, the right solution inspiring a cutesy animated sequence. SPL-T” (Simogo). Swedish studio Simogo is one of the most adventurous companies out there, specializing in head-scratching, text-heavy games such as “Device 6” and “The Sailor’s Dream.” “SPL-T” is a back-to-basics puzzle game. In the black and white game, players place a horizontal line and then a vertical one, trying to create as many splits as possible. “Super Phantom Cat” (Veewo). Cats! Robots! “Super Phantom Cat” takes the weirdness of “Super Mario Bros.,” gives it a zany feline-meets-sci-fi makeover, and uses slick touch controls to create a freshly retro experience. It’s all delivered with a gooey feel-good message and some rainbow-hued prettiness. “The Swords.” (Sunhead Games). Imagine a scene in an action movie, one in which one swordsman is surrounded by an army on all sides. Now imagine all the action is presented in a minimal ink wash art style. By zeroing in on the blades, “The Swords” emphasizes the chaos of battle. Swipe fast, and do so with precision. Read more

Todd Martens

Video game critic

Other recommendations:

'Rocket League'

Dave Hagewood didn't set out to create the next big thing in electronic sports. Ten years ago he simply envisioned a game in which cars did crazy things. Cars with rockets on them. The result was the breakout independent game of 2015, "Rocket League." The key to its success was one simple addition to Hagewood's original vision: a giant, bouncy soccer ball. Thus, a zany game in which cars crashed into one another became something else entirely, a madcap sport. "Rocket League" has now reached more than 12 million players, with revenue topping $70 million. In late February, the game — already a hit on Sony's PlayStation 4 and computing platform Steam — arrived on Microsoft's Xbox One, where in less than a month it attracted more than 1 million players. Read more

'Fire Emblem Fates'

In my first 25 hours with Nintendo 3DS' "Fire Emblem Fates," families argued, attempts at flirting were rebuffed and relatives threw a fit over poorly cooked meals. Were it not for the swords and the spells and the half-fox/half-human, the game wouldn't be all that different from the last month or so of my life. Though there is sword and sorcery here, including a main character who has the ability to turn into a dragon, "Fire Emblem Fates" is really about family drama. In this case, it's about the pull of one's blood family versus the connection with an adopted one. Do you help the stepbrothers and stepsisters who always supported you, or the brothers and sisters you've only just met? The player's avatar, which can be male or female, was kidnapped at a young age and raised as a warrior prince/princess. Her (I chose a female avatar and named her Kes) adopted-but-criminal family took good care of her, and it's clear she's tight with her siblings. But her father — a.k.a. the king — is a monster. Read more

'Firewatch'

"Firewatch," set in the quiet Wyoming wilderness, is a game in which its main character does little more than walk. Yet at its heart this is a game about running. It's about running from our pasts, running from our emotional trials and running from the unknown. It's about how avoidance often makes things worse and how the road to conquering our fears can be downright frightening. And things get pretty bad in "Firewatch." Read more

'Leo's Red Carpet Rampage'

Winning an Academy Award, it proves, can be nearly an impossible task, at least according to the lighthearted Web game "Leo's Red Carpet Rampage." The game puts players in control of a mini, vintage-style Leonardo DiCaprio in a quest for an Oscar. And while the game is pure goofiness when it starts — simply mash a couple of buttons to run the red carpet and dodge photographers — it goes dark, and quickly. Read more

'The Witness'

Draw a line. It sounds simple, doesn't it? "The Witness," from a sort of zoned-out satellite view, is a game about drawing lines. To be even more precise, it is a game populated with puzzles, the bulk of them solved by drawing a line. Again, it all sounds so simple. Yet "The Witness" just so happens to be the rare puzzle game that's less about answers and more about mysteries and epiphanies. Read more

'Unravel'

Meet Yarny. Yarny doesn't look like much at a quick glance. Yarny is red, the size of an index finger with an alien, triangular face and nimble body made up of a single piece of, well, yarn. Yarny is quite fragile. Keep Yarny out of water, and don't let Yarny near a critter. A single claw of a crab will wreak havoc on Yarny. Yarny is also full of personality, the standout star of a new video game dubbed "Unravel." Those old family photographs collecting dust on a bookshelf? Yarny wants to explore them, transport inside them and make old connections feel new again. Among Yarny's likes is nostalgia. Dislikes? Families that drift apart. Read more

(Monica Wang Photography)

Reservoir

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, a new boutique has opened on Robertson Boulevard marrying East and West Coast style. Reservoir is the concept of New York City transplants Aliza Neidich and Alissa Jacob and features a well-edited mix of clothing, accessories and home goods with an easy sophistication made for L.A., including Ryan Roche hand-knit sweaters, Denis Colomb ponchos, Ellery sleek crepe dresses and tops, Solid and Striped denim jumpsuits, Madeworn tees, Newbark shearling slides, Dosa patchwork totes and Wendy Nichol fringed leather bucket bags. Read more

Reservoir, 154 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles

Booth Moore

Fashion critic

Other recommendations:

'Sporting Guide: Los Angeles, 1897'

With famed film mogul Sam Goldwyn as her grandfather, Liz Goldwyn's family name is practically synonymous with old-school Hollywood glamour. But it's Los Angeles before it became the capital of the motion picture industry that's the subject of the style maven's new book, "Sporting Guide: Los Angeles, 1897" (Regan Arts). The work of historical fiction looks back on the city's seedier past, with loosely connected stories about the madams, prostitutes, orphans, hustlers and tramps who roamed Alameda, Los Angeles and Spring streets. I chatted with Goldwyn about what drew her to this time period in L.A., her impressions of the book's rough characters, and what role women had in a culture where prostitution was tolerated. Read more

'Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe'

Ladies, the next time you are teetering on high heels, you can blame men. But not for the reason you think. In Western fashion, high heels were popularized by men, starting in the court of Louis XIV where a talon rouge (red heel), identified a member of the privileged class centuries before Christian Louboutin made red soles the calling card of his luxury shoe brand. That's just one of the tasty tidbits in "Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe," an exhibition scheduled to run through Dec. 13 at the Palm Springs Art Museum that examines the fashion accessory we all love to hate, including its history, its relation to gender identity, sex appeal and power. Read more

Palm Springs Art Museum, 101 Museum Drive, Palm Springs