1 Noah Baumbach's brisk new comedy "While We're Young" is very funny and sublimely morbid about topics invisible to modern movie humor. It flits from characters hitting their mid-40s to the addictive nature of artisanal ice cream, then zips between intergenerational frenemy relationships to the nostalgic impact of vintage music on lo-fi vinyl. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are wonderful as a neurotic middle-aged dysfunctional couple.
5 Forget the crayons and dye pots. For truly classy Easter eggs, go see the hand-painted bibelots that 19th- and early 20th-century Russian aristocrats exchanged on Easter. There aren't any of the legendary bejeweled Fabergé eggs that the czars presented to their immediate family, but many of the 85 eggs on display at the Museum of Russian Art in south Minneapolis were commissioned by the Romanovs for others in the imperial court. The eggs include lavish floral designs, traditional patterns and even a 1916 Red Cross from World War I. tmora.org
3 Before the Staple Singers were R&B hitmakers, they were influential on the gospel circuit. "Freedom Highway Complete," an expanded version of a 1965 church service at Chicago's Nazareth Church, finds Pops Staples and his children in fine form. They offer the civil rights plea "Freedom Highway," "Build on That Shore" and "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." And Rev. Hopkins chastises the congregation for not putting enough into the collection plate.
2 A Russian-speaking immigrant in Boston, journalist Masha Gessen might be uniquely qualified to investigate Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In "The Brothers," she writes with sophistication and nuance about their family's complicated, nomadic existence, looking for a place where they belonged. Tamerlan couldn't find his place here, and his brother drifted through college in a pot-fueled daze. "The Brothers" sometimes raises more questions than it answers, but it's an enthralling and illuminating read.
4 Chanhassen Dinner Theatres finds the spectacle and magic of "Mary Poppins" in dance, color, song and a few garden-variety magic tricks. But that signature moment, when Mary flies, is absent. The piece adheres more closely to P.L. Travers' original books about an astringent nanny than did Walt Disney's 1964 film. Ann Michels is "practically perfect" in observing this Poppins character, as written. www.chanhassen theatres.com
