Blood on Their Boots

HBO's miniseries "The Pacific" sears the senses with intense combat scenes while illuminating the men who fought and died there.

'Green Zone': Thrills Vie With Speechifying

A Jason Bourne thriller in spirit and sometimes in form, this is closer to what the Iraq War must have looked like than anything previously captured in a fiction film. But it's the dazzling Korean drama "Mother" that delivers the real shock and awe, says Joe Morgenstern.

Dude, Where's My God?

After a successful run Off Broadway, the cliché-infested and cloyingly sentimental "Next Fall" arrives on Broadway—proving you can fool some of the people most of the time, says Terry Teachout.

Ramping Up Wright's Vision

The final event of the Guggenheim Museum's year-long 50th-anniversary celebration invites artists to reimagine the rotunda at the center of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous spiral.

• Photos: Remixing the Guggenheim

From J.D. Salinger, P.O. Box 32

The Morgan Library opens its new exhibition, "Letters by J.D. Salinger," on March 16. Less than two months after his death, the dam of silence Salinger spent half a century building has finally sprung its first leak.

Pacquiao's Final Fight?

Win or lose, Fighter of the Decade Manny Pacquiao will go on to campaign for Congress in the Philippines after Saturday's bout. Boxing's savior may never come back.

• Vote: Should Mr. Pacquiao have permitted the drug test?

Changing China From Within

Chinese film director Jia Zhangke, the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, talks about the relationship between political freedom and art in China.

L.A. River Runs Through It

Celebrating the neglected waterway's flora, fauna and cultural identity as seen through the eyes of 25 or so local artists.

• Photos: Navigating the Art of the L.A. River

The Sound of Broken Bells

Broken Bells, the pop duo featuring Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, and James Mercer of The Shins, releases its self-titled debut—the kind of textured pop album that reveals new joys with repeated exposure.

• Listen: Vaporize | The High Road

The Terror of Bollywood

By Arun Venugopal
With Hollywood shying away from Islamist villains, it's up to Indian films to give them a showing.

The Sweet Smell of Success

The Metropolitan Opera's production of Shostakovich's "The Nose," designed by William Kentridge, stunningly captures and communicates the work's anarchic spirit.

Chopin's 'Soul and Heart'

World-renowned concert pianist Byron Janis on his musical journey to understand the "bittersweet melancholy" behind Chopin's sublime music.

Novels of Ideas

Characters, plot and more: Rebecca Goldstein, the author of "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction," on thought-provoking novels of ideas.