New TV shows, museum openings, film releases and concerts — it’s a lot to keep track of. Let us help. For the week of Jan. 21, seven events in New York and elsewhere not to be missed:
Film: Dakota Fanning’s Double Feature
Jan. 26; pleasestandbyfilm.com. Jan. 22; tntdrama.com.
Dakota Fanning is having a moment, starring in two very different productions this week. In “Please Stand By,” she plays Wendy, an autistic uber-Trekkie with a thing for Spock, who runs away from her San Francisco independent-living facility on a bold mission of her own: to submit her 500-page script to Paramount Pictures in a contest for the franchise’s next movie.
But in this sweetly fraught scenario — directed by Ben Lewin (“The Sessions”) and opening Friday, Jan. 26 — deep space is Hollywood, and her transport modes include a long-haul bus and a retirement-village van. And her caregiver, Scottie (Toni Collette), may be the only one who can, um, beam her back to safety.
Ms. Fanning can also be seen in “The Alienist,” TNT’s adaptation, starting Monday, Jan. 22, of the 1994 Caleb Carr best-selling thriller about a crew of serial-killer hunters in Gilded Age New York. Here she plays Sara Howard, a secretary and sleuth trying to thrive in a man’s world without losing her femininity and sexuality, she told The New York Times. KATHRYN SHATTUCK