Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers/Compiled by Linda Williams

TELEVISION

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS (ABC, Dec. 8, 9 p.m. EST). Charles Bronson, as a burned-out newspaper reporter, and Ed Asner, as his editor, compete for Most Crusty in this sentimental holiday movie, which dramatizes the events that led to Frank P. Church's famous editorial.

MUSIC

WARREN ZEVON: MR. BAD EXAMPLE (Giant). Give it Album Title of the Year; give it Song Title of the Year (Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead). Give it, while you're at it, credit for being unapologetically harsh, nasty, ironic and really rather terrific. Zevon's as tough as a film-noir hero; when he turns tender, it's only so you can better hear the sound of doom coming up like thunder.

JERRY LEE LEWIS: ROCKIN' MY LIFE AWAY (Warner Bros.). A sweet combo indeed: 20 Killer sessions, vintage '78-'80, that wound up on several obscure albums, now resurrected and sounding spanking fresh. Terrific backcountry blues, closing out with a roadhouse version of Over the Rainbow that's as poignant as it is audacious.

RACHMANINOFF, 24 PRELUDES (Arabesque Recordings). Though usually performed in small groupings or as encores, these two dozen pieces -- covering each of the major and minor keys -- become sovereign microworlds in the hands of piano virtuoso Ian Hobson.

MOVIES

MY GIRL. Mack is back, but this time he's not home alone. He's an allergy- prone 11-year-old whose best friend, Vada (Anna Chlumsky), is a hypochondriac who lives in a funeral parlor. Dan Aykroyd, Vada's widowed, mortician father, learns about love and the living from his makeup artist, Jamie Lee Curtis. Directed by Howard Zieff (Private Benjamin), this sweet saga is both hilarious and heartrending. Don't forget the Kleenex.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY. This elegant spin-off from the Charles Addams drawings and the '60s TV series is worth seeing for the casting alone: Anjelica Huston as Morticia, Raul Julia as Gomez, Christina Ricci as the elfin ghoul Wednesday. A one-joke movie -- every gag is about the aristocracy of decay -- but handsomely told.

ART

PLEASURES AND TERRORS OF DOMESTIC COMFORT, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Forget Angkor Wat and Victoria Falls. This witty show of work by 62 photographers says that home is the most unfamiliar territory of all. Through Dec. 31.

SWISS FOLK ART: CELEBRATING AMERICA'S ROOTS, Museum of American Folk Art, New York City. Marking the 700th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation, 180 objects -- including carnival masks, prayer books, cake molds and embroidered towels -- demonstrate the true vitality of Switzerland's folk traditions. Through Jan. 1.

THEATER

THE CRUCIBLE. Tony Randall launches his National Actors Theater on Broadway with an all-star revival of Arthur Miller's gem about the Salem witch trials, featuring Martin Sheen, Fritz Weaver and Michael York.

A WONDERFUL LIFE. Joe Raposo, composer of Sing and much of Sesame Street, left a trove of musicals-in-the-making at his death in 1989. This remake of the Frank Capra-Jimmy Stewart film classic It's a Wonderful Life, at Washington's Arena Stage, is as sweet and gosh-darn inspirational as the original. But Sheldon Harnick's book and, especially, lyrics wobble embarrassingly in tone, and the storytelling transition from screen to stage is much less than magical.

NICK & NORA. Nothing was wrong with the idea of a stylish musical about the fun-loving husband-and-wife detectives: preview tickets for the show, which opens on Broadway this week, cost full price but are selling apace. The actual experience, according to advance word, is less fun.

BOOKS

WLT: A RADIO ROMANCE by Garrison Keillor (Viking; $21.95). The inventor and host of public radio's A Prairie Home Companion turns in a loopy, endearing novel about the golden days of the talking box and some of those folks behind the microphones. It is the 1930s, and the staff at Minneapolis' fictional WLT can't believe that what they are doing is work and that such good times will last. They won't.

THE DEVIL'S CANDY by Julie Salamon (Houghton Mifflin; $24.95). Subtitled The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood, this account by the film critic for the Wall Street Journal shows precisely how a turkey can be dressed. Given access to the project from the start, Salamon did not set out to chronicle a catastrophe; but that is what Tom Wolfe's novel became on screen, and this book retails every stumble along the way.

ETCETERA

CIRK VALENTIN. The only animal in this circus is a graceful rat, but amazing acrobatics staged by Valentin Gneuschev of Flying Cranes fame make Moscow's latest export fun for the entire family. At Broadway's Gershwin Theater through Jan. 5, followed by a national tour.

FREE SPIRIT

Pianist Shura Cherkassky is celebrating his 80th birthday this season in a typical way: a concert tour that would make a much younger artist flinch. Cherkassky still plays more than 80 dates a year, and audiences can be sure that there won't be any staleness or formula presentation. He is called the last of the great Romantics for good reason: his style is freewheeling, poetic, very much the flowering of his temperament and his mood of the moment. As such he is a priceless antidote to the prevailing vogue in pianism for note-perfect but dry interpretations. Along with the Bach and the Chopin, Cherkassky plays at least one modern piece on each program, and often the most startling revelations occur in these works. Ives' Three-Page Sonata or Stockhausen's Klavierstuck IX are rinsed in his effervescent Romanticism, and concertgoers find formidable works exciting. Cherkassky's birthday bash is Dec. 2 at Carnegie Hall; several other dates, including St. Louis, Cleveland, London and Rome will follow.