Short Takes

MUSIC

A Giant Tribute, Bernstein's Way

Conductor, composer, TV stalwart, Leonard Bernstein was a prodigy whose musical accomplishments were blurred by his seismic personality. He died in 1990 at 72, but his reputation, instead of receding as the fame of so many artists does after death, is going strong. The latest tribute is Sony's massive LEONARD BERNSTEIN ROYAL EDITION, a repackaging of his Columbia recordings from the 1950s to the 1970s. It consists of some 119 CDs, to be released over the next 2 1/2 years. The first 10 concentrate on Beethoven and Bartok, and the remastered sound is excellent. But that's not all. The pretty packaging is illustrated with watercolors by none other than Britain's Prince Charles. Would the maestro have okayed the shared billing?

BOOKS

Word Star

Paul Brock, the hero of Avery Corman's THE BIG HYPE (Simon & Schuster; $19), is a low-profile writer and family man transformed by a Manhattan show- business promoter into a national phenomenon. The money is swell, but Brock wants to cling to his artistic integrity as if it were an old sports jacket. Corman (Oh, God!) has a light comic touch that allows Brock to have it both ways and remain an appealing character. A bit of fantasy is also disarming. Corman works in guest appearances by film and literary stars, including the reclusive J.D. Salinger, who says, "Sometime when I'm in town, we'll have lunch." Sure, and God is an aged vaudevillian with a prop cigar.

THEATER

A Timeless War

For some reason, most major American plays center on conflict between fathers and sons. That terrain is revisited touchingly if without revelations in UNFINISHED STORIES, which retraces a classic immigrant generational cycle: from unyielding tradition to relentless assimilation to fervent rediscovery of old ways. Earnestly written by Sybille Pearson and meticulously staged by artistic director Gordon Davidson for Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, the show stars Joseph Wiseman, Hal Linden, Christopher Collet and Fionnula Flanagan. The title refers to interrupted anecdotes that are a metaphor for how families live together yet alone. Alas, it is the sole hint of subtext amid the unpondered grit of divorce, old age and death.

CINEMA

Gefilte Fish Out of Water

When hollywood moguls dine at Mortons, their favorite entree is fish out of water. They love movies that reveal the familiar through brand-new eyes. If detective Harrison Ford could cozy up to the Amish in Witness, why couldn't detective Melanie Griffith go undercover among Brooklyn's Hasidic Jews and become one of the mishpocha? The reason why not is A STRANGER AMONG US. This pill of a thriller, written by Robert Avrech, manages to demean everyone involved, regardless of creed or previous credits. The usually workmanlike Sidney Lumet directs Griffith to be shrill and most of the Hasidim to be cute and noble -- E.T.s with yarmulkes. Only Eric Thal, as a young scholar, emerges with dignity intact and prospects bright.

CINEMA

Dog Tired

It's tough on a woman when the best man around is a philandering dog trainer who had to change his name to avoid creditors. MAN TROUBLE wants you to believe that it's less tough on the woman (Ellen Barkin) when the man is Jack Nicholson. But Jack is looking too creased and rusted to play a romantic lead. And the story, about predatory men from all social strata lurking in the cobwebbed corners of a modern woman's life, gets neither the zest nor the sick thrill it could use. This is an enervated, despondent entertainment -- especially if you start meditating on what's befallen Nicholson, writer Carole Eastman and director Bob Rafelson since 1970, when the trio made Five Easy Pieces and the cinema world seemed full of promise and not dead ends.