Short Takes

CINEMA

Graveyard Laughter

FACING UP TO WIDOWHOOD, LUCILLE (Diane Ladd) fakes merriness, Doris (Olympia Dukakis) makes a tart-tongued second career out of mourning, and Esther (Ellen Burstyn) remains awash in vulnerability. They are THE CEMETERY CLUB -- three nice middle-aged, middle-class Jewish ladies trying to live out their leftover lives. When Esther crosses class lines to embark tentatively on a relationship with Ben (Danny Aiello), who drives a cab, her pals send up a chorus of envy and disapproval. The acting is sharp, and Bill Duke's direction is realistically grounded. But writer Ivan Menchell Neil Simonizes loss. He can be funny in variously glib and cozy ways. What's beyond him is the kind of laughter, gallant and sardonic, that can brace and inspire us in adversity.

CINEMA

Fever Blister

ONE PROBLEM WITH FEEL-GOOD MOVIES is that they browbeat the viewer with their strident optimism; like a Stalinist nanny, they shout, "Feel good!" Such a one is STRICTLY BALLROOM, an audience hit at several festivals. In this Australian musical comedy, West Side Story meets Saturday Night Fever, and everyone -- especially the thoughtful moviegoer -- ends up exhausted. On a ballroom dance floor, director Baz Luhrmann sets in motion all manner of human and cinematic gargoyles. You've never seen so many fisheye close-ups of goofy faces caked with bad makeup. Watching the film is like being condemned to perform in a '30s dance marathon with a partner who just won't quit. They shoot Aussies, don't they?

MUSIC

Digital Delight

THOUGH KNOWN AS THE SUPREME VIOLIN virtuoso whose personal eccentricities and wizardly playing combined to make him music's first superstar, Niccolo Paganini was also a superb guitarist. The instrument figured in all his published work during his lifetime except his magnum opus, the ferociously demanding 24 Caprices for solo violin. It seems just, then, that the guitar virtuoso ELIOT FISK has recorded his own transcriptions of the pieces (MusicMasters Classics). What amazes throughout is Fisk's ingenuity in finding the equivalents of, say, legato and ricocheted bowing on his plucked instrument, and his dexterity in executing them with such panache. This recording will dazzle violinists and daunt guitarists.

BOOKS

Middle-Class Tempers

KEVIN PHILLIPS HAS BUILT A REPUTAtion as the dependable fortune-teller of American politics. BOILING POINT: REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS, AND THE DECLINE OF MIDDLE-CLASS PROSPERITY (Random House; $23) is not as boldly predictive as his earlier books: he compares this nation's fate to that of 17th century Holland and late 19th century England -- two economic powerhouses that declined under the weight of indebtedness at home and overexpansion abroad -- only to suggest later that the parallels may not hold up. But Phillips' statistics and his pictures of suburbia provide a rich backdrop to last November's election -- an instant context for understanding the mixture of volatility and sobriety that characterized voters.

TELEVISION

Tennison, Anyone?

NO ACTRESS ON TV SHUNS MAKEUP MORE defiantly than Helen Mirren. As London's detective chief inspector Jane Tennison, she wears every sag and wrinkle as if it were a combat medal. In Prime Suspect, last year's smashing PBS mini-series imported from Granada TV, Tennison struggled to prove her investigative mettle to male-chauvinist colleagues. That battle largely won, PRIME SUSPECT 2 (debuting Feb. 11 for four weeks) loses some of its feminist urgency. Here she investigates the murder of a black girl in a racially tense neighborhood and tries to keep her professional cool when a black detective, and former lover, is assigned to the case. A bit less than prime this time, but still choice fare.