Critics' Choice

TELEVISION

A Holiday Sampler

THE CHRISTMAS WIFE (HBO, Dec. 12, 15, 18, 21, 24). Widower Jason Robards turns to a matchmaker for relief from a lonely holiday.

BOB HOPE'S JOLLY CHRISTMAS SHOW (NBC, Dec. 17, 8 p.m. EST). The usual sleighful of one-liners.

PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL (CBS, Dec. 21, 8 p.m. EST). With Chairry, Globey and gobs of guest stars.

A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES (PBS, Dec. 21, 8 p.m. on most stations). Denholm Elliot in Dylan Thomas' tale.

TATTERTOWN (Nickelodeon, Dec. 21, 23, 25). A new holiday cartoon from irreverent animator Ralph Bakshi.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (CBS, Dec. 22, 9 p.m. EST). The George C. Scott version, a dandy, is back again.

ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS (NBC, Dec. 23, 9 p.m. EST). Mary Steenburgen as a young mother who learns the meaning of -- guess what?

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (almost everywhere). Imagine what Christmas would be like if Frank Capra's film classic had never been born.

BOOKS

DEAR MILI by Wilhelm Grimm (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $16.95). A newly discovered Grimm fairy tale relates a stark saga of childhood and the death of innocence, amplified by Maurice Sendak's floating vistas and romantic palette.

PARTING THE WATERS: AMERICA IN THE KING YEARS, 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster; $24.95). A biography as social history puts Martin Luther King Jr. at the center of the American revolution in race relations that began with sit-ins and Freedom Rides and ended with President Lyndon B. Johnson maneuvering a stalled civil rights bill through Congress.

MOVIES

TWINS. Danny DeVito. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Twins! How's that for "high concept"? Fortunately, this comedy boasts more than tall-guy, short-guy jokes. It has an easy warmth that never slops over into sentiment.

MISSISSIPPI BURNING. As G-men investigating racially motivated murders, Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe become caught up in the civil rights movement. From the black community's frightened silence to the local lawmen's self-righteous denials, director Alan Parker has powerfully reimagined a time and place.

OLIVER & COMPANY. Dickens with a twist: the sprightly tale of an orphan cat named Oliver, a gang of raffish dogs and a pampered poodle with Bette Midler's voice. A jaunty love song to New York City, and the sharpest Disney cartoon feature since Walt died.

THEATER

MR. CINDERS. Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn., which revives musicals from the heyday of tuneful fluff, has a charmer in this gender reversal of Cinderella.

AN AMERICAN JOURNEY. Based on a true case of a family's 25-year fight against a cover-up of a black man's murder, this play, now at the Philadelphia Drama Guild, rocked Milwaukee, where it is set.

SPOILS OF WAR. Kate Nelligan glows as a feckless but fascinating mother in Michael Weller's poignant story of estranged parents and a teen son who schemes to reunite them. Now on Broadway.

MUSIC

STAY AWAKE (A&M). A collection of tunes from Disney films is a bundle of surprises. Suzanne Vega spooks her way through a Mary Poppins ditty; Tom Waits does a mine-shaft version of Heigh Ho; Ringo Starr and Herb Alpert loft When You Wish Upon a Star: a little eccentric but beguiling enough to be more than novelty.

THE TRAVELING WILBURYS, VOL. 1 (Wilbury Records). They look and sound a lot like George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and other famous folk. Could it possibly be? The mystery is thin, but the sounds are joyous, making this the good-time record of the year.

SCHUBERT: SYMPHONY NO. 9 (Virgin). Charles Mackerras leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the aptly nicknamed "Great" C Major Symphony, on original instruments.

ART

THE ART OF PAOLO VERONESE: 1528-1588, National Gallery of Art, Washington. To see Veronese's glowingly colored, exquisitely textured works is to glimpse the splendor of Venice's Golden Age. Through Feb. 20.

COURBET RECONSIDERED, Brooklyn Museum, New York City. Vast landscapes, lavish nudes and masterly portraits in an ambitious retrospective of paintings by the 19th century realist. Through Jan. 16.

THE DRAWINGS OF RICHARD DIEBENKORN, Museum of Modern Art, New York City. A full-scale survey of the West Coast painter's works on paper, offering a rich view of his abstract and representational periods. Through Jan. 10.