Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers. Compiled by William Tynan

TELEVISION

THE JOSEPHINE BAKER STORY (HBO, Mar. 16, 18). The first of two planned TV movies about the legendary chanteuse, who faced raced prejudice in America while winning acclaim in France. Star Lynn Whitfield flashes her bare breasts but provides few other clues to Baker's stage appeal.

A SEASON OF GIANTS (TNT, Mar. 17, 18, 8 p.m. EST). The life and times of Michelangelo (British newcomer Mark Frankel) are the subject of this lush- looking, silly-sounding four-hour mini-series, which also gives us the skinny on the "eccentric" Leonardo (John Glover -- who else?), Pope Julius II (F. Murray Abraham), Raphael and Savonarola. In short, your basic Italian Renaissance docudrams.

MOVIES

THE DOORS. Jim Morrison, the satanic seraph of psychedelic rock, lighted his share of libidinal fires before his death in 1971, but is his story worth $40 million of somebody's money and 77 min. of your time? Not the way Oliver Stone's tells it, as a display of pop fame's wretched excess. That was evident back in the '60s; 1991 is no time to wallow in the mire.

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY. A suave beast (Patrick Bergin) tracks down his abused wife (Julia Roberts) after she has faked her death and escaped his clutches. A good idea for a feminist thriller soon degenerates, under Joseph Ruben's direction, into a wheezy lady-in-distress melodrama. Paging Barbara Stanwyck.

AY, CARMELA! Pan-European charmer Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) is a cabaret artiste caught in the crossfire of the Spanish Civil War. Director Carlos Saura makes all the obvious points, but Maura makes them shine like new truths.

MUSIC

STING: THE SOUL CAGES (A&M). Oh shut up. Maundering, egocentric speculations on spiritual anomie, all in polite tempos. There are occasional signs of life: the hit single All This Time shows Sting can still shake loose when he likes. He should make a habit of it.

DION: BRONX BLUES: THE COLUMBIA RECORDINGS (1962-1965) (Columbia/Legacy). One of the greatest rock voices of any complexion, caught here, in transition, changing from the king of romantic, street-savvy doo-wop to being a kind of gentle bard of urban blues.

VITAMIN L: EVERYONE'S INVITED (Lancaster Productions/Emeryville, Calif.) Are your kids too old for Sesame Street, but too young for Madonna? Give them a dose of Vitamin L, a wholesome pop-rock group of three teens and three grownups led by songwriter Jan Nigro. Their new album covers such serious matters as playground putdowns and pollution, but still has enough rhythm and soul to appeal to today's hip youngsters.

THEATER

MULE BONE. Famed among scholars of black literature as an intriguing might- have-been, this 1930 collaboration between Harlem poet Langston Hughes and fiction writer Zora Neale Hurston needed 61 years, and further tinkering, to make it to Broadway. The result, a fable set in a small Florida town, is vibrantly acted and full of charm, its dialectal richness enhanced by twangy Taj Mahal songs.

THE SNOW BALL. Wasp laureate A.R. Gurney (The Cocktail Hour, Love Letters) is a shrewd chronicler of social class customs and conflicts in this Hartford Stage mounting (also to appear at San Diego's Old Globe) of a new play with music and dance adapted from his poignant novel. It shows the seductive folly of revisiting past pleasures -- for a generation that revives its youthful midwinter gala and for a pair of former partners, perfect on the dance floor but not off, reunited in a last bittersweet waltz.

AND THE WORLD GOES ROUND. This cocktail of an off Broadway review tastes cynical, then sweetly sentimental, in classic Tin Pan Alley style. It honors a stellar team: composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman).

ART

COROT TO MONET: THE RISE OF LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN FRANCE, The Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH. The lush greens and pastoral beauty of rural France are explored through the works of over 100 19th century Barbizon painters, including such as Daubigny, Millet and Pissarro. Through April 28.

ISLAMIC ART AND PATRONAGE: TREASURES FROM KUWAIT, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Tx. This show's 107 items -- illuminated manuscripts, glazed pottery and jewel-encrusted metal work -- are a poignant reminder of the artistic heritage of one of the world's most turbulent regions. March 16 through May 12.

ETCETERA

PARSIFAL. On paper at least, it sings. Wagner's perennial Lenten draw is a specialty of James Levine, music director of the Metropolitan Opera, and for this year's cast, he has united the great Jessye Norman as Kundry and supertenor Placido Domingo in the title role of this new production. Performances through April 6.

ROYAL BALLET. Though generally timid about touring, Britain's premiere troupe is venturing to Washington D.C. with Swan Lake, two Frederick Ashton classics and the company's 1989 hit, The Prince of the Pagodas. March 12-24.

SMEAR CAMPAIGN

Here is the pseudo event not everyone has been waiting for: the publication of Bret Easton Ellis' controversial American Psycho (Vintage; $11), the sophomoric, overwritten satire of the yuppie '80s that contains the most gratuitous descriptions of sadistic murder and mayhem ever contained in a general trade novel. Simon & Schuster decided to surrender a $300,000 advance to Ellis and not publish his book after staff protests and press stories threatened risks greater than anticipated rewards. Snapped up at a bargain price by Random House for its Vintage division, the manuscript has undergone the editorial equivalent of liposuction. It is now leaner, meaner but not better. In fact, it is worse because the disgusting parts are easier to find. No plot or characterization has been inserted to mar the originality of the work's hostile infantilism. American Psycho still poses the challenging question: How much feces can a young writer smear on the wall before Mommy and Daddy really get angry?