Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers. Compiled by Andrea Sachs

TELEVISION

DARROW (PBS, June 7, 9 p.m. on most stations). Kevin Spacey gets the juicy role of the legendary defense attorney. Great subject and a spirited presentation, but too many Hollywood-bio cliches mar this American Playhouse movie.

I, CLAUDIUS (PBS, debuting June 9, 9 p.m. on most stations). Sex, corruption, double dealing and all those other fun things that made Rome the place to be a couple of thousand years ago. Derek Jacobi stars in this much lauded Masterpiece Theatre series, returning for a summer-long run.

TWIN PEAKS (ABC, June 10, 9 p.m. EDT). The TV world has passed him by, but Agent Cooper still has a few mysteries left to solve. The two-hour season (and probably all-time) finale may clear up one or two of them.

BOOKS

A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR by Mark Helprin (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; $24.95). In this big (792 pages) rumbustious novel, an aging Italian professor recounts his adventures during World War I. Once the long narrative gathers force, the tale moves with riotous energy and sustained brilliance.

THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN by Paul Johnson (HarperCollins; $35). A quirky pop history -- starting with the Battle of New Orleans and ending with the death of the first railway-accident victim -- of 15 years that shaped the modern world. British author Johnson (Modern Times, Intellectuals) finds room for everything, from the decline of snuff taking among women to artists' yearnings to produce ever bigger paintings.

COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT by Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke (Random House; $25). Washington's nonpareil insider looks back on his years -- usually in an unofficial capacity -- within the penumbra of power. The behind-the- scenes anecdotes are fascinating and irresistible.

MOVIES

FX2: THE DEADLY ART OF ILLUSION. Truth in advertising, guys! The Deadly Art of Incoherence would be a much more accurate subtitle for this sequel, which gets about halfway to agreeability and then falls back in confusion. Man cannot live -- or even stay fully awake -- on special effects alone.

THEATER

THE OLD BOY. Sometimes A.R. Gurney (The Dining Room, Love Letters) is a wry Wasp elegist. In this powerful, superbly played off-Broadway drama, he depicts a ruling elite suppressing a gay teenager of the 1950s.

FROM THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA. Launched in Chicago, a prizewinner in Washington and now at Hartford Stage Company, this gutsy story of black women in the South seemingly speaks to everybody.

THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES. John Mahoney is perfectly cast as the working-class- hero father in this family play, which was written just before the Generation Gap got its name and is now handsomely revived off-Broadway.

MUSIC

ELVIS COSTELLO: MIGHTY LIKE A ROSE (Warner Bros.). Brother Costello again, in a nerve-wrenching excursion through the inner sanctums of his troubled spirit. Songs like How to Be Dumb are akin to bamboo slivers under fingernails, but Costello's humor -- in full bloom here -- gives them both buoyancy and added punch.

THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS: ELECTRIC BARNYARD (Mercury). These five fellas are good-time boys for damned sure, with a unique combination of respect and irreverence for the byways of country music. Any bunch that records The Ballad of Davy Crockett and brings it off with a straight face and a steady beat deserves a hunk of respect, and maybe a side order of awe.

ROY HARGROVE: PUBLIC EYE (Novus). At 21, trumpeter Hargrove plays with the confidence and maturity of jazzmen twice his age. With his sharp attack and liquid tone, he brings both fire and lyricism to a repertoire that is always anchored in melody. Alto-sax man Antonio Hart adds a riveting counterpoint to this tight, driving quartet.

TOBIAS PICKER: THE ENCANTADAS (Virgin Classics). Inspired by Herman Melville's eerie prose poems The Encantadas, Picker uses traditional and 20th century musical vocabularies to create a hauntingly sinister and beautiful evocation of the "evilly enchanted" Galapagos, performed by Christoph Eschenbach and the Houston Symphony with narration by Sir John Gielgud.

ETCETERA

WORKING PEOPLE OF RICHMOND: LIFE AND LABOR IN AN INDUSTRIAL CITY, 1865-1920: The Valentine Museum, Richmond. The show explores the changes and impact of industrialization through audiovisual displays, working machinery and hands-on activities like stemming tobacco. June 7 through Dec. 9.

THE YOSEMITE: PHOTOGRAPHS OF GALEN ROWELL. The 100th anniversary of the founding of California's Yosemite National Park is marked by an exhibition of 36 color photographs, with text by Rowell and conservationist John Muir. At the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, Washington, through June 16.

DESIGN

ARATA ISOZAKI 1960/1990 ARCHITECTURE: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. What more fitting location for the first major retrospective of Japan's greatest postwar architect than the building that was his premier American commission? This is not just another bland collection of an architect's renderings, but an in-depth overview of the life and career of one of the world's most exciting and original designers. The event coincides with Isozaki's 60th birthday, which the Japanese consider a benchmark age at which an individual has gained sufficient wisdom to make important contributions. But as the show makes clear, Isozaki has long since left his mark on the world. The multimedia exhibit spans 30 years of his work, from his youthful visionary proposals for Tokyo in the 1960s to his current urban projects around the world. The exhibit includes a full-scale reconstruction of a tea house, 35 scale models, 200 original drawings and three high-definition TV programs. Through June 30.