Critics' Voices

By TIME''S REVIEWERS/Compiled by Andrea Sachs

THEATER

ON BORROWED TIME. George C. Scott is back on Broadway as a quintessential foxy grandpa, all harmless cusswords and mock-fierce benevolence, in a sentimental 1938 comedy-drama about an old man's battle of wits with death. What a pity to waste his gifts on piffle.

THE BABY DANCE. A desperate L.A. yuppie couple arrange to buy the unborn child of a dirt-poor Louisiana pair in Jane Anderson's passionate off-Broadway drama, beautifully realized in the fierce, moving performances of TV's Linda Purl and Stephanie Zimbalist, and Richard Lineback.

TELEVISION

EDGE (PBS, Nov. 6 and 10 on most stations). PBS's new monthly magazine series on pop culture, with host Robert Krulwich, enlivens some familiar topics (Grateful Dead fanatics, Norman Mailer's new novel) with personal points of view from such contributors as Buck Henry and critic James Wolcott.

! IT'S ONLY TELEVISION (Nickelodeon, Nov. 6, 5 p.m. and Nov. 8, 7 p.m. EST). Do TV news programs tell the truth? How close to reality are TV sitcoms and dramas? Host Linda Ellerbee addresses these and other questions in this level- headed half-hour children's special, which encourages kids to think about and even -- gasp! -- criticize what they see on TV.

THE RETURN OF ELIOT NESS (NBC, Nov. 10, 9 p.m. EST). Robert Stack is back as TV's most famous G-man, as still another classic TV series, The Untouchables, proves there's life after death.

MUSIC

KILLER JOE: SCENE OF THE CRIME (Hard Ticket). The knockdown, knockout party record of the season, if your idea of a blowout is straight-from-the-hear t rock with the rollicking flavor of the Jersey shore. Killer Joe Delia is a piano pounder with a raucous voice, and he's buttressed here by the eloquent drumming of his crony Max Weinberg, late of the E Street Band, and guest performers like Little Steven and Jon Bon Jovi. Glory days indeed.

RICKIE LEE JONES: POP POP (Geffen). One of rock's most idiosyncratic talents bends pop standards like I'll Be Seeing You and Second Time Around to her own offbeat styling. She comes up with interpretations that career between the telling and the bizarre, but some of the most surprising renditions -- like, for God's sake, Hi-Lili Hi-Lo -- turn out to be the most successful.

DIRE STRAITS: ON EVERY STREET (Warner Bros.). Likely you've caught the first single, Calling Elvis, on the radio. The rest of the record is similar: edgy, mysterious, insinuating, with some typically masterly guitar work by Mark Knopfler. Dire Straits is the most stylishly surreptitious group in all of rock: the music seems to drift off into the unconscious as soon as you hear it, leaving the impression that it's been part of your life forever -- or at least since Elvis.

MOVIES

BILLY BATHGATE. Over budget and over schedule, with rumors of rancor soiling its production, Robert Benton's movie of the E.L. Doctorow novel arrives in a shroud of doom. Well, surprise! There's rare grace and gravity in the tale of a Bronx kid (Loren Dean, a find) who hitches his hopes to the falling star of gangster Dutch Schultz (Dustin Hoffman, again splendid). Forget the Cassandras. Go see a good movie.

ANTONIA & JANE. Chic Antonia, plain Jane. These young Englishwomen are "friends," with all the baggage -- competition, envy, bonding and bondage -- that the word carries. Marcy Kahan's witty script sees all men as dolts, and director Beeban Kidron sees all camera angles as cute, but you could still enjoy this wry, desperate comedy of '90s sisterhood.

LIFE IS SWEET. Another brisk, weeny English comedy, and welcome as well. In a family out of a skewed sitcom, Mum and Dad try not to fret while their 21- year-old twin daughters offer up fun-house images of 21st century Britain: stoic and efficient or raging and aimless. Somehow, Mike Leigh's movie is hopeful. It says the nation will always survive adversity in the old-fashioned way: with a smile and a shrug.

ART

HALLOWED HAUNTS: THE DRAWINGS AND WATERCOLORS OF CHARLES ADDAMS, National Academy of Design, New York City. The creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky imaginings of one of the New Yorker's most famous cartoonists. Through Jan. 12.

OBJECTS OF MYTH AND MEMORY, AMERICAN INDIAN ART AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM, New York City. A rich and vibrant collection of some 250 Western and Plains Indian objects, including polychromed ceramics, kachina dolls, God-impersonator masks and fetishes that were acquired by the museum's insightful turn-of-the-century curator. Through Dec. 29.

TELLING TALES, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In the 19th century, narrative paintings were used to please and instruct, yet the genre fell into ill favor with the advent of the moderns. Fifty paintings and sculptures of that neglected style are on display, once again revealing the inspiration artists found in the Bible, history and literature. Through April 19.

DEAD RINGER

Wynn Dalton, a down-on-his-luck dinner-theater actor, finally gets a break: pegged as a dead ringer for serial killer Dwayne Gary Steckler, he is cast as the fugitive psycho for a segment of All Points Bulletin, a catch-the-criminal show patterned after America's Most Wanted. His appearance is a hit with everybody but the real killer -- who disposes of the actor, assumes his identity and sets out to give the role some real authenticity. That's just the starting point for PUBLIC ENEMY 2, an ingenious comedy special tucked into Showtime's schedule this month (debuting Nov. 10, 10 p.m. EST). Dave Thomas, the brilliant, underutilized SCTV alum, plays both the actor and the killer, and it's hard to tell which one needs psychiatric help more. Producer-director David Jablin crams a feature film's worth of twists into a breathless 37 minutes and skewers everything from TV's true-crime shows to America's celebrity roller coaster. Pound for pound, it may be the shrewdest satire of television since Network.