Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers. Compiled by Linda Williams

TELEVISION

BACKFIELD IN MOTION (ABC, Nov. 13, 9 p.m. EST). Roseanne and Tom Arnold, TV's terror couple, make a surprisingly appealing pair in this movie about a single mother who tackles male chauvinism in surburbia by organizing a mother-son football game.

BLACK OR WHITE (Fox, Nov. 14, 8:30 p.m. EST). Michael Jackson's new video -- the first from his latest album, Dangerous -- has its broadcast-TV premiere following an episode of The Simpsons. Bart himself co-stars in the 11-minute film, directed by John Landis (Thriller.)

G-MEN -- THE RISE OF J. EDGAR HOOVER (PBS, Nov. 18, 9 p.m. on most stations). The controversial former FBI chief gets a grilling in this American Experience documentary.

MOVIES

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE. Krzysztof Kieslowski's mood piece about two young women -- one Polish, the other Parisian -- is both emotionally opaque and theatrically radiant, for it showcases a beautiful star in the making, Irene Jacob. She won Cannes's Best Actress prize this year; may she illuminate movie screens for decades to come.

CAPE FEAR. Martin Scorsese, the world's top picturemaker, revamps the 1962 Robert Mitchum sicko thriller. This time Robert De Niro (never more cruddily galvanizing) is the ex-con with a death wish for the man who put him behind bars (Nick Nolte) and his family. Chills, laughs and a climax that hits like a hurricane of hysteria.

OVERSEAS. Three Frenchwomen in postwar North Africa wait for their hearts to tumble and the colonial empire to crumble. This essay in sisterhood marks an assured debut from actress-director Brigitte Rouan. But the big news is Marianne Basler, a stunner, as the most restless of the sisters.

BOOKS

WARRIOR STATESMAN: THE LIFE OF MOSHE DAYAN by Robert Slater (St. Martin's Press; $27.95). Dayan, Israel's most controversial political and military figure, successfully led his country in the 1967 Six-Day War. In the first full-length biography of Dayan, Slater, who is a reporter for TIME's Jerusalem bureau, contends that Dayan's decision to keep Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip led to the hard-line, right-wing policies of the Shamir government.

AMAZONIA by Loren McIntyre (Sierra Club Books; $40). This large-format portfolio captures the riches of the vast Amazon Basin, from the white-water region of the western Andes to the black waters of the Rio Negro system, on to the blue of the south, and finally to the brown Amazon mainstream. A dazzling record of an ecological treasure that is fast being destroyed.

THEATER

PARK YOUR CAR IN HARVARD YARD. Israel Horovitz's Broadway play is sentimental, meandering and too full of coincidence, but Jason Robards and Judith Ivey make the most of encounters between a dying high school teacher and one of countless students he flunked instead of inspiring to do better.

BEGGARS IN THE HOUSE OF PLENTY. The family is as quarrelsome as in Moonstruck, but this time John Patrick Shanley views the combat unforgivingly. His own off-Broadway staging is stylized and energetic. The role based on him is convincingly played by Loren Dean, star of the current film Billy Bathgate.

MUSIC

NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE: WELD (Reprise). A woolly, rambunctious and altogether dynamic two-CD concert set by this manic troubadour and his nail- spitting band. Young standards like Cortez the Killer and the great Powderfinger sound reborn. Also available with a third CD, Arc, which is mostly wild guitar mangling guaranteed to make your back fillings drop out.

THE SMITHEREENS: BLOW UP (Capitol). If you thought goatees and guitar-anchored bar rock were passe, you're wrong. This Boston quartet keeps its arrangements straight up and simple, wrapping gravelly power chords around tasty little pop hooks.

SHOSTAKOVITCH: THE COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS, SIX VOLUMES (ESS.A.Y Recordings). The first of these extraordinary quartets was composed in 1938, the 15th in 1974, shortly before the composer's death. Their moods vary widely, ranging from caustic to ambivalent, charming to introspective, philosophical to elegiac. The Manhattan String Quartet blends understanding, cohesion and sharpness to convey the breadth and brilliance of these involving works.

ETCETERA

SARAH VAUGHAN JAZZ FESTIVAL AT NEWARK. Ten days of hot and cool sounds dedicated to the memory of the Newark girl who became one of the world's greatest jazz vocalists. Artists include Sammy Price, Sir Roland Hanna, Joe Williams, Ron Carter, Carrie Smith, Abbey Lincoln, the Harper Brothers and Roy Hargrove. Through Nov. 17.

ATOMIC SWING

THE COMPLETE ROULETTE LIVE RECORDINGS OF COUNT BASIE AND HIS ORCHESTRA (1959-1962) (Mosaic). Talk about positive fallout. The Basie band, which had lit up the '20s and '30s, spent the next two decades in swinging $ respectability before bursting out from under the long shadow of bebop in the late '50s. It was Big Bands' last big blast. The Basie boys were reinvigorated by fresh arrangements from the likes of Neal Hefti and Quincy Jones, dazzling solo work from the horn sections, and a new keyboard nimbleness from the Count himself. "The Atomic Band," they were called, and this magisterial eight-CD (or 12-LP) set packs a multimegaton payload: 133 prime live cuts, 108 of them never before released. There's no nostalgia in numbers like Li'l Darlin' or the Count's touchstone April in Paris, not a hint of the antique. This is jazz that burns on energy, spirit and inspiration, and swings on forever. (Available only by mail order from Mosaic Records, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Conn., 06902; phone: (203) 327-7111.)