Critics' Choice

MOVIES

WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. Strange people and situations pile into a Madrid penthouse until the place looks like the stateroom in A Night at the Opera. Carmen Maura is the put-upon heroine in this glossy farce by Spain's naughty new auteur Pedro Almodovar.

THE JANUARY MAN. Not a conventional whodunit. The mysteries in this spitball comedy are matters of the eccentric heart: How will a New York City fireman (Kevin Kline) win back his ex-girlfriend (Susan Sarandon) or find accommodating love with the mayor's daughter (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) ? John Patrick Shanley, whose luminous script for Moonstruck won an Oscar, scores again here.

DANGEROUS LIAISONS. What deadly games people play in this excellent gloss on Christopher Hampton's play. John Malkovich and Glenn Close are the decadent puppeteers of lust who realize, too late, that the job comes with fatal strings attached.

THEATER

THE PIANO LESSON. This stunning work by dramatist August Wilson, at Chicago's Goodman Theater, combines the emotional clout of his Pulitzer-prizewinning ( Fences with the haunting lyricism of his Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

DARKSIDE. Stars twinkle all around and the big blue marble of earth eerily arises in a set designer's triumph in this haunting new play about astronauts on the moon, at Denver Center Theater Company.

DUTCH LANDSCAPE. Dramatist Jon Robin Baitz, 26, who made a splash with The Film Society, echoes its South African setting in this autobiographical play, premiering at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum.

MUSIC

BANGLES EVERYTHING (Columbia). Cool sex and hot rhythm from four women rockers. Crash and Burn tells the story: funny, flinty and slick enough to slide into your heart like a knife.

MILT JACKSON: BEBOP (East-West). The Modern Jazz Quartet's eminent vibes man dives deep into the bop era, working fresh wonders on eight vintage tunes, mostly by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. If Bird lives in Clint Eastwood's recent film biography, he gets a neat new lease on life here.

JASCHA HEIFETZ: THE DECCA MASTERS, VOL. 2 (MCA Classics). Jascha plays Gershwin! And Stephen Foster! And Irving Berlin! The greatest violinist who ever lived, in dazzling arrangements of It Ain't Necessarily So, Old Folks at Home and White Christmas, among other American bonbons. Those were the days.

BOOKS

INCLINE OUR HEARTS by A.N. Wilson (Viking; $17.95). A London child is orphaned by German bombs during World War II and sent to live with relatives in the English countryside. What follows is a seriocomic autobiographical novel about coming of age in an age deucedly difficult to understand.

HONG KONG by Jan Morris (Random House; $19.95). The indefatigable traveler and perceptive commentator conveys the sights, sounds, aromas and political significance of this thriving British colony, scheduled to be returned to China in 1997.

ART

GOYA AND THE SPIRIT OF ENLIGHTENMENT, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This superb show rescues the Spanish master from the romantic shadows of the Goyaesque and presents him as a man immersed in the liberal currents of his time. Through March 26.

CEZANNE: THE EARLY YEARS, 1859-1872, National Gallery of Art, Washington. The least-known period of one of the best-known painters: his restless 20s and early 30s, when he disciplined his huge talent. Through April 30.

WALKER EVANS: AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHS, Museum of Modern Art, New York City. These spare, poetic images from the Depression era gave American photography a candid new spirit and a lasting legacy. Through April 11.

TELEVISION

A RAISIN IN THE SUN (PBS, Feb. 1, 8 p.m. on most stations). Danny Glover and Esther Rolle star in a newly restored version of Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 drama set in the Chicago ghetto.

LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN (NBC, Feb. 2, 9:30 p.m. EST). Dave brings his top-ten lists, stupid pet tricks and "world's most dangerous band" into prime time for a special that marks the show's seventh anniversary.

LONESOME DOVE (CBS, Feb. 5-8, 9 p.m. EST). Puny next to War and Remembrance, perhaps, but Larry McMurtry's big novel about a Texas cattle drive gets a suitably sprawling eight hours of TV time. Robert Duvall, Anjelica Huston and Tommy Lee Jones are among those along for the ride.