Critics' Voices

MOVIES

THE ADVENTURES OF MILO AND OTIS. Milo is a barnyard kitten and Otis his dogged friend in this live-action children's film narrated by Dudley Moore. If cute were still a word of approval, Masanori Hata's charming parable would earn it.

WIRED. The saddest thing about John Belushi's death might be this requiem & -- the movie Hollywood tried to stop. Next time, guys, try harder.

COOKIE. English teenager Emily Lloyd brings an acute ear and a fetching presence to her role as a Brooklyn punkster in this comedy about a Mafia don (Peter Falk) with a score to settle and a wayward daughter to raise.

THEATER

THE COCKTAIL HOUR. Nancy Marchand's sozzled, sardonic portrayal of a grande dame enriches A.R. Gurney's Wasp family tale at Washington's Kennedy Center.

THE LADY IN QUESTION. What is the alleged pleasure of a drag show? If the leading "lady" is unconvincing, it's gross. If he's too convincing, there's no coy guessing game. And if he's just campy enough, the joke is over in five minutes. Alas, this off-Broadway farce lasts two hours.

SWEENEY TODD. Stephen Sondheim's unlikeliest musical, a sympathetic look at a murderous barber and at the woman who recycles his victims as meat pies, returns to Broadway in a shrewdly staged and highly tuneful chamber version.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF LUCK. The drifters, gamblers and hustlers in Marlane Meyer's desert panorama mingle the doomed banality of Sam Shepard characters with the quixotic blessings of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life. At the Los Angeles Theater Center.

ART

CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS: CULTURES OF SIBERIA AND ALASKA, Seattle Center Pavilion. Art and artifacts by native peoples on both sides of the Bering Strait, assembled in the first such joint effort by the U.S. and Soviet Union. Through Oct. 15.

MUSIC

ROLLING STONES: THE LONDON YEARS (Abkco). An avalanche of gems: 58 of the greatest rock-'n'-roll singles of all time, culled from the Stones' hitmaking heyday, 1963 to 1971, including some rare B-side cuts.

BRANFORD MARSALIS: TRIO JEEPY (Columbia). Some nice moments (The Nearness of You, Gutbucket Steepy), but let's face it: slick imitations of Bird, Coltrane and Ben Webster do not a jazz genius make. Forget the liner-note hype, Jeepy, and come back when you've paid some dues.

FAIRPORT CONVENTION: RED & GOLD (Rough Trade). When this British group started up in the late '60s, their music was called "folk rock." Two decades on, the phrase is shopworn, but the band's music -- graced by some ghosts of ancient traditional melody -- is as splendid and mysterious as ever.

TELEVISION

48 HOURS: RETURN TO CRACK STREET (CBS, Sept. 14, 8 p.m. EDT). CBS's often ! absorbing, occasionally overheated series of slice-of-life snapshots launches its new season by revisiting the drug scene it first surveyed three years ago.

MISS AMERICA PAGEANT (NBC, Sept. 16, 10 p.m. EDT). Gary Collins and Phyllis George gush over the annual parade of swimsuits and baton solos.

EMMY AWARDS (Fox, Sept. 17, 8 p.m. EDT). The mini-series Lonesome Dove is the odds-on favorite for top honors; Roseanne Barr, notably left out of the acting nominations, has already received the biggest snub.

THE NIGHTMARE YEARS (TNT, Sept. 17-20, 8 p.m. EDT). William Shirer's memoir of Hitler's Germany in the 1930s is re-created in an eight-hour mini-series.

BOOKS

LORD BYRON'S DOCTOR by Paul West (Doubleday; $19.95). A brilliant tour de force about the cruelty of genius, starring Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary (author of Frankenstein) and the narrator, an indiscreet physician.

A NATURAL CURIOSITY by Margaret Drabble (Viking; $19.95). In a sequel to The Radiant Way (1987), the author offers a Victorian-style novel about some decidedly contemporary English women and men.

ETC

LE CIRQUE DU SOLEIL. A few tattered folk wander into the big top and presto! turn into the world's most beguiling circus performers. This luminous spectacle, which sets up its tent next week in Santa Monica, Calif., and can be seen on HBO throughout this month, packs more magic than Merlin's wand. The Montreal-based Cirque may have lost a spangle or two since its first U.S. tour, but it remains, whatever Ringling may say, the greatest show on earth.

THE ARTS AND RUSSIA IN REVOLUTION. Detente comes to Dixie as Soviet ballet, drama, music, film and art share the stage at the Classics in Context Festival in Louisville. Featured performers include pianist Vladimir Feltsman and the Moscow Art Theater. Through Nov. 4.