Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers. Compiled by Linda Williams

MUSIC

LOU REED AND JOHN CALE: SONGS FOR DRELLA (Warner Bros.). Part biography of Andy Warhol, part autobiography of Reed and Cale (who were members of the Warhol-corralled Velvet Underground), part song cycle, with a little art criticism on the side. Far from hagiography and close to greatness.

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: BEAUTY (Virgin). "Does a rose lose its color in the rain?" Well, maybe the lyrics lose in the translation. The music, by a Japanese master of melodic anagrams, comes through with finesse and eerie command. Guest appearances by Brian Wilson and Robbie Robertson, among others, contribute to the congenial oddness.

LORI CARSON: SHELTER (Geffen). Sylvia Plath for the CD age. Carson is too insistently sensitive, but this is a debut record. Her ballad, Way of the Past, is a worthy postscript to a love affair; it might even be a route to a bright future.

CINEMA

QUICK CHANGE. Bill Murray pulls off a bank heist in a clown suit, but he doesn't need a red nose to be funny. The actor's glancing, genial sarcasm buoys the action for the first half-hour. Then this caper comedy sinks into a puddle of urban rancor. Who needs another stale chorus of I Hate New York?

DIE HARD 2. No carols or eggnog for Bruce Willis. If it's Christmas, he must be saving the world from terrorists. In Die Hard he outmuscled the bad guys in an L.A. high-rise. This time he sweats heroically in a hijacked airport. DH2 serves up another dose of slick thrills and explosive fun.

MAY FOOLS. Director Louis Malle wanted to make a bright, black comedy of a provincial French family driven to paranoia by the student uprisings of May 1968. Instead, he offers a long weekend with some spoiled overgrown children.

DAYS OF THUNDER. The perfect school's-out movie, with Tom Cruise's fast driving and winning smile and Robert Duvall's fatherly smarts.

TELEVISION

REAL LIFE WITH JANE PAULEY (NBC, July 17 and 24, 10 p.m. EDT). Everybody's favorite ex-morning show host gets a prime-time showcase: the first two of five summer specials that will explore the "stresses and strains and silliness of the 1990s life-style."

JUST FOR LAUGHS: THE MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL (Showtime, July 21, 10 p.m. EDT). Bob Newhart is host for a live stand-up extravaganza.

DREAM ON (HBO, various dates). A neurotic New Yorker (Brian Benben) copes with divorce, dating and other modern trials, while scenes from old TV shows rattle around in his head. A clever gimmick perks up familiar material in this engaging sitcom series from executive producer John Landis.

THEATER

LIFE DURING WARTIME. A stern 16th century John Calvin provides a running commentary in Keith Reddin's wacky melodrama-cum-farce about home-security salesmen who double as burglars. At San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse.

FOREVER PLAID. Even if you don't remember the bland, white, close-harmony pop groups, the Ed Sullivan Show variety acts and the '50s squeaky-cleanness being sent up in this off-Broadway review, the daffy humor and deft musicianship should prove charming.

FALSETTOLAND. The third installment of William Finn's musical trilogy, off- Broadway, explores the intricacies of love and family in the age of AIDS, without losing its sense of humor.

BOOKS

% THE INNOCENT by Ian McEwan (Doubleday; $18.95). Set in Berlin in 1955, at the height of the cold war, McEwan's thriller deftly solves the conundrum of writing a spy novel in the era of glasnost.

THE POLITICS OF RICH AND POOR by Kevin Phillips (Random House; $19.95). Republicans beware! A proven political prognosticator foresees a populist backlash in the '90s against the greedfest of the '80s. Compellingly argued, but why isn't anyone bothering to vote?

FAMILY PICTURES by Sue Miller (Harper & Row; $19.95). In a novel about shifting values and resilient affections, the author of The Good Mother explores the impact of an autistic child on the complex web of family life.

ETC.

BABOON RESERVE, Bronx Zoo. Nubian ibex, rock hyraxes, assorted waterfowl and two troops of threatened gelada baboons inhabit this new 5.5-acre exhibit, which re-creates the high-altitude grasslands of Ethiopia's Amhara Plateau.

SOVIET SPACE, Museum of Science, Boston. A behind-the-scenes look at the Soviet space program, including a model of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth, and a "space bicycle" used for travel outside the space station Mir. Through Sept. 23.

THEATER ON PAPER. From the British Theater Museum's peerless collection, New York City's Drawing Center has culled 113 sketches and set designs for the stage spanning two centuries. Don't miss the masterly line drawings by Picasso for Jean Cocteau's Parade. Through July 21.

TASTINGS

Critic Robert M. Parker Jr. calls it "the world's most underrated white-wine region," and to most Americans it is unknown territory. Last year the French region of Alsace produced about 12 million cases of wine; a scant 68,000 were sold in the U.S., although that was a 21% increase over 1988 levels. A pity. Unlike the sweetish Rhines and Moselles of neighboring Germany, Alsace's crisp Pinot Blancs, spicy Gewurztraminers and luscious Rieslings are flowery in bouquet but normally bone-dry in taste, in short, ideal companions to such summertime staples as shellfish, grilled chicken and pasta salad. (Gewurztraminer has a peculiar affinity for Chinese and Indian dishes.) The hard-to-find 1985 vintage is a great one; so is 1988, now coming to market. Trimbach and Hugel are reliable producers, but no one makes finer Alsatians than the family firm Domaine Zind-Humbrecht, whose powerful, succulent vendange tardive (late harvested)) wines can match the best of Burgundy's.