Critics' Voices

By TIME''S REVIEWERS/Compiled by William Tynan

MOVIES

KING RALPH. John Goodman is the Ralph Kramden of the '90s -- but he enjoys being a slob. Have fun watching him raise a royal ruckus as a Las Vegas lounge singer who unaccountably becomes King of England. Writer-director David Ward sustains this merry, guileless fable with near perfect pitch.

THE HARD WAY. It's not just cars that collide in John Badham's exhilarating action comedy. It's fantasy vs. reality, laid-back movie actor vs. angry cop, the easy readings of Michael J. Fox vs. the bust-a-blood-vessel intensity of James Woods -- in short, it's L.A. vs. N.Y.

TELEVISION

TWIN PEAKS (ABC, returning March 28, 9 p.m. EST). From breakthrough hit to waning cult phenomenon in barely a year. David Lynch's chronicle of life in the mysterious northwest returns for what may be its final six-episode run.

HOUSE OF CARDS (PBS, debuting March 31, 9 p.m. on most stations). A Tory insider (Ian Richardson) plots to eliminate his rivals in a post-Thatcher government. This four-part Masterpiece Theater import, based on a novel written before Maggie's demise, is the savviest political drama since A Very British Coup.

CTV: THE COMEDY NETWORK (starting April 1). Two struggling cable channels -- the Comedy Channel and HA! -- pool their laughs and launch a new network. Happily, they've salvaged Mystery Science Theater 3000.

MUSIC

MARY CHAPIN-CARPENTER: SHOOTING STRAIGHT IN THE DARK (Columbia). In this exceptional country-and-western debut, Carpenter sounds almost too fragile for the genre; but her lyrics have a poignancy that's positively resilient, and her tunes are gossamer.

CHARLES ROSEN PLAYS CHOPIN (Globe). Rosen has been the victim of his own encyclopedic brilliance. Because he's so gifted a musicologist, linguist and ^ aesthetician, critics invariably dismiss his piano playing as too "cerebral." Yet the warmth, elasticity and insight he brings to these 24 mazurkas, the richest expression of Chopin's genius, should put such nonsense to rest.

THEATER

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN. Virginia Woolf's feminist manifesto breathes life, and fire, in Eileen Atkins' superb one-woman show off-Broadway.

FORGIVING TYPHOID MARY. Oscar winner Estelle Parsons stars in a thoughtful drama-cum-history-lesson at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J.

BOOKS

SCUM by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $19.95). The Nobel laureate turns in a typically rollicking, hectic tale about a man who returns to his native Poland in 1906 looking for affectionate women. He finds plenty, or perhaps they find him.

WAR FEVER by J.G. Ballard (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $18.95). These 14 odd, unsettling tales again prove that Ballard, widely known as a writer of science fiction, is really a surrealist. Once viewed through his prose, the world seems a strangely different place.

ART

THE WEST AS AMERICA: REINTERPRETING IMAGES OF THE FRONTIER, 1820-1920, National Museum of American Art, Washington. For Manifest Destiny, the positive perception of the American frontier was the greatest advertisement for going West. This exhibition of 164 paintings, sculptures, graphics and photographs explores the effect such imagery had and the misconceptions it spread. Through July 7.

BRITISH PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE THATCHER YEARS, Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Mean pictures of a mean place, taken by five photographers whose cameras were loaded with acid. A blistering portrait of years during which the haves had it all, the have-nots did not, and parts of England's green and lovely land were as bleak as tar pits. Through April 28.

ETCETERA

NEW ORLEANS JAZZ AND HERITAGE FESTIVAL. More than 3,000 artists gather in the Crescent City for one of the world's greatest celebrations of jazz, blues, R. and B., Zydeco and gospel music, headlined by Miles Davis, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Wynton Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr. and the Neville Brothers. April 26 through May 5.

DANCE THEATER OF HARLEM. After a six-month layoff, this splendid troupe is back at Washington's Kennedy Center. The dancers are on an Alberto Ginastera kick, with two premieres set to the Argentine composer's scores, one by Billy ! Wilson, the other by Glen Tetley. March 26 through April 7.

KOSHER VINTAGES

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE JEWISH -- to paraphrase a once popular rye-bread ad -- to enjoy kosher wines these days. Yes, those heavy, sweet, cut-it-with-a-knife concoctions made from Concord grapes are still around, but they now share shelf space with a growing array of dry, sophisticated table wines, from Sonoma County Chardonnays to Italian Chiantis, that may be certified kosher for Passover but are eminently drinkable all year. Kosher wines must be made by Sabbath-observant Jews under rabbinical supervision to ensure that nothing forbidden by dietary laws contaminates the process. The best can match their nonkosher counterparts in competitions. The March 31 issue of the Wine Spectator, surveying 54 kosher wines, notes that California Cabernet Sauvignons by Hagafen and Gan Eden scored 91 and 90 (out of 100) in blind tastings. The Herzog-label California and European varietals are usually reliable. A newcomer to watch is Teal Lake Cellars: its 1990 Mendocino Pinot Noir has the youthful brightness of a Beaujolais.