Critics’ Voices

Art

The Drawings of Henry Fuseli National Academy of Design, New York City. These fantastic images, based mostly on myth and literature, show why the Zurich- born, London-based Fuseli (1741-1825) was a major influence on William Blake and a forerunner of surrealism. Through March 27. From Expressionism to Resistance, Art in Germany 1909-1936: The Marvin and Janet Fishman Collection, Milwaukee Art Museum. A society in political, cultural and economic upheaval is vividly portrayed in works by Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Otto Dix and many others. Through Feb. 3.

Television

Roseanne Barr Live from Trump Castle (HBO, Jan. 5, 10 p.m. EST). TV’s queen of bad taste is back on the stand-up stage. No Star-Spangled Banner this time, but her screechy rendition of The Ballad of Billy Jack is enough to wake Francis Scott Key.

Real Life with Jane Pauley; Exposè (NBC, debuting Jan. 6, 8 p.m. EST). Two half-hour news programs get regular Sunday-night slots: Jane’s yuppie newsmagazine, followed by a new series featuring the work of investigative- reporting team Brian Ross and Ira Silverman.

Soviets (PBS, Jan. 6-10, 10 p.m. on most stations). Five hour-long reports on upheaval in the Soviet Union, created by Latvian director Juris Podnieks, with Hedrick Smith as host.

Music

Whitney Houston: I’m Your Baby Tonight (Arista). Now wait a minute. Before you go dismissing her as a beautiful but soulless dance-floor diva, check out her way with a ballad like All the Man That I Need. She comes within striking distance of classic saloon soul here and proves she’s stepping up to fast company.

Bluesiana Triangle (Windham Hill Jazz). A wonderment of a record, a reverie from the place where jazz and blues meet and get along fine. Dr. John provides keyboards and vocals; David (“Fathead”) Newman works the sax; Art Blakey goes easy on the drums and contributes a deft, funky vocal on For All We Know that stands as his own exquisite epitaph.

Beethoven: The String Quatets (Philips Classics). Here at last is a three- volume reissue of the Quartetto Italiano’s numinous interpretation of these musical monuments: mournful and indomitable, tender and gritty, patrician and earthy, fiery and serene.

Books

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power by Daniel Yergin (Simon & Schuster; $24.95). If you don’t mind being oblivious while the oil burner rumbles hungrily in the basement, so be it. But if you want to know what really makes the world go round, Yergin’s colorful history of the petroleum industry is indispensable.

India: A Million Mutinies Now by V.S. Naipaul (Viking; $24.95). The great chronicler of the breakup of colonialism in the Third World returns to India to observe how disruptive traditions have re-emerged to trouble the present and threaten the future.

A Neutral Corner by A.J. Liebling (North Point Press; $19.95). The late Joe Liebling wrote superlatively about war, food, the press, horse racing and boxing (“the sweet science”). Fans who thought there was no more vintage Liebling to savor on a winter’s eve can now rejoice. These 15 previously uncollected prizefighting pieces, written for the New Yorker between 1952 and 1963, add to the wordsmith’s impressive knockout record.

Movies

The Godfather Part III. As a Mafia heiress, Sofia Coppola wins early admission to the Bad Acting Hall of Fame. (Who would have been better? Julia Roberts, Sandra Bernhard, Roseanne Barr, Divine . . .) The rest of the film is a slow fuse with a big bang — a little tragic grandeur to end the Corleone saga.

The Bonfire of the Vanities. Tom Wolfe’s book was already a great movie, so pungent was its dialogue, so rich its description of habitats and haberdashery. Brian De Palma’s film is at best a redundancy, at worst a slick dead thing, like a sable coat left in a Park Avenue puddle.

Kindergarten Cop. Sounds cute, doesn’t it? But don’t take the kids to this pertly titled melodrama unless you want them to see a child abducted at gunpoint by his drug-dealer dad. And if you don’t have kids, stay home. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s exertions can’t pump any life into this comatose jape.

Etcetera

Walt Disney’s World on Ice. Mickey Mouse, Roger Rabbit and the Little Mermaid all flash their blades in this rollicking family treat. Children will be spellbound by the icy antics of their favorite cartoon characters; their parents will enjoy some superb skating. Next performances in Philadelphia, Buffalo and Cincinnati.

Selling the Goods: Origins of American Advertising, 1840-1940, Strong Museum, Rochester. From billboards to handbills, symbols of advertising pass before our eyes at the rate of 1,600 a day. This entertaining exhibition traces the proliferation of ads over an eventful century.

Bountiful Boxes

Suddenly the market is flooded with enough boxed-set CD musical anthologies to start a mid-size radio station. For ornery blues listening: Bo Diddley (45 songs, 2 CDs, Chess). For prime roots rock: The Legendary Roy Orbison (75 songs, 4 CDs, CBS Special Products). For seminal ’60s rock at its most inventive: The Byrds (90 songs, 4 CDs, Columbia/Legacy). For brain-crunching supergroup delirium: Led Zeppelin (54 songs, 4 CDs, Atlantic). For born-too- late Liberace fans: Elton John’s To Be Continued (70 songs, 4 CDs, MCA). Oh, for God’s sake: Derek and the Dominos’ The Layla Sessions: 20th Anniversary Edition (24 songs, plus a third 76-minute CD of jams, Polydor). For soul sublime: The Marvin Gaye Collection (81 songs, 4 CDs, Motown). For pipes unparalleled and singing supreme: Frank Sinatra: The Capitol Years (75 songs, 3 CDs) and Frank Sinatra: The Reprise Collection (81 songs, 4 CDs). There must be a 24-hour Sinatra station somewhere. The Voice of America?