Critics' Choice

ART

GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Underappreciated in the modern era, Reni is restored in this 50-painting show to the high rank that earlier centuries accorded him as a luminous colorist and elegant stylist. Through May 14.

RICHARD DIEBENKORN: WORKS ON PAPER, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Some 180 works -- more than one-third of them never before publicly exhibited -- by a contemporary master in his first comprehensive show of drawings. Through May 7.

ROBERT ADAMS: PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE AMERICAN WEST, Philadelphia Museum of Art. A tribute to the chronicler of the imperiled landscape. In the remarkable pictures that Adams has been making since the mid-1960s, nature's stubborn beauty is forever being elbowed aside by parking lots, trash and suburban sprawl. Through April 16.

BOOKS

FIRE DOWN BELOW by William Golding (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $17.95). The last leaf of a trilogy begun back in 1980. An arrogant young 19th century Englishman survives seaborne hardships to arrive in Australia -- and at some condition of self-knowledge.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS by John Updike (Knopf; $18.95). A wry, haunting memoir by an author who decided while young that the printed word would disguise his flaws, only to learn that success leaves one painfully exposed.

BILLY BATHGATE by E.L. Doctorow (Random House; $19.95). A fictional Bronx boy, circa 1935, is accepted into the inner councils of the infamous Dutch Schultz gang and survives murderous adventures to tell an incendiary tale.

A THEFT by Saul Bellow (Penguin; $6.95). The Nobel laureate offers an original novella in paperback, a vivid new fiction in which the familiar Bellow hero has become a heroine.

MUSIC

ROY ORBISON: MYSTERY GIRL (Virgin). This was simply going to be Orbison's first original solo album in ten years; it turned out to be his farewell performance. A little slick sometimes, but at least one tune, She's a Mystery to Me (produced by U2's Bono), is the perfect valedictory.

BARBRA STREISAND: TILL I LOVED YOU (Columbia). For fans only -- but then, there are plenty of Streisand fans around. Even the simplest ballads are punched, pummeled and orchestrated into Major Statements. Don Johnson joins Babs for a duet on the title track, sounding more like a cop than he does on TV.

DIGITAL HOLLYWOOD (MCA Classics). From Star Wars to The Magnificent Seven, Stanley Black leads the London Symphony in ten of the best movie themes ever penned.

THEATER

CAFE CROWN. This Broadway revival is not much of a play, but Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach and Bob Dishy head a splendid cast that adroitly and affectionately ! recalls the Manhattan heyday of Jewish theater.

THE HEIDI CHRONICLES. Joan Allen's poignant playing turns writer Wendy Wasserstein's feminist cliches into a touching glimpse of baby boomers grown older if not wiser.

MASTERGATE. Larry Gelbart, creator of TV's M*A*S*H, savagely spoofs Ollie North and Iran-contra at Harvard's American Rep.

MOVIES

HIGH HOPES. A dotty old woman fights to keep her home amid the crush of gentrification. Working with a cast that has helped improvise its roles, British director Mike Leigh creates a group portrait of characters who live and breathe and squawk their wayward humanity on the margins of Thatcher's England.

ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN. Lovers waltz in midair, a servant (Eric Idle) outruns a speeding bullet, and the King of the Moon (Robin Williams) loses his head in this fantasy from Terry Gilliam, late of Brazil.

NEW YORK STORIES. In this trio of vignettes, Francis Coppola belly flops with his tale of Manhattan rich kids. But two out of three ain't bad: Martin Scorsese's crafty sketch of a downtown painter and Woody Allen's comedy about the ultimate Jewish mother.

TELEVISION

PETER PAN (NBC, March 24, 8 p.m. EST). A TV classic returns from never-never land. Mary Martin is the spritely star of this 1960 production, a re-creation of the version originally done live for TV in 1955.

LATENIGHT AMERICA WITH DENNIS WHOLEY (PBS, debuting March 25, 11 p.m. on most stations). The lively interview/ call-in show, which had a run on PBS from 1981 to 1985, returns to the Saturday-night schedule.

LEARNING IN AMERICA (PBS, debuting March 27, 9 p.m. on most stations). Roger Mudd is schoolmaster for a five-week examination of the alarming state of U.S. education.