Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers. Compiled by Andrea Sachs

TELEVISION

CHRISTMAS SPECIALS. The networks, suffering economic woes, have cut back on holiday specials this year, but not on their time-warp wholesomeness. None is cuddlier than Dolly Parton: Christmas at Home (ABC, Dec. 21), in which the country singer twangs I'll Be Home for Christmas -- and is. Disney's Christmas on Ice (CBS, Dec. 21) brings Mickey and Minnie together with Katarina Witt and Tai Babilonia, while Richard Mulligan plays a small-town eccentric who meets an extraterrestrial (Beau Bridges) in Guess Who's Coming for Christmas? (NBC, Dec. 23). On the classical side, James Galway and Frederica von Stade headline A Lincoln Center Christmas Gala (PBS, Dec. 19). And, of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas is back again (CBS, Dec. 19). It's 25 years for that treacly tradition: Time for retirement?

MUSIC

CHRISTMAS PARTY WITH EDDIE G. (Strikin' It Rich/Columbia). A Yuletide celebration for people who hope Santa gets stuck in the chimney. Funny, funky and often obscure rhythm classics to bounce you through -- or rescue you from -- all the seasonal goodwill.

A CREOLE CHRISTMAS (Epic Associated). Splendid holiday doings, rhythm-and- blues style, with some heavy New Orleans seasoning.

A JAZZY WONDERLAND (Columbia). And just when you thought you couldn't bear another Christmas song, here come 14 of them by a gaggle of top jazz artists ranging from Harry Connick Jr. and the Marsalis family to Dexter Gordon, Marlon Jordan and Joey DeFrancesco. Hardly the first -- but far from the worst.

MOVIES

HOME ALONE. And a little child shall lead them. To the box office, anyway. This crafty comedy about an impish boy abandoned at home on Christmas Eve will reach the $100 million mark this week.

EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. The Jesus story retold in pop pastel colors -- except that Edward, poor gentle creature, nearly gets crucified at Christmastime. Tim Burton (Batman) directs the season's funniest, bittersweetest film.

ETC.

RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL'S CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR. This delightful potpourri of holiday song, dance and frivolity continues to charm children -- and their parents -- as engagingly as it has for the past 57 years. All the seasonal staples are there, from the Nutcracker's wooden soldiers and Santa's elves to the traditional show-closing Nativity scene in which, as usual, live camels, sheep and donkeys manage to upstage the Holy Family. In New York City, through Jan. 3.

MOSCOW ON ICE HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR. If you can stand the culture shock, drop by Donald Trump's glitzy Taj Mahal Casino, with its neo-Indian domes and portals, and catch this breathtaking ice-skating gala by a prizewinning troupe of Soviet athletes in dazzling exotic costumes. In Atlantic City, through Dec. 26.