Critics' Voices: Oct. 7, 1991

MOVIES

THE INDIAN RUNNER. Method mannerism in the '60s Midwest; bringin' the Vietnam War back home; 90 minutes of simmering before a family explodes. From these tired conventions (which the movie embraces like new truths), writer-director Sean Penn has found a stark camera style that ignites behavioral sparks. Stay tuned; this kid has talent.

THE FISHER KING. Trust director Terry Gilliam (Brazil) to hatch the year's most exasperatingly good movie, in which Robin Williams is a holy homeless fool and Jeff Bridges a burned-out case ripe for redemption. To catch the brilliant bits in this handsome botch, you need patience and daring; it's like finding gold nuggets strewn across a minefield.

THE 23RD INTERNATIONAL TOURNEE OF ANIMATION. Cartoons on the serious side from nine countries. More of ethnographic than artistic interest and short on the chuckles. Check it out to see what comes on before the feature in European movie houses. Then go home and savor The Simpsons. Now that's cartooning!

MUSIC

VAN MORRISON: HYMNS TO THE SILENCE (Polydor). Twenty-one new songs by one of rock's greatest and most idiosyncratic creative spirits. Bluesy, mystical, introspective, demanding, demented, resolutely unique: Morrison reigns and remains rock's own dear Celtic bard, an electrified James Joyce.

NAT KING COLE: BIG BAND COLE (Capitol). Now that Nat has got to the top of the charts again, via a ghostly duet with his daughter Natalie, this is the perfect time to discover Pop in his prime, singing and swinging his way through 17 standards backed by a big band, predominantly Count Basie's, on this welcome reissue.

DR. MICHAEL WHITE: CRESCENT CITY SERENADE (Antilles). The irrepressible clarinetist and musicologist leads a new generation of New Orleans players through a lively exploration of their roots -- and proves once again that rumors of the death of traditional jazz have been greatly exaggerated.

TELEVISION

THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JOHNNY CARSON: 29TH ANNIVERSARY (NBC, Oct. 3, 9:30 p.m. EDT). It's not too early to get nostalgic. Johnny is leaving in May, which means this year's annual collection of highlights from past shows will be -- gulp! -- his last.

HEROES OF THE DESERT STORM (ABC, Oct. 6, 9 p.m. EDT). From real war to TV movie in just eight months. Talk about a superpower!

SESSIONS (HBO, debuting Oct. 6, 10:10 p.m. EDT). A 42-year-old husband and father (Michael McKean) discusses his sexual fantasies and mid-life neuroses with a sympathetic shrink (Elliott Gould). Billy Crystal created and co-wrote this offbeat comedy series, which is frank and frequently clever, though a bit mushy at the center.

THEATER

BREAKING LEGS. Three thuggish mobsters finance a play about the criminal mind by a college professor, who grasps with mounting horror what he has got into, in this unsubtle but engaging off-Broadway hit that is re-signing stars Vincent Gardenia and Philip Bosco and engendering plans for a national tour and possible movie.

UNIDENTIFIED HUMAN REMAINS AND THE TRUE NATURE OF LOVE. Neither AIDS nor a serial killer can deflect the sexual searching of the young men and women in this punk-poetic, MTV-style thriller, full of quick verbal riffs and crosscut scenes, transferred from a Chicago hit to off-Broadway with stellar acting by hollow-smiled Clark Gregg.