Video Recordings

Of all the issues that now loom over a beleaguered White House, the question of camera angles might not be the first that comes to mind. But when President Clinton gazes into a video camera inside the White House next Monday and testifies, as planned, to a grand jury in a courthouse several blocks away, the questions of who controls the camera, how it is aimed and the visual image the president leaves behind could have consequences that linger long after independent counsel Kenneth W.

A baby-sitter's husband caught on videotape beating a toddler left in his wife's care was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years to life in prison. Richard Leonard, 30, of Orange was convicted in July of torturing and sexually assaulting the 14-month-old girl. Leonard's wife, Lisa, had been caring for the girl on May 16, 1997, in her home when she left to pick up the couple's own daughter from school. A video camera she had set up taped what happened next.

On the same day that prosecutors charged an Irvine man with disorderly conduct for allegedly videotaping up a woman's skirt, a judge ruled in a similar case that the law doesn't apply. The surreptitious videotaping of women in public places has became an increasing phenomenon, prosecutors said, and finding an applicable law is a problem. John Lopez, 42, of Anaheim had been charged with disorderly conduct after his arrest at MainPlace/Santa Ana in December.

The second wave of "Titanic"-mania is about to hit. After more than 250 days in release, James Cameron's billion-dollar-grossing Oscar winner still has a lot of wind in its sales. As of last weekend, it ranked No. 21 at the box office, grossing $540,617, bringing its domestic box-office total to a record $599.7 million. And now it's on course to break video sales records when it hits stores on Tuesday at 12:01 a.m., with the potential to knock off No. 1 seller "The Lion King."

President Clinton, commenting publicly for the first time about his Aug. 17 testimony, said he will "completely and truthfully" answer prosecutors' questions about former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky. "I am anxious to do it," he said Friday. New details emerged about the plans for that testimony.

After a week of frantic, fast-paced developments in the investigation of President Clinton, the final act of a grand legal and political drama that has spanned much of his presidency is at last in sight. The finale will be performed on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress soon may lose their status as spectators and become central players in an impeachment inquiry that will help shape history's judgment of the Clinton presidency. While nobody knows when independent counsel Kenneth W.

Faced with several incidents in which men surreptitiously videotaped under women's skirts, prosecutors filed disorderly conduct charges Tuesday against an Irvine software company employee who allegedly used a hand-held camera to film unsuspecting women shopping at Fashion Island. David Wayne Lyman, 34, was arrested Tuesday by Newport Beach police, 16 days after he allegedly used a camera hidden in a carrying case to film under three women's skirts. Since that Aug.

Besides the retrospective at LACMA and a birthday tribute on cable's American Movie Classics, the majority of films by Preston Sturges are available on video. STURGES AS DIRECTOR Sturges made his directorial debut in 1940 with the political satire "The Great McGinty" (Universal, $15), for which he won an Oscar for his original screenplay.