A Weekend for ‘Company,’ Filmfest and ‘Silly Shivers’

* MOVIES: With “Michael Collins” (AMC Century 14, Mann Criterion 6, Santa Monica), writer-director Neal Jordan and star Liam Neeson team up to tell the epic true story--transferred to film with rare intelligence, skill and elan--of the man who made it possible for Ireland to break free of the British empire. . . . Director Charles Matthau has transformed Truman Capote’s famous novella “The Grass Harp” into a beguiling film (at selected theaters) starring Piper Laurie as a loving but shy and diffident woman who at last stands up to her dominating, humorless sister (Sissy Spacek). With Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Roddy McDowall and many others. . . . Matthew Broderick directs himself and Patricia Arquette in “Infinity” (selected theaters), an engagingly offbeat love story, adapted from Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman’s reminiscences about his first wife and his work in helping to develop the atomic bomb. . . . “Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press” (Monica 4-Plex) is an enlightening documentary about the great iconoclast of American journalism, the role model for I.F. Stone, Ralph Nader and many others. . . . The AFI Filmfest gets underway today at six venues with more than 90 features plus special events.

* ART: The Downtown Arts Development Assn. presents the final weekend of “Downtown Lives! ‘96,” a semiannual exhibition and arts festival featuring painting, sculpture, music, photography and installation by downtown artists. A vacant 50,000-square-foot warehouse hosts the event, including the multimedia installation “Welcome to LATINDAD,” a late-night dance party fund-raiser on Saturday and a closing night party with Cutting Edge Fashion Show on Sunday. The warehouse is at 720 S. Alameda St. Hours are noon to midnight Saturday and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.

* DANCE: Experimental tap shares the stage with postmodern dance tonight and Saturday when Mark Mendonca splits a program with Winifred R. Harris’ Between Lines Company in Keck Theater, Occidental College. . . . The Davalos Dance Company performs the full evening “American but Hyphenated” tonight and Saturday at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica.

* MUSIC: Jorge Mester opens the Pasadena Symphony season Saturday night at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, conducting a Barber-Grieg-Franck program on which Jorge Federico Osorio will play the Grieg Concerto. . . . Veteran American baritone Sherrill Milnes returns in recital, this time to the Carpenter Performing Arts Center at Cal State Long Beach, Saturday night at 8. . . . Sunday afternoon, the touring State Symphony of Russia, conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov, plays a Tchaikovsky program in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center; soloist is pianist Vladimir Ovchinikov, who will play the seldom-heard Fantasy, Opus 56. . . . New Zealand organist Gillian Weir returns to give a recital on the 125-rank Casavant pipe organ at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena at 4 p.m. Sunday.

* POP MUSIC: Brazilian song and dance troupe Olodum plays tonight at Veterans Wadsworth Theater. . . . Expatriate Angeleno Steve Wynn returns for shows tonight at the Alligator Lounge and Saturday at the Viper Room.

* THEATER: Laguna Playhouse’s resonant, superbly accomplished production of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical “Company”--the premiere of the new version based on the 1995 revised London and New York productions--has received a welcome extension of its run at the Moulton Theatre in Laguna Beach. It plays through Oct. 27. . . . Thought-provoking and touching performances by Beth Howland, Robert Mandan, David Naughton and Michael Tucci highlight “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” an uplifting exploration of life’s capriciousness and potential adapted by Ernest Zulia from Robert Fulghum’s bestseller. At the Tiffany Theater in West Hollywood.

* FAMILY: Kathy Bates, Jennifer Grey, James McDaniel, Joanna Kerns and other film and TV celebrities will perform readings of spooky stories for families in “Silly Shivers,” Sunday at 1 and 4 p.m. at Every Picture Tells a Story as a benefit for the Virginia Avenue Project. . . . The Mesozoic era comes alive in Dinorock Productions’ touring puppet musical comedy “Dr. Dinosaur,” Saturday at Pepperdine’s Smothers Theatre and Sunday at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State L.A. . . . Joanie Bartels and Dan Crow headline in Nursery Nature Walks’ “Kids’ Concert,” Saturday at Culver City’s Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium.

--Compiled by Calendar writers