Beavis, Kenny G and ‘The All Night Strut’

* FAMILY: The popular We Tell Stories performance troupe presents “The Season of Giving,” a free theatrical frolic through the holidays, with lots of audience participation, Saturday at 2 p.m. at the L.A. Central Public Library’s family-friendly Mark Taper Auditorium.

* MOVIES: Amid such prestigious but flawed pictures as “Marvin’s Room” and “One Fine Day,” there’s the clever and gory “Scream” (general release), in which Wes Craven and his writer, Kevin Williamson, spoof horror pictures, especially those aimed at teens, while generating plenty of thrills and chills. It’s gleefully subversive as it explores the relationship between gory movies and their audience. With Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Drew Barrymore and Henry Winkler. . . . The lively “Beavis and Butt-head Do America” (general release) unleashes the geeky duo on the big screen with big laughs as they’re caught up in cross-country adventures--all because someone stole their TV. . . . La Ceremonie (selected theaters) finds France’s Claude Chabrol in top form, with a drama of psychological suspense in which an elegant couple (Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Cassel) hire a housekeeper (Sandrine Bonnaire) who’s just too good to be true, especially once she’s met the village troublemaker (Isabelle Huppert). Never has Chabrol revealed so relentlessly the dangerous, ever-widening chasm between the haves and the have-nots. Named best foreign film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. . . . Although overly long, Robert Altman’s “Kansas City,” which returns in a four-weekend run at the Monica 4-Plex, screening Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m., is nonetheless a splendid evocation of the wide-open Midwest city with its corruption, racism, class distinctions--and great jazz. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a desperate woman who kidnaps a society woman (Miranda Richardson). With Harry Belafonte as a sage, dapper gangster.

* POP MUSIC: Blues brethren Kim Wilson, Snooky Prior, Billy Boy, Arnold Lester and others join forces on Saturday at the House of Blues for the 10th annual Little Walter Tribute. . . . Kenny G and Toni Braxton bring their co-headlining tour to the Universal Amphitheatre for shows tonight through Monday.

* JAZZ: The hardest-working Latin jazz band in Southern California, that of conguero Poncho Sanchez, keeps up the salsa for the holidays with an appearance tonight at La Ve Lee in Studio City and Saturday and Sunday at the Baked Potato in Old Town Pasadena.

* THEATER: From “Lullaby of Broadway” to “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar,” “The All Night Strut,” Fran Charnas’ scintillating celebration of classic tunes from the ‘30s and ‘40s, is a captivating song and dance revue at the Tiffany Theatre in West Hollywood. . . . “Rumors,” Neil Simon’s fast-paced farce about wealthy suburbanites on the verge of scandal, staged by Richard Kline and performed by a cast headed by Bernie Kopell, provides laughter at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks.

* DANCE: The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago dances its traditional “Nutcracker” twice today, twice Saturday and also on Sunday afternoon at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

--Compiled by Calendar writers