BEST BETS / June 20-26, 1999

Movies

“Big Daddy” finds Adam Sandler as law school graduate accepting custody of a 5-year-old under the pretense that he is its biological father to convince his girlfriend that he’s ready for responsibility. It opens Friday in general release.

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Written by “My Beautiful Laundrette’s” Hanif Kureishi, “My Son the Fanatic” stars Rachel Griffiths and Om Puri in a love story set against a comic clash of generations and culture. With Stellan Skarsgard, it opens Friday at selected theaters.

Theater

Acclaimed director Sir Peter Hall, founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, directs Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in repertory, with a cast featuring David Dukes, Anna Gunn, Kelly McGillis, Brian Murray and Richard Thomas. At right: Jennifer Dundas Lowe, left, Kathryn Meisle and Hamish Linklater in “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Music

Beginning its 1999 summer season, Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara presents its annual Alumni Gala, Saturday night, this year honoring Distinguished Alumnus Martin Katz. Pianist Katz shares the program with his longtime partner, mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, and with soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian, clarinetist Fred Ormand and pianist Russell Miller.

Pop Music

As an enterprise that expedites rehab, the Musicians Assistance Program has strong support in the rock ranks. Friday’s benefit for MAP (and for Huntington’s disease charities) at the Hollywood Palladium features the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Forrest’s new band Bicycle Thief, deejay Perry Farrell.

Jazz

Billy Childs, a world-class pianist and composer, can play anything from bebop to free. Carmen Lundy, a deep-voiced singer who writes her own material, is not shy to take chances. At the Jazz Bakery for three nights (starting Tuesday), the duo will be performing dramatic improvisations.

Art

Two new exhibitions devoted to contemporary art will open Thursday at the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena. “Art from Stone: Prints from the Tamarind Workshop, 1960-1970” featuring 45 lithographs by West Coast artists Richard Diebenkorn, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha and others; with “Made In America: Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture from the Norton Simon Museum,” comprises 25 works fromt he 1960s and early 1970s, including Vija Celmins’ “Untitled (April 15-May 7, 1970),” above.

Video

The psychological thriller “A Simple Plan” is director Sam Raimi’s (“The Evil Dead”) most mature work to date. The deceptively simple story focuses on what happens to three ordinary men when they discover a duffel bag of loot inside a plane wreck. Bill Paxton and an Oscar-nominated Billy Bob Thornton star in the film, due out Tuesday.