BEST BETS / DECEMBER 24-30, 2000

Movies

The 1962 Cuban missile crisis unfolds through the eyes of Kennedy confidant Kenny O’Donnell in “13 Days.” Roger Donaldson directs Steven Culp, above, as Robert F. Kennedy, Bruce Greenwood as John F. Kennedy and Kevin Costner as their trusted advisor. Opens Christmas Day in selected theaters.

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Steven Soderbergh directs a large ensemble cast in “Traffic,” a multilayered exploration of the U.S. war on drugs. Benicio Del Toro and Don Cheadle are cops south and north of the border; Michael Douglas portrays the freshly appointed head of the U.S. enforcement effort; and Catherine Zeta-Jones is the wife of a powerful drug lord. Opens Wednesday at the Westwood Avco.

Jazz

Saskia Laroo, an impressive female trumpeter from Europe, has a tone influenced by Miles Davis and a fertile musical imagination. At Culver City’s Jazz Bakery for four nights starting Wednesday, she performs with a group co-led by veteran tenor-saxophonist Teddy Edwards.

Theater

“Rent,” Jonathan Larson’s Tony- and Pulitzer-winning smash hit rock musical about young artists’ troubled lives and loves in New York’s East Village, loosely based on Puccini’s “La Boheme,” returns to the Southland, playing Tuesday through next Sunday at Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa. Below, Matt Caplan and Cary Sheilds.

Pop Music

The Knitting Factory in New York inaugurated an annual festival of Jewish music seven years ago, and now that there’s a Knitting Factory Hollywood, there’s a West Coast counterpart. It kicks off Tuesday with the Hollywood Klezmers, above, and continues through Thursday with acts including the Rabbinical School Dropouts and Rebbe Soul.

Music

Every Christmas Eve, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion hosts the Los Angeles County Holiday Celebration; for this 41st edition, the admission-free entertainment takes place from 3 to 9 p.m. Among 39 groups performing are the San Fernando Valley Youth Chorus, Long Beach Ballet Arts Center, Vox Femina, Kaleidoscope Singers and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. Parking is free.

Video

“The Exorcist,” the film that gave new meaning to pea soup, returned with great success to theaters this past fall with a restored print and sound as well as material that had been eliminated from the original 1973 release. Directed by William Friedkin from the Oscar-winning script by William Peter Blatty based on his novel, the film stars Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller and Max von Sydow. The wicked thriller arrives Tuesday on VHS and DVD.