BEST BETS / MARCH 5-11, 2000

MOVIES

Kim Delaney and Gary Sinise, right, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O’Connell and Tim Robbins embark on Brian De Palma’s “Mission to Mars” to rescue a group of astronauts when the first manned expedition to the Red Planet goes awry. Opens Friday in general release.

THEATER

Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s critically acclaimed play “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” a dark and comic story of a demanding elderly mother whose grip on her aging spinster daughter is challenged by the daughter’s unexpected suitor, has its Southern California premiere. Opens Friday at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

DANCE

Mixing familiar with new repertory, the acclaimed 12-member Garth Fagan Dance performs Tuesday and Wednesday in Campbell Hall on the campus of UC Santa Barbara. The program includes “Prelude” (“Discipline Is Freedom”), “A Trois,” “Mix 25” (excerpt), “Touring Jubilee 1924” (“Professional”), “Two Pieces of One: Green” and “Woza.” What’s woza? That’s Zulu for “come here.”

POP MUSIC

Not quite this year’s Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony is nonetheless in the process of making a similar transition. After years of success in Latin music, the New York-based singer switched language and style and released the mainstream pop album “Marc Anthony,” bagging a hit single and a pop Grammy nomination. The erstwhile salsero plays the Wiltern Theatre on Monday.

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“Things Have Changed” is the title of Bob Dylan’s latest song, but some things haven’t--such as the storied singer’s undiminished dedication to the road. Dylan will tune up for a new leg of his ongoing expedition with two shows Friday at the 1,200-seat Sun Theatre in Anaheim--quite a contrast with his last Orange County appearance, at the Arrowhead Pond with Paul Simon.

JAZZ

Pianist Pete Jolly has played regularly with bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Nick Martinis for more than 35 years in one of the world’s longest-running collaborations. The Pete Jolly Trio, a hard-driving unit featuring jazz standards and ballads, will be swinging at Monteleone’s West this Friday.

VIDEO

Stanley Kubrick’s final film, “Eyes Wide Shut,” is a flawed, disturbing and puzzling romantic drama that’s still worth a look. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman play a couple whose seemingly ideal marriage gets a jolt after they attend a party. Things really heat up when Cruise stumbles on a decadent secret society--which may or may not exist. The drama arrives Tuesday on video.

MUSIC

Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Most returns to the podium of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Friday to conduct Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6, a work the orchestra played under Daniel Barenboim in 1977 and with Esa-Pekka Salonen in 1985. Soloist is Viennese pianist Till Fellner, who played the Second Concerto at his Hollywood Bowl debut in 1997.