Best Bets / AUGUST 5-11, 2001

Movies

In the spooky “The Others,” Nicole Kidman, above, stars as a WW II wife whose husband is away at the front and who discovers that a Victorian mansion on the Isle of Jersey is not the safe retreat she and her children had anticipated. Opens Friday.

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Also: In a kinetic blend of live action (directed by the Farrelly brothers) and animation (directed by Piet Kroon), “Osmosis Jones” is an epic adventure inside a human body. It’s set in motion when Bill Murray unwittingly ingests a virus--and takes the audience along for the ride. With the voices of Chris Rock, Brandy, Laurence Fishburne and David Hyde Pierce. Opens Friday.

Theater

Ten actors play scores of roles in “The Laramie Project,” based on interviews with residents of Laramie, Wyo., after the 1998 murder of gay student Matthew Shepard. The critically acclaimed drama, by Moises Kaufman and his company, Tectonic Theater Project, is making its Southern California premiere at La Jolla Playhouse. Opens today.

Dance

The second annual BalletFest offers three different programs featuring California Ballet, Francisco Martinez Dancetheatre, Inland Pacific Ballet, L.A. Chamber Ballet, Pasadena Dance Theatre, Sacramento Ballet and San Pedro City Ballet, below left, on Friday, Saturday and next Sunday in the Luckman Theatre at Cal State L.A. Don Bradburn’s ballet photographs are also on view nearby.

Art

“Focus on the Figure: Southern California Painters 1850-1950,” opening Saturday at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, offers a rare, exclusive look at figurative painting here. Featuring works by 33 artists, the exhibition begins with the earliest professional painter to open a portrait studio in the area, and continues through the rise of the early Modernists and Regionalists.

Music

Baroque specialist Nicholas McGegan conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic in concerts devoted to Vivaldi and Bach, respectively, this week at the Hollywood Bowl. Tuesday, his soloists are soprano Christine Brandes, violinist Leonidas Kavakos and flutist Anne Diener Zentner. Thursday, his Bach agenda, again with Brandes, includes the “Wedding” Cantata and “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 3.

Jazz

The Jazz Bakery presents “Midsummer Night’s Jazz” with eight-time Grammy-nominated pianist Kenny Barron and his protege, violinist Regina Carter, plus Chilean singer Claudia Acuna, on Friday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood.

Pop Music

Moby has mounted his ambitious Area:One tour to give a platform to underexposed music. Genres represented at the final stop today at Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion in Devore include electronic (Paul Oakenfold, below, and the Orb), hip-hop (the Roots, OutKast) and rock (Billy Corgan teaming with New Order), plus a set by the founder.