Best Bets / March 11-17, 2001

Movies

Jude Law plays a Russian sharpshooter who becomes a hero in the World War II siege of Stalingrad, and Joseph Fiennes, left, is the propagandist who chronicles his exploits in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Enemy at the Gates,” which also features Ed Harris and Rachel Weisz. Opens wide Friday.

*

Also: Memory-challenged because of an injury, Guy Pearce takes Polaroids and tattoos important information on his body to help him keep people and facts straight in “Memento,” writer-director Christopher Nolan’s unusually structured thriller that unfolds backward in flashbacks. With Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano. Opens wide Friday.

Pop Music

They say the last Backstreet Boys album, “Black & Blue,” was a sales disappointment. They even say the whole teen-pop boy-bandwagon is rolling to a stop. But things continue to hum on the road for the Backstreeters, below, who hit the Southland for sold-out scream-athons Wednesday and Thursday at Staples Center and shows Saturday and next Sunday at the San Diego Sports Arena.

Music

Pianist Murray Perahia is on tour with the English chamber orchestra the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, stopping in San Diego on Thursday, at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, and in San Francisco Sunday and March 19. //? meaning Mar. 18 & Mar 19?// At Cerritos, Perahia will conduct Handel’s Overture to “Alcina,” Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, and he will play concertos by Mozart and Bach.

Theater

In Martin McDonagh’s Irish comedy “The Lonesome West,” making its West Coast premiere at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, two conniving brothers’ mutual hatred dooms their attempt to share the home of their just-buried father. It doesn’t help that Dad may or may not have been “accidentally” killed by a blast from one brother’s shotgun. Opens Friday.

Art

Contemporary works influenced by the historic Schindler House in West Hollywood will make up “In Between: Art and Architecture,” opening Tuesday at the Mak Center for Art and Architecture. Presented in conjunction with “The Architecture of R.M. Schindler” at MOCA and “Shaping the Great City: Modern Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1937” at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the exhibition will feature works by Sam Durant, Julia Fish, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Sharon Lockhart, Stephen Prina, Adrian Schiess, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Christopher Williams.

Dance

Praised by the New York Times for “the extraordinary passion of his work and his dancers,” choreographer Boris Eifman brings his Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg to the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa from Friday to next Sunday. The program will feature the West Coast premiere of his full-evening dance drama “Russian Hamlet: The Son of Catherine the Great,” set to music by Beethoven and Mahler. Below: Yelena Kuzmina.

Jazz

Although she doesn’t live in Los Angeles, frequent visitor Rebecca Parris is one of the most popular jazz vocalists in town. Equally skilled at bop and ballads, Parris will be singing at the Westin LAX on Wednesday and Thursday, and the Jazz Spot on Friday and Saturday nights.

Video

In “Almost Famous,” Cameron Crowe delightfully captures his adventures as a teenager writing about rock ‘n’ roll for Rolling Stone magazine. Crowe is nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay and a Directors Guild of America award. Golden Globe winner Kate Hudson is also nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for her memorable turn as a groupie. Fellow supporting actress nominee Frances McDormand and Billy Crudrup also star. The movie arrives Tuesday on VHS and DVD.