Best Bets / MAY 20-28, 2001

Movies

Sally Potter’s “The Man Who Cried” stars Christina Ricci, above, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro and Johnny Depp in a romantic drama set in Paris on the eve of World War II. The lives of four strangers intersect through the choices each makes in order to survive. Opens Friday at selected theaters.

Theater

Playwright Donald Freed’s dark Richard Nixon odyssey began in 1985 with the critically acclaimed “Secret Honor”; it continues with the world premiere of Freed’s epic with music, “American Iliad,” as a now 90-year-old Nixon takes a journey of the mind through the 20th century’s hopes, dreams and nightmares. Opens Thursday at Burbank’s Victory Theatre.

Music

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts a mini-festival of Russian composers in his four Los Angeles Philharmonic performances this week, Wednesday through next Sunday. On all programs are Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” and Scriabin’s “Poem of Ecstasy.” Yefim Bronfman will play the Fourth Piano Concerto by Rachmaninoff at the concerts in downtown L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Jazz

McCoy Tyner occupied the piano seat in John Coltrane’s immortal quartet (with bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones) in the early to mid-’60s. Today he’s considered one of the most inventive and influential pianists in jazz history. The McCoy Tyner Trio will perform Tuesday through next Sunday at the Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood.

Pop Music

It’s not summer on the calendar for another month, but in rock terms a sure sign of the season is the arrival of the stadium concert. Doing the honors is the Dave Matthews Band, whose latest album, “Everyday,” has sold nearly 2 million copies. Dave Matthews, below, and company set the stage for the upcoming Wango Tango and Warped tours with a show at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.

Video

Javier Bardem became the first actor from Spain to be nominated for a best actor Oscar--for his performance as gay Cuban writer and exile Reinaldo Arenas in the drama “Before Night Falls.” Directed and co-written by Julian Schnabel, the film arrives Tuesday on VHS and DVD.

Art

“High Societies: Psychedelic Rock Posters of Haight-Ashbury, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Cabarets of Montmartre, Japanese Woodblock Prints and the Floating World of Edo,” an unusual gathering of three disparate graphic art movements, opens Saturday at the San Diego Museum of Art. The survey highlights the inexpensive, impermanent graphics of their time, including rock posters by Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelly and Rick Griffin, posters by French artist Toulouse-Lautrec and the woodblock prints of the “floating world” of Edo (modern-day Tokyo).

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Also: “The Book Show, Raymond Pettibon,” an exhibition of more than 100 booklets and 60 drawings from Pettibon’s archive, opens Saturday at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. While Pettibon is best known for his smaller works on paper, the exhibition will also feature an original wall drawing, a selection of new and old videos, and two recent portfolios.