Best Bets / SEPTEMBER 23-29, 2001

Movies

“Zoolander” follows the world’s most famous--and empty-headed--male model as he discovers why no male models live beyond age 30. Ben Stiller, above, is director, co-writer and star. Opening Friday.

Also: “Don’t Say a Word” finds a psychiatrist hoping to extract a critical piece of information from a violent, catatonic patient if he is to secure the freedom of his kidnapped daughter. Michael Douglas, Sean Bean and Brittany Murphy star. Opening Friday.

Jazz

Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra blow through the Southland this week with concerts Tuesday in Santa Barbara, Thursday in Cerritos, Friday in Beverly Hills and Saturday in Escondido.

Pop Music

Madonna’s high-wattage extravaganza has barely been packed away when here comes another arena spectacle. Janet Jackson’s All for You tour comes to the San Diego Sports Arena on Wednesday and the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim on Saturday, followed by Staples Center shows in L.A. Oct. 2-3. Now we can really decide who’s the hardest-working woman in show business.

Theater

The West Coast premiere of Randal Myler’s rock musical, “Love, Janis,” about 1960s rock icon Janis Joplin, played by Beth Hart, left, opens Friday at San Diego Repertory Theatre’s Lyceum Stage. Conceived, adapted and directed by Myler, the tale of Joplin’s meteoric rise to fame and tragic death a few years later was inspired by her sister Laura’s book of the same name, based on letters and family memories.

Also: A Noise Within launches its 11th season with Arthur Wing Pinero’s valentine to the theater, “Trelawny of the Wells.” The Victorian-era romantic comedy is about a starlet who has regrets about leaving her life in the theater for marriage into high society. Her new life, however, makes returning more difficult than she expects. Opens Friday at the Glendale theater.

Dance

On its first tour of the U.S. in 13 years, the acclaimed Bayanihan Philippine National Dance Company performs regional suites Tuesday at Pepperdine University in Malibu; Thursday in Poway; and Friday and Saturday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts. The company then continues on its 40-city tour, circling back to the Southland on Oct. 21 for a performance in Palm Desert.

Also: The Eclectic Orange Festival 2001 will offer, from Friday through Nov. 11, 47 performances of 26 offerings in opera, ballet, symphony, dance and drama in Orange County and as far north as the Carpenter Center in Long Beach. Rameau’s “Platee” as performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and John Alexander Singers, opens the festival at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa on Friday and Saturday.

Art

“Freestyle,” a traveling survey of work by 28 emerging African American artists organized by the Studio Museum in Harlem, will be at the Santa Monica Museum of Art on Friday through Nov. 16. Works by Laylah Ali, Kori Newkirk, Susan Smith-Pinelo, Eric Wesley, whose painting is featured above, and others explore issues of identity, aesthetics and culture in painting, sculpture, photography and video.