2pm Jazz

5pm Festival

It’s time to party like it’s 4699. L.A.’s Chinatown will welcome in the Year of the Horse 4700 with a three-day celebration that has something old--the 103rd annual Golden Dragon Parade--as well as something new--Chinatown’s first car show. Plus entertainment, games, carnival rides, cultural booths, crafts and even the Laker Girls. Mayor James K. Hahn will be the grand marshal of the parade scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday. (See story, Page 51.)

Year of the Horse 4700 Chinese New Year Celebration, 727 N. Hill St., between Alpine and Ord streets, 5 to 9 p.m. Friday; noon to 10 p.m. Saturday; noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. Car show is Saturday and Sunday until 6 p.m. Free. (213) 680-0243 or www.chinatownla.com.

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2pm Jazz

All jazz ... all the time. The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Ann Hampton Callaway, Maiden Voyage Big Band, Bill Cunliffe, Gerald Wiggins, Anthony Wilson and many more of the Southland’s best players will converge in Orange County this weekend for the Newport Beach Jazz Party. The music starts at 2 p.m. today and will be practically nonstop from 10 a.m. until closing time on Saturday and Sunday.

Newport Beach Jazz Party, Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and Tennis Club, 900 Newport Center Drive, 2 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Saturday; 10 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. Sunday. $40 to $275. (949) 640-4000 or www.newport beachjazzparty.com.

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9pm Performance

With her graphic and, er ... insistent invitations to, um ... romance, the raunchy rapper known as Peaches could be an invention of taste-testing film director John Waters. So it’s somehow fitting that the two provocateurs would team for a Valentine-time mixed bag, with the Kurosawa of camp delivering his autobiographical monologue “Shock Value,” and Peaches laying down her industrial-strength come-ons.

John Waters and Peaches, El Rey Theatre, 5515 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., 9 p.m. $28.50 and $35 ($75 ticket includes meet-and-greet with Waters). (323) 936-4790.

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7:30pm Pop Music

SnoCore, the winter sports/lifestyle/music caravan, is a two-headed monster. The rock edition comes to town in March, but first the more mellow version, the SnoCore Icicle Ball, lays down its grooves at the Wiltern Theatre Friday. Saxophonist Karl Denson and his group Tiny Universe headline, joined by Michael Franti’s Spearhead, Blackalicious and Saul Williams.

SnoCore Icicle Ball, Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., 7:30 p.m. $22.50. (213) 380-5005.

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8pm Dance

In its “Black Choreographers Showcase, 2002,” the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department has assembled an array of talent that ranges from 16-year-old Landry Barb to such established figures on the local African American dance landscape as Winifred R. Harris. Indeed, the only really conspicuous absentee on a list of 19 worthies is Lula Washington, currently battling the city over its seizure of land it had previously approved for her long-awaited community dance center. Did the city sponsors deliberately ignore Washington when planning this showcase or did she scorn their invitation? Inquiring minds want to know....

“Black Choreographers Showcase, 2002,” Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown L.A. 8 p.m. Also Saturday, 3 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. $10. (213) 485-1681.

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midnight Movies

“Open Your Eyes (Abre los Ojos),” the 1999 Spanish film by director Alejandro Amenabar (who went on to make “The Others”), was so inspiring to Cameron Crowe that he remade it disappointingly in English as “Vanilla Sky” with Tom Cruise. Check out the superior original this weekend at the University Village 3 (near USC). Though both feature Penelope Cruz, Amenabar’s film, rarely seen in this country, is a classic of futuristic creepiness, an unnervingly spooky romantic drama that takes the notion of what is reality and what isn’t into new and startling directions. From its opening scene, when protagonist Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) has an experience that turns into a dream without our knowing it, this film--a major hit in its native Spain--is a puzzle picture, a tricky artistic head trip that is always daring us to figure out exactly what is going on at any given moment.

“Open Your Eyes,” Cool Weekend Late Show, University Village 3, 3323 S. Hoover St., L.A. Friday and Saturday, midnight. $4.75 to $7.75; USC students, $5.25. (213) 748-6321.