Best Bets / June 16-22, 2002

Movies

Tom Cruise, above, makes yet another power coupling when he teams with director Steven Spielberg for the sci-fi thriller “Minority Report.” Cruise plays a cop accused of a killing in 2054 Washington, D.C., where technology allows police to arrest and convict murderers before they’ve committed the crime. Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton and Max von Sydow co-star. Opens Friday.

Also: Speaking of suspicious minds, a lonely Hawaiian girl with an Elvis fixation has a close encounter of the weird kind when she befriends what she thinks is an ugly dog in the animated comedy “Lilo & Stitch.” Opens Friday.

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Pop Music

Mike Watt, a yeomanly figure on the L.A. rock scene for more than two decades, brings a typically distinctive twist to his 49th national tour: Instead of promoting a current album, he’ll be previewing his next one. The bassist-singer-songwriter hasn’t even recorded “The Secondman’s Middle Stand” yet, but it should be intense, dealing as it does with the infection that nearly claimed the musician’s life two years ago. Watt brings his saga and his unusual bass-drums-organ lineup to the Troubadour in West Hollywood on Friday.

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Theater

Geoff Hoyle, above right, whose inventive physical comedy has drawn comparisons with Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harpo Marx, is serving up “A Feast of Fools,” an exuberant mix of new material and such Hoyle favorites as his bulb-nosed Mr. Sniff. It’s all set to music, and joining him on stage--and prepared to hold her own--is composer and multi-instrumentalist Gina Leishman. A world premiere, the show opens today at La Jolla Playhouse.

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Jazz

Bobby Hutcherson, along with Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Terry Gibbs, Red Norvo and Gary Burton, has long been considered among the very best jazz vibraphonists. Over the years, Hutcherson has performed with Freddie Hubbard, Billy Childs, McCoy Tyner, Harold Land and many others. Hutcherson bring his quartet Thursday to Catalina’s Bar & Grill in Hollywood for a four-nighter.

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Video

Sean Penn received his third Academy Award nomination for his performance in the sentimental “I Am Sam.” He plays a mentally challenged man who hires a high-powered attorney (Michelle Pfeiffer) to help him regain custody of his young daughter (Dakota Fanning). Jesse Nelson directed and co-wrote the drama, which also features Laura Dern and Dianne Wiest. The film arrives Tuesday on DVD and video.

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Dance

Three actors and two dancers inhabit an underworld between reality and fantasy when Spain’s Compania Marta Carrasco presents its theater-dance epic “Mira’m” (You Hear So Many Things) Tuesday to Thursday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. It’s part of the Ford’s ambitious International Hispanic Theatre Festival. Below: performer Neus Sune.