Best Bets / FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 6, 1999

Movies

Guy Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” is a dark British comedy about an East End cardshark (Jason Flemyng) who’s staked to the biggest card game in town, not knowing it’s a setup. The film, a sensation in England, also features Vinnie Jones, above, as debt collector Big Chris. It opens Friday at selected theaters.

Theater

Lethal little old ladies, psychopathic nephews: Joseph Kesselring’s classic 1940 screwball comedy “Arsenic and Old Lace” opens Wednesday at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank, with Joan Darling and Jane Morris as the daft Brewster sisters who have a penchant for poisoning lonely old men.

Music

The L.A. Philharmonic New Music Group offers music by Revueltas, Kraft, Kirchner and others on a Green Umbrella program Monday in the Japan America Theatre. In the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen turns his attention to Mozart’s C-minor Mass, K. 427, as well as Britten. Soloists include singers Barbara Bonney, Suzanne Mentzer and Paul Groves, and hornist Jerry Folsom.

Pop Music

With her recent big night at the Grammys pushing things into overdrive, pop’s woman of the moment Lauryn Hill makes her first L.A. solo concert appearances Friday through next Sunday at the Universal Amphitheatre. She’ll be joined by one of rap’s innovative forces, Atlanta-based OutKast.

Art

Artist Jessica Bronson will introduce the Los Angeles premiere on Thursday of Andy Warhol’s film “Outer and Inner Space” from 1965. (Above: Edie Sedgwick from reel 1, left, and reel 2.) The screening is in conjunction with the video installation “Jessica Bronson: World Picture,” currently on display at MOCA.

Jazz

George Coleman has been a major (if vastly underrated) tenor saxophonist ever since he was in the Miles Davis Quintet of 1963-64. A master of circular breathing, Coleman will be swinging hard at the Jazz Bakery this week, starting Tuesday, with Tom Ranier, Andy Simpkins and Sherman Ferguson.

Dance

Geoffrey Holder’s “Prodigal Prince,” Judith Jamison’s “Echo: Far From Home” and Redha’s “Lettres d’Amour” represent the major rep novelties when the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to the Music Center, dancing three different programs over six performances, Wednesday through next Sunday in the Ahmanson Theatre. Above: the Ailey dancers at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion last year.

Video

Drew Barrymore is the latest actress to wear the glass slipper, in “Ever After,” a revisionist remake of the classic fairy tale “Cinderella.” Anjelica Huston steals the show as the wicked stepmother and Dougray Scott is Barrymore’s Prince Charming. The film arrives Tuesday in video stores.