Night+Day

wednesday
december 25
The Lark Lights Up The Lark Theater will be offering a handful of restored film favorites in a weeklong run by Turner Presents. Viewers can catch Citizen Kane, Orson Welles' chronicle of publisher William Randolph Hearst, with The Wizard of Oz, or Fred and Ginger's elegant and sure-footed partnership in Top Hat alongside Fay Wray's palpable, and audible, distress in King Kong. Sure, most of these films are rentable, but they all can offer more seasonal satisfaction than Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger ever could. Nine animated shorts -- a few starring the amusing British duo of Wallace, an inventor, and his crafty dog, Gromit -- play in several of these programs, which are suitable for family viewing. See the Holiday Guide (Page 31) or "Reps Etc." (Page 82) for show times at the Lark Theater, 549 Magnolia, Larkspur. Admission is $4-6; call 924-3311.

thursday
december 26
A Painter Goes Pop Back in the early '60s, Yoong Bae was an established printmaker and well-known graphic-art modernist in his native Seoul. But after his 1963 visit to the United States, Bae's work, inspired in part by Confucianism and traditional Korean calligraphy, began to take on an American pop edge. Bae wound up moving to California in 1974 and settling in the Oakland Hills, where he lived and created art until his death in 1992. His widow has donated to the Asian Art Museum 18 paintings and three silk-screen prints done between 1980 and 1992, including the artist's succession of paintings titled Meditation. The exhibit is on view Wednesday through Sunday 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (through April 20, 1997) at the Asian Art Museum, Golden Gate Park, S.F. Admission is free-$6; call 379-8801.

Why the Chicken Crossed the Road The critics loved her in New York, where her solo show about her show-biz dad, A Line Around the Block, enjoyed an extended run at the Joseph Papp Public Theater this spring. Now, comedian Marga Gomez returns home to the warm embrace of the Bay Area, where she'll unveil a raunchy new stand-up show she tested at New York's Performance Space 122 this fall: Joking the Chicken. Although she's already logged plenty of screen time with stand-up spots on cable and roles in the independent film Miss Clairol and HBO's Tracy Takes On, locals are advised to catch Gomez live while they can, before she makes good on her threat to move to L.A. and get breast implants. Joking the Chicken opens at 8 p.m. (and runs through Jan. 5, 1997) at Josie's Cabaret & Juice Joint, 3583 16th St., S.F. Admission is $12 ($20 on New Year's Eve); call 861-7933.

Jazzed Having witnessed Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Lionel Hampton perform live is one thing, but having performed along with all of them is quite another, and the ranks of jazz artists who can make that claim are sadly diminished. Jazz vocalist Betty Carter is still with us, though, and her career, launched after she joined Hampton's band at the age of 18, is rich in lore. When she plays the East Bay, Carter will be accompanied by one of her proteges, the young pianist Jacky Terrason, as well as Bobby Hutcherson, a vibraphonist taking up where Hampton left off. Find out why Carter has been named female jazz singer of the year four times running in Down Beat's annual critics poll. The Betty Carter-Bobby Hutcherson All-Stars play at 8 and 10 p.m. (through Tuesday; one show only at 9 p.m. on New Year's Eve) at Yoshi's Nitespot, 6030 Claremont, Oakland. Admission is $18-22 ($60 on New Year's); call (510) 652-9200.

Forever All Over Again It may take two to tango, but it took a crowd-pleasing blend of rhythmic Latin music and sultry, sharply executed tango technique to get Forever Tango consistently extended over the last two years. Luis Bravo's production has just returned from international touring to give local fans another look. The product of African cultural influence and Latin male machismo in a booming 1920s Argentina, tango is typically a favorite among ballroom dance audiences for its sexual overtones, dominant-submissive dynamics, and dramatic delivery. The show reopens at 3 and 8 p.m. (and continues through Jan. 4, 1997) at the Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, S.F. Admission is $19-45; call 392-4400.

friday
december 27
Perry Tears His Hair Out Prior to running away and starting the Enit Festival, Lollapalooza founder and Porno for Pyros frontman Perry Farrell did some public grumbling about how his traveling rock 'n' roll circus no longer lived up to the original vision of "something, or somebody, very striking or exceptional," as the original official T-shirt slogan read. If Farrell was worried that Lollapalooza had gone mainstream, his concern has been realized in the "Lollapalaser Experience," a laser animation and graphics show set to the music of Nirvana, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Soundgarden. Once a diversion for the well-baked teen-age fans of dinosaur arena bands like Led Zep and Pink Floyd, laser light shows, run by live laser artists, have moved into the '90s by providing cheesy visuals for alternative arena rock bands, too. Shows run at 10:30 p.m. (also Saturdays) at the California Academy of Sciences Morrison Planetarium, Golden Gate Park, S.F. Admission is $7; call 750-7138.