WHAT'S HAPPENING : FILM.

`Two Smoking Barrels' of entertainment: The English crime caper ``Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' revels in the possibilities of storytelling and language. It's also a raucous, hard-bitten comedy of criminal errors, so expect to have a good time.

The first feature from writer-director Guy Ritchie, the hyperactive piece combines elements of ``Trainspotting,'' ``A Hard Day's Night'' and, of course, ``Pulp Fiction,'' but it has a kicky, cockney sassiness all its own.

When four East End friends lose a big bet to a local mob boss, they plan a ripoff that ultimately sets half the gangs in London at each other's throats. Speaking a slang that is not always comprehensible but consistently hilarious, and striking tough guy poses that are alternately intimidating and ludicrous, the assorted lads prove eminently entertaining. ``Lock, Stock'' ain't deep, but its complicated surface pleasures are many.

- Bob Strauss

Music

Quite a musical menu: No two concerts are alike when the performers are two-time Grammy Award-winning clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and pioneering percussionists NEXUS.

How come? Well, for starters you never know what you'll get from Stoltzman, a Cordon Bleu-trained pastry chef who likes to whip together generous helpings of jazz-classical-pop cuisine. His packed performance schedule and large discography includes gigs with everyone from Judy Collins, Mel Torme and Wayne Shorter to Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax.

Then there's Toronto-based NEXUS, a quintet whose improvisational energies have led them into African drumming, turn-of-the-century xylophone arrangements, ragtime and the polyglot percussive musings of Steve Reich. The group's personal collection of percussion instruments numbers in the thousands, several dozen of which may be on stage tonight at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus when the group teams with Stoltzman in a program dubbed ``Reflections,'' including music by Reich, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Bill Douglas, Igor Stravinsky, an arrangement of a traditional Ghanaian dance and a free-form improvisation by Stoltzman and NEXUS.

Tickets for the 8 p.m. show are $30, $24, and $19; $11 for full-time UCLA students with ID. Call [phone].

- Reed Johnson

Art

Ever had a relative turn into a shutterbug after buying his or first camera? Something like that happened to Edgar Degas, the French impressionist master, in the late 1890s.

An innovator known for his luminous yet strangely visceral images of ballet dancers, race horses and other scenes of Parisian life, Degas underwent a late-career conversion to photography. Among the 40 Degas photographs in the current exhibition ``Edgar Degas, Photographer'' at the J. Paul Getty Museum are abstract nudes, landscapes, self-portraits and portraits, dancers (of course) and brilliantly colored glass-plate negatives.

Displayed with a few related paintings, pastels, monotypes, drawings and sculpture, the photographs show how what began as a hobbyist's process of discovery culminated in bold, even astonishing, art.

A related exhibition, ``Dance in Photography,'' focuses on photographers who sought to represent movement, costume, sets lighting and theater associated with dance in the period between 1850 and 1950. It includes works by Barbara Morgan, Roger Fenton, Edward Curtis, Edward Weston and Weegee. Both exhibitions continue through March 28.

Getty Center hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free; parking is $5 per car, and parking reservations are required. Visitors also may arrive by public transportation, taxi, local shuttles or by foot. For information and reservations, call [phone].

- Reed Johnson

Music

Do you hear voices?: The stirring traditional music of Ladysmith Black Mambazo harkens back to the South African mines where black workers were taken by rail far from their homes and families.

Many pop fans got their first taste of this intriguing a cappella sound after Paul Simon traveled to Johannesburg to record with Ladysmith leader Joseph Shabalala and the group for the Grammy Award-winning ``Graceland'' album, which incorporated traditional South African music and led the way to today's widespread interest in world music.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo appears tonight at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium.

Founded by Shabalala in 1974, the ensemble consists of seven bass voices, an alto, a tenor and Shabalala singing lead. Even if you don't speak the harmony singers' native Zulu language, you can feel the power of their voices, especially when they hit a low rumbling note.

Beckman Auditorium is near Michigan Avenue south of Del Mar Boulevard in Pasadena. Show time is 8 p.m., and tickets range from $27 to $35. Information: [phone].

- Fred Shuster

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

PHOTO (1) Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman joins percussion group NEXUS tonight at Royce Hall for a concert featuring everything from the music of Stravinsky to free-form improvisations.

(2) South African singing group Ladysmith Black Mambazo appears tonight at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium.

(3) Impressionist Edgar Degas' ``Self-Portrait With Zoe Closier'' is part of the J. Paul Getty Museum's retrospective of the artist's camera work.