WHAT'S HAPPENING : FILM.

Surreal Woody: Just when you think Woody Allen has run out of funny jokes, or run out of revealing insights, he comes out with ``Deconstructing Harry.'' The most humorous, inventive and downright nasty film Allen has made in years, it's a surreal exploration of an artist-cum-monster's soul.

Allen plays a successful writer whose stories are thinly disguised attacks on the women, relatives and friends he's never treated decently. Stagings of Harry's fictional versions are interspersed with his real-life difficulties, none of which are helped by his foul-mouthed, pill-popping, unfaithful and self-serving ways.

Allen has never played a character quite this dark - nor this close, in some ways, to the director-comedian himself. And he just about outdoes all his previous casts, too, with Billy Crystal, Elisabeth Shue, Kirstie Alley, Demi Moore, Robin Williams, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Judy Davis and many more in memorable supporting roles.

It's a bracing, troubling entertainment. And it makes you both anxious for and apprehensive of what Allen may do next.

- Bob Strauss

dining

Full-service rail fare: In its post-Fred Harvey mode, Union Station once again has a full-service restaurant on the premises. Traxx, as it's called, is open weekdays for lunch and nightly except Sunday for dinner.

Executive chef and general manager of the new restaurant is Tara Thomas, ex-co-owner and chef of 410 Boyd. Her Traxx menu is described as classic cuisine with new interpretations.

At lunch today, you'll probably find such intrigues as a napoleon of ahi tuna ($9.25), smoked salmon on crisp johnnycakes ($9), several interesting sandwiches (lamb tenderloin on olive bread, rare New York strip steak on a toasted baguette and a Pacific Rim BLT of grilled escolar and tuna bacon with greens on a baked roll) and Dungeness crab cakes with a chipotle chile remoulade ($8.50).

The Saturday night dinner menu by Thomas offers such diversities as pumpkin risotto with rock shrimp and wild mushrooms ($15.50), linguine with Manila clams and spicy sausage ($13), crispy skinned whitefish with fennel mashed potatoes ($15.50) or a cowboy steak ($17.50).

Taking a Metrolink train to dine out sounds like a nifty idea. And theatregoers to the Music Center now have an additional early dining choice because Traxx begins serving dinner at 4 p.m.

Traxx has a full bar, valet or self-parking and seats between 115 and 120 diners.

Reservations: [phone].

- Larry Lipson

music

R&b's other brothers: There are apparently two first families of New Orleans r&b - the Neville Brothers and the Batiste Brothers.

Both offer Southern-fried funk and soul music, but one is plainly more famous than the other. The better-known Nevilles played in town earlier this week. The Batistes appear tonight with the r&b-oriented Gila Monsters at LunaPark in West Hollywood.

The six-member band, which includes four brothers, began back in 1962 as the Gladiators. The name was changed to the Batiste Brothers in 1977.

During those 35 years, the group has backed such r&b greats as ZZ Hill, the Ohio Players, Joe Simon and Jackie Wilson.

The first Batiste Brothers album, ``Freeze,'' was initially released in the mid-'70s, but will be reissued on CD later this year. Two other discs, ``New Orleans Music'' and ``Spice,'' are currently available.

LunaPark is at 665 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood. Show times are 10:30 p.m. and midnight. Admission is $10. Information: [phone].

- Fred Shuster

Really `Neat': The last time Charlayne Woodard brought her unique talents to a Los Angeles stage, the city was still reeling from the worst urban unrest in U.S. history. Woodard's one-woman memory play, ``Pretty Fire,'' sparked an emotional response from critics and audiences alike, with its searing, central metaphor of racial intolerance delicately woven into Woodard's funny, poignant and occasionally tragic childhood memories.

Now the writer-actress is back at the Mark Taper Forum with a solo autobiographical sequel, ``Neat.'' Though the title has more than one meaning, it refers most directly to Woodard's beloved Aunt Beneatha, known as ``Neat.'' Brain-damaged since infancy, Neat was a gentle, childlike being who gradually came to serve as an island of calm amid the turmoil of Woodard's adolescence. Portraying herself, her aunt and a dozen other characters, Woodard confronts her own identity as an African-American, filtered through the prism of the Black Pride movement of the 1960s and '70s. Switching characters faster than an electric typewriter, Woodard demonstrates that a good actress doesn't need props or co-stars to conjure an entire world on stage.

Though the quieter second act doesn't expand on the first act's incendiary political themes, Woodard's warmth and unflagging energy keeps her show going. Unobtrusively directed by Daniel Sullivan and accented by Harold Wheeler's ambient music, ``Neat'' continues through Feb. 1. [phone].

- Reed Johnson

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Kirstie Alley and Woody Allen play ex-spouses in ``Deconstructing Harry.''

(2) Take a train to dinner at Traxx, the new restaurant at Union Station.

(3) The Batiste Brothers perform tonight at LunaPark in West Hollywood.