WHAT'S HAPPENING : FILM.

Catching up with Oscar: OK, you've been going ``Who?'' since last Tuesday. But the Academy Award nominations for such obscure films as ``Secrets & Lies,'' ``Sling Blade'' and ``Breaking the Waves'' resulted in their re-release, so now you have a chance to catch up with some of the finest performances of 1996.

``Secrets & Lies,'' the ultimate good cry movie, features nominees Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as, respectively, a boozy middle-age English woman and the black daughter, given up for adoption at birth, who seeks her out. The big-hearted ``Sling Blade'' stars writer-director Billy Bob Thornton as a mentally disabled killer trying to reintegrate into society. And ``Breaking the Waves'' is a harrowing tale of sexual obsession and religious repression, with a shattering performance by English newcomer Emily Watson as a naive, addled young woman with more love in her than sense.

?13- Bob Strauss

art

The main event: The Big Kahuna of the art season meets the public on Sunday. ``Exiles and Emigres: The Flight of European Artists From Hitler'' promises to be the first in-depth museum look at the artistic brain drain from Europe following the Nazis' rise to power. The exhibition, billed as a kind of sequel to LACMA's 1991 ``Degenerate Art,'' also offers perspective on how Europe's intellectuals redrew the American cultural landscape in their own image (think of those Mies van der Rohe highrises along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago).

Curated by LACMA's Stephanie Barron and designed by architect Frank O. Gehry, the show features works by Marcel Breuer, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, George Grosz, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Kurt Schwitters and many more. Also get ready for a slew of show-related lectures, musical performances, movie screenings and symposiums. For details, call [phone].

?13- Reed Johnson

comedy

Good revue: Few moments in live theater are more painful than a bad one-woman (or one-man) show. The audience squirms. The performer sweats. The blackout comes not a minute too soon.

Nice to know we won't have to worry about that stuff when Broadway regular Cindy Benson brings her act to North Hollywood on March 1. Yes, we know that's a week away, but you'll want to book ahead because there's only one 7:30 p.m. show and limited seating.

Benson calls ``Out on a Whim'' a guerrilla musical comedy revue. Makes sense for an actress who has built her career around roles like the gruesome Madame Thenardier in ``Les Miserables,'' a 200-pound tap-dancing feline in ``Cats'' and Donna the Dominatrix in ``Eating Raoul.'' Tickets ($10) may be purchased in advance at Metropolitan Community Church, 5730 Cahuenga Blvd., or by calling [phone].

?13- Reed Johnson

music

African and authentic: Throughout a series of eclectic albums, Senegal's spiritual singer Baaba Maal never abandoned the African soul at the core of his music.

Maal, who combines the traditional rhythms of the villages in which he was raised with cutting-edge Western pop styles, is perhaps best-known to local audiences as one of the standouts of the popular Africa Fete tour.

With his 10-piece band and two dancers in tow, Maal puts on one of the most energetic shows to come out of Africa. He appears tonight at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater with his longtime collaborator, guitarist-singer Mansour Seck.

Maal was encouraged to study music as a youth, but Senegal's caste system demanded that only members of griot families could become performers. Griots were traditionally storytellers, born and bred historians of the country's culture.

But the headmaster of Maal's elementary school gave all the students an opportunity to learn local instruments such as the 21-string kora and the violinlike riti.

Eventually, Maal moved to Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and launched his musical career. Maal's group Daande Lenol cut 10 albums, and in 1991 the acclaimed ``Baayo,'' his first for Mango Records, was issued.

``Lam Toro'' was released in 1992 and the Grammy Award-nominated ``Firin' in Fouta'' was completed three years later.

The Veterans Wadsworth Theater is at 226 Eisenhower Ave., Brentwood. Show time is 8 p.m. and tickets are $27 and $30. Information: [phone].

?13- Fred Shuster

dining

Steaks are back: El Paso Barbeque Co, 18938 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana, has expanded its menu to include a full line of steak plates.

From the low price of $10.95 for three steak dishes to a still reasonable high of $17.95 for three more, El Paso brings forth its beefy fare with a choice of two accompaniments included in each dinner platter's tab.

Diners choose two of eight possibilities - coleslaw, salad, corn on the cob, grilled vegetables, potato salad, barbecued beans, steak fries or baked potato - to eat with their slab of beef.

The top picks from the steak menu are a 24-ounce porterhouse, a bone-in 14-ounce filet mignon and a 24-ounce rib steak - $17.95 each.

For $14.95, diners can have a full-pound T-bone, a full-pound costilla steak or a full-pound Delmonico.

The cattleman's 16-ounce top sirloin is $12.95, and for $10.95 there are two 9-ounce steaks (a petite New York and a petite ribeye) and a tri-tip 8-ounce bottom sirloin steak.

El Paso continues with its regular seven types of Texas-style barbecued ribs plus pulled pork, chopped beef, barbecued ham, turkey breast, chicken and sliced beef.

Occasionally, it even serves veal ribs.

Information and reservations: [phone].

?13 - Larry Lipson

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Versatile actress Cindy Benson (``Les Miserables,'' ``Cats'') brings her one-woman show to North Hollywood for a March 1 performance.

(2) Senegalese singer Baaba Maal's 10-piece band blends traditional African instruments with modern electric sounds.

(3) Billy Bob Thornton, writer, director and star of ``Sling Blade,'' suddenly finds himself in the Oscar race.