BEST BETS Friday 12/1

all day

Holiday

Four homes in Arcadia will be open to the public during “The 46th Annual Holiday Homes Tour.” Each single-story home will be professionally decorated for the Christmas season. Only flat or low-heeled shoes will be permitted in the homes. No infants and children under 12 will be admitted. Complimentary pastries, tea and coffee will be offered at a fifth site, the Santa Anita Inn.

* “The 46th Annual Holiday Homes Tour,” Davila home, 1145 Fallen Leaf Road; Romano home, 605 Arbolada Drive; Larsen home, 270 W. Lemon Ave.; Ornelas home, 321 W. Naomi Ave.; Santa Anita Inn, 130 W. Huntington Drive. 9:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased for $25 on the day of the event at any of the participating Arcadia locations. Advance tickets at $20 can be purchased in the lobby of the Methodist Hospital, 300 W. Huntington Drive, Arcadia. (626) 447-1951.

6:30 & 7:30pm

Movies

What made Norton Simon tick? A new documentary film, “The Art of Norton Simon,” offers some clues to the complicated industrialist and art collector whose 12,000-piece collection of European, Asian and American art is housed at his museum in Pasadena. The free public premiere of the 30-minute film--directed by Davis Guggenheim, produced by his father, Academy Award-winning documentarian Charles Guggenheim, and narrated by Gregory Peck--will inaugurate the museum’s recently renovated theater.

* The Art of Norton Simon, Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Friday, 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The museum will be open until 9 p.m. Free. Beginning Saturday at 12:30, hourly screenings during regular museum hours included with admission: adults, $6; seniors, $3. (626) 449-6840.

8pm

Pop Music

Cabaret singer and actress Ute Lemper made her reputation singing Weill, but on her latest album she has dipped into that composer’s contemporary heirs, singing new songs written for her by Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Nick Cave and others.

* Ute Lemper, Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. 8 p.m. $30 to $40. (949) 854-4646.

all day

Museums

More than 100 rare books and manuscripts will illustrate the often changing conceptions of the heavens and how we understand our place in the universe in “Star Struck: One Thousand Years of the Art and Science of Astronomy,” opening Friday at the Huntington Library in San Marino. The exhibition will feature detailed illustrations pulled from the Huntington’s collection, including works by Galileo, Copernicus, Hubble and Einstein. In addition, star-struck visitors can explore classic high points in the history of astronomy at a series of computer stations set up throughout the gallery.

* “Star Struck: 1,000 Years of the Art and Science of Astronomy,” Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. Ends May 13. Tuesday-Friday, noon-4:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. $8.50; seniors, $8; students, $6; children under 12, free. (626) 405-2141).

7:30pm

Movies

Two noted New York husband-and-wife film critics visit L.A. Friday and Saturday as the LACMA Film Department presents “Dialogue on Film: A Weekend With Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell.” Sarris, author of “The American Cinema,” an influential 1968 study of Hollywood auteurs and longtime critic for the Village Voice, will introduce and discuss “The Shop Around the Corner” on Friday. The 1940 romantic comedy, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, stars James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as two young rival Budapest shop clerks also unaware that they are one another’s pen pals. Samson Raphaelson adapted a Nikolaus Laszlo play. The story was recently remade for the Internet Age as “You’ve Got Mail.” On Saturday, Sarris will be joined by Haskell, author of the groundbreaking “From Rape to Reverence,” an examination of the representation of women in Hollywood, and a former critic for the New York Times. Following a screening of Francois Truffaut’s 1960 “Shoot the Piano Player,” Sarris and Haskell will participate in a discussion with director Curtis Hanson (“Wonder Boys”) about the films in their lives and their lives in film.

* Dialogue on Film: A Weekend with Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell, LACMA, Bing Theater, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. Friday: “The Shop Around the Corner,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday: “Shoot the Piano Player” 7:30 p.m. $5 to $7. (323) 857-6010.

8pm

Theater

Bilingual Foundation of the Arts’ perennial holiday classic, “Too Many Tamales,” returns. Based on Gary Soto’s children’s story and adapted by Margarita Galban and Lina Montalvo, the festive play is set on Christmas Eve where dolls and decorations come to life as children learn a lesson about temptation and forgiveness.

* “Too Many Tamales,” Bilingual Foundation of the Arts, 421 N. Avenue 19, Los Angeles. In Spanish: Friday and Dec. 15, 8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday and Dec. 16-17, 30, 1, 3:30 and 6 p.m.; Dec. 28-29, 3:30 and 6 p.m. In English: Dec. 8, 20-22, 8 p.m.; Dec. 9-10, 23, 1, 3:30 and 6 p.m. Ends Dec. 30. $11 to $13. (323) 225-4044.

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Freebies

Judith Light, Sheila James Kuehl, Tim Miller, Stephanie Zimbalist, Mink Stole, Rod McKuen and other celebrities will read from the works of Paul Monette, Miguel Pinero, Charles Ludlam, Robert Chesley and others who have died of AIDS in the all-day event, “AfterWords: Honoring Writers We Miss,” at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz. 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Free. (323) 660-1175.

Images by Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, Alfred Eisenstaedt and other noted photojournalists from the staff of Life magazine will be featured in “Life: A Retrospective View” at Apex Fine Art, 152 N. La Brea Ave., L.A. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Ends Jan. 6. (323) 634-7887.