You don't like Venora, you adore her-within minutes, a crucial point for the film. The most obvious influence on Davy's work seems to be Japanese. Robert Schenkkan is perfect as the weaselly loser who plans the murder and Ellen Barkin is convincing as his manipulative wife Ellen Burstyn plays Yablonski's wife, Margaret. Maybe, if we saw actors really working at their characters, a director really challenging the actors in their work, and both searching for something fresh Nothing of the sort occurs. At first, though, the evening looked like a K-Tel collection of Golden Oldies From Close Friends of the Artists Who Made Them Famous.

The band's first album, "Dreamboat Annie-released in early 1976-was a surprise smash, selling 3. 5 million copies Soon the big labels were wooing Heart. They have made the small space seem larger by emphasizing high ceilings and surrounding the wood-burning oven with an airy open kitchen. To introduce audiences to the work of the Dutch producer (and former documentary film maker, the Fox will first present "The Dream" (Friday through next Monday) and "Dreamland" (April 22-24. On busy nights, such as New Year's Eve, she will do as many as six shows, shuttling between nightclubs, hotels and private parties. But like the San Diego Rep, which is also awaiting a move to a new theater, the Gaslamp management plans to expand its audience education programs once they've settled into their new space-they hope by December. With this cheerfully offhand opening, and in alternately shabby and tackily elegant surroundings in South London, director Stephen Frears catches us unaware. Los Angeles' own most prominent restaurant twosome of the moment, Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff (of, it scarcely need be said, Spago and Chinois on Main, do things a bit differently: He is indeed often in the kitchen, but the kitchen is out in plain sight; often, too, he is not in the kitchen, but working on one project or another (like a new line of frozen pizzas) or off in Tokyo, Texas or New York attending to one important corporate client or another.

Then came "Swan Lake" In the States, "Swan Lake" has come to mean a half-hearted ritual muddled by American Ballet Theatre. When he tells them "You've got the wrath of God and losing confused" his defiance and determination close the album with a palpable lift. . "We are an 80-year-old institution that is taking a hard look at itself right now" The 38-year-old music administrator was in town recently to address the local chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and to attend a reunion of alumni from the prestigious New York music school. An alternately celebratory, funny and absorbing look at loners, losers, lovers and survivors, the album gracefully crosses stylistic boundaries, from the rock majesty of Los Lobos' title tune to the country sorrow of "Suddenly Single" Jennings maintains the thematic cohesiveness and musical honesty missing from Nelson's album.

But such reservations fade fast in contemplation of Flanagan and her splendid gallery: her Nora, who says she never read her husband's books because she never could understand them, also insists, amazingly, that he knew nothing of women. "We have an obligation to the world of rock 'n' roll, the artists and the fans, to make this a dignified place they can be proud of" And Ertegun-the chairman of Atlantic Records-has done a good job so far in maintaining the integrity of the project. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame may be long overdue, but it's now proceeding at a rapid pace-perhaps too rapid. Sadanaga, who loves water almost as much as Andrei Tarkovsky, even pauses to capture a raindrop on the point of a leaf. International University intends to live up to its name this weekend by presenting a program of dance and song that draws its inspiration from around the world. After working with Streep, he said, "I didn't get to know her well enough to say whether I liked her or not" We shall have to wait a while to hear what he has to say about MacLaine. .

In April, many in the San Diego art community were shocked to learn that SDSU would not renew Komac's contract Not least surprised was Komac himself. When British playwright and screenwriter Alan Bennett calls his astringent British satire (opening today at the Royal) "A Private Function" he's having a droll bit of fun. "I loved my children (Laura, 23, and James, 24) and my husband so much All of that: the loving and being loved was so terrific And I had work in addition to that. (Cannon Group) EVILS OF THE NIGHT-Teens invades a private sanitorium and find themselves subjected to the film title. "The marketing people flatly felt it was too grungy to sell" he said. Robert J.

In one of rock's more peculiar traditions, marginal heavy-metal bands from England or America would often travel to Japan and somehow end up deified there. "I've never been in a place where people were coming up to me and pumping my hand" Times reporter Doyle McManus said. Will Dolby SR become an industry standard? "I think so" replied Dolby. Problem is, according to some photographers, her offer is too little too late. The contest win has given the musicians incentive to develop the group's identity, something that hasn't always been possible in the workaday world of bar bands. The Webern work, in its spidery, meticulous and deeply felt way, made a brief and serious prelude to the grandeur of Bach's vision. According to defense attorney Wayne Parsons, Vos admitted to lying to a federal grand jury that investigated the Rewald affair.