Kenneth Branagh

As we enter the season when cuddling up with witches, poltergeists and ghouls seems the thing to do, there's nothing like classical music to make the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention and get you in the mood.Perhaps the most Halloween-friendly masterwork of them all is Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique," an opium-induced musical nightmare depicting obsessive love, whirling masked balls, murder, a rousing "March to the Scaffold" and a nasty "Witches' Sabbath" positively made for the 31st of October.

moviesA lively 'Dead'Kenneth Branagh directed and co-stars in "Dead Again," a satisfying send-up of the Hitchcock formula. Emma Thompson co-stars as a woman who doesn't know who she is but is having nightmares in which she is someone else -- a murder victim. Branagh plays the detective who works on the case, and Derek '' Jacobi is the antiques dealer who offers to help solve the mystery. Andy Garcia and a mystery superstar are also in the cast, to the advantage of all, beginning with the audience.

How many ways are there to say that it's another slow Saturday night? That's one. It's even slower than last Saturday ,, night. That's two. Boy, is it slow on TV tonight. That's three . . .* "Aliens for Breakfast" (8-9 p.m., Channel 2) -- Shelley Duvall is one of the executive producers of this special, which means one thing: quality family entertainment. And once again, she doesn't disappoint. Ben Savage stars as Richard, a young boy who hates his new sneakers but loves his new cereal: Alien Crisp.

Brass Quintet concerts remind this listener a little too much of high school, of the detested pep rallies he was forced to attend during school hours or the inane half-time rallies at the football games he scrupulously avoided. The brass quintet repertory doesn't help matters. It's what one would expect a brass band (which is exactly what a quintet is) to play, consisting mostly of transcriptions. And, of course, brass players are the jocks of the symphonic world: musicians outgoing enough to like to talk to audiences.

The overture to "The Marriage of Figaro" sounds best from its perch at the beginning of Mozart's greatest comic opera. Indeed, a full-length "Figaro" is a must-have for any serious (or even frivolous) fan of classical music.The top three versions have been around for a while and sound even better with age. Erich Kleiber's "Figaro" from the 1950s is full of character and great singing (London).Soprano Jessye Norman makes a wonderful Countess for Colin Davis on Philips, and the budget-conscious will love conductor Carlo Maria Giulini, who lopped off a couple of forgettable arias, allowing the whole opera to fit onto a pair of mid-priced EMI discs.

In X- Men, Bryan Singer brought more artistry to the depiction of the Third Reich's crimes against humanity than he does in Valkyrie, which depicts the heroic attempts of a handful of German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and thus bring down the Nazi regime. The concentration-camp prologue to X-Men grounded the movie's premise that a new Holocaust could be catalyzed against mutants. The prologue to Valkyrie fails to do the same for Tom Cruise's Col. Claus von Stauffenberg.

"The Road to El Dorado" is a mess. A handsome, well-drawn mess, but a mess nonetheless. For one thing, it begs the question, "Do we really need an animated Hope and Crosby picture?" For another, it needs a story -- any story, but preferably one the audience can have a rooting interest in. And finally, it proves the truth of the adage that any movie depending on an animated armadillo for excitement is looking for trouble. Set in the early days of New World exploration, "El Dorado" focuses on Miguel and Tulio, Spanish con men who spend 20 percent of their time separating people from their money and 80 percent getting on people's nerves -- especially the audience's.

Will Smith has become something of a Fourth of July tradition, what with the smashing success of "Independence Day" and "Men In Black," both of which were released during the holiday weekend. Will he manage to do it again with "Wild Wild West"? As far as audiences are concerned, he probably will, even though this Western-science-fiction-adventure comedy can't match the wit and imagination of "Men in Black" or the sheer bombast of "Independence Day." At times incoherent, with long, dull stretches, "Wild Wild West" doesn't exactly jump off the screen.

For his Shakespearean romance "Much Ado About Nothing," director Kenneth Branagh wanted costumes that couldn't be pinned down to a specific historic era.The designers for the "Star Wars" series had to create entire planets and imagine fashions for characters who weren't even human.The costumer of the new Tina Turner film biography, "What's Love Got to Do With It," had to re-create clothing styles from the 1950s through the '80s.The costumes for "Bram Stoker's Dracula" combined historically accurate Victorian dress with outlandish creations: Young Dracula's suit of armor looked like a body with its skin peeled off; the burial gown for a vampire victim that looked like an explosion of white lace.

On The Weekend Watch:OH, THOSE O'S! -- Has there been a more frustrating team for fans than this year's Orioles? Every time they seem to be on a climb out of the cellar, as in Monday's sharp ninth-inning, third-straight victory over the Twins, they come back with something like yesterday's outrageous ninth inning. Oh well, Channel 2 offers four more opportunities for torture as the Birds head into Kansas City. Jim Palmer and Brooks Robinson will be broadcasting the full series with the Royals, with games at 8:30 p.m. tonight and Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.