I got all excited when I heard about the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival event “Spielberg on Spielberg,” especially when I read this line in the promo: “The man who made Schindler’s List and Munich and fathered the Shoah Foundation talks about his dazzling 40-year career.” But if you buy your $10 ticket and rush over to the Gershman Y tonight, you might be a little disappointed to learn that “Spielberg on Spielberg” is the name of a documentary, in which Spielberg does, in fact, talk “about his dazzling 40-year career.” It’s screening tonight, and Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey will say a few words. 7 p.m.

I always wondered what the title of the Who song “Baba O’Riley” referred to, since the lyrics seem to have nothing to do with anyone or -thing by that name. (You know the tune: “Don’t cry, don’t raise your eye, it’s only teenage wasteland …”) Turns out that the “Baba” is a nod to Meher Baba, a Sufi mystic, who died in 1969. But still very much alive is Terry Riley, an avant-garde composer, whose synthesizer work on “A Rainbow In Curved Air” inspired Pete Townsend’s own on both “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Tonight, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia welcomes Riley to the Kimmel Center for explorations into the work of Maurice Ravel as well as the world premiere of Riley’s Triple Concerto. 7:30 p.m.; $24 to $81.

HIP-HOP/R&B
Just a week ago, it seemed that the blockbuster Mary J. Blige/Jay-Z concert at the Wachovia Center was sold out, with only single tickets — i.e., you couldn’t sit next to your date — available. But thanks to last-minute production changes, lots of front-row, dead-center seats just came up for grabs for a mere $350. I’m not sure if that means that the people who thought that they were in the front row are now actually in the second row, but now is not the time for empathy or compassion. Now is the time to go to one of those insta-return tax places and cash out on what will be (assuming that the reviews from the other cities on the tour are any indication) an immensely memorable way to spend Sunday night. If you need to warm yourself up, dance the night away tonight with Philly’s own funkateers, The Blue Method at the North Star ($10).

JAZZ
If the idea of jazz saxophone makes you think of that slow, geriatric Kenny-G filled station that you should have erased long ago from your car radio’s presets, you need to get deprogrammed by Mr. Wayne Shorter tonight at the Kimmel ($26 to $74). Shorter’s music leans towards the out there. It’s what they call jazz fusion, which long ago became a bad word just because there was so much lousy stuff around. But 75-year-old Shorter, who has performed with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Maynard Ferguson, and Weather Report, is a legend and at the top of the game. And over at Chris’ Jazz Cafe, the second-annual Big Band Festival runs through Sunday. Most promising is Saturday night with the Jump City Jazz Orchestra, with special guest saxman Larry McKenna ($15 to $20).

SPORTS
Yes, the Phillies‘ home opener against the Nationals (as in the team that stole all of our hopes and dreams last season) on Monday is sold out, though there are plenty of tickets moving around on Craigslist, and you could always watch it on TV, minus the spilled beer and Schmitter. To quench your thirst in the meantime, pay a visit to the National Constitution Center’s Baseball As America exhibit, reviewed in our brand-new April issue by our own very capable Bridget Salmons, whom I never would have guessed to be a closeted baseball junkie, what with the nose ring and all.

MOVIES
Should none of the new movies previewed in this morning’s Flick Filter interest you, try one of these oldies but goodies. 007 does his debonair spy-lover thing in The Man With the Golden Gun at the Colonial on Sunday. Before Pee Wee was exposed as a perv, he had his Big Adventure, at the County Theater in Doylestown on Saturday. And the new Franklin Theater at the Franklin Institute gets graphic this weekend with The Terminator (Friday) and T2 (Saturday).

Our no-BS guide to the newest movies …

FLAWLESS
Period crime drama
Rated PG-13, 100 minutes
(with the once-so-luscious Demi Moore and the aged-but-still-reliable Michael Caine)

In 10 words or less: Old janitor + hot woman = diamond heist.

The critics, abridged:
• “exceedingly cloudy,” “[a] false gem,” “a movie that barely sparkles” — Entertainment Weekly
• “a perfectly entertaining small crime picture, until the end,” “botched with 11th-hour moralistic nonsense” — Baltimore City Paper
• “Demi Moore can’t move face or movie” — Seattle Weekly
• “Not the jolly sort of heist film (Gambit, The Italian Job) that Caine fronted in the ’60s, this one plods a bit, but it makes fine use of the actor’s sweet gravity and rueful charm.” — Time

RUN, FATBOY, RUN
Comedy
Rated PG-13, 97 Minutes
(directed by former Friend David Schwimmer, with Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, and Hank Azaria)

In 10 words or less: Left pregnant fiancee at altar? Run marathon to win back.

The critics, abridged:
• “stays out of sitcom quicksand long enough to make you think that Schwimmer has a knack for this comedy-directing thing” — Rolling Stone
• “Overplayed manchild genre gets no help from this lackluster comedy” — msnbc.com
• “Schwimmer gives the movie a warm, slightly scuffed look that suits its spirit” — Denver Westword
• “Run, don’t walk, from mindless comedy” — Chicago Sun Times

STOP-LOSS
Drama
Rated R, 113 Minutes
(directed by Kimberly Peirce, whose Boys Don’t Cry won an Oscar, with Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant and the goofy-looking but still desired Ryan Phillippe)

In 10 words or less: Young soldiers and that sucky war in Iraq.

The critics, abridged:
• “pro-soldier, anti-bureaucrat, war-neutral, and deeply, deeply affecting” — Inquirer (Carrie Rickey)
• “[the] promising premise runs into a rut of incompatible accents and melodramatic excess” — New York magazine
• “Ryan Phillippe has undermined yet another promising film” — austin360.com
• “one of the best of the many Iraq War/War on Terror dramas … built on a career-making performance by Ryan Phillippe” — Orlando Sentinel

21
Crime drama
Rated PG-13, 123 minutes
(with Across the Universe’s Jim Sturgess, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth)

In 10 words or less: Math geniuses play blackjack in Vegas. Somebody’s getting whacked.

The critics, abridged:
• “isn’t pretentious, exactly, but it’s damn close, and in trying to whip up a melodramatic morality tale the film becomes an increasingly flabby slog” — Chicago Tribune
• “escapist fun,” “a glossy, engrossing yarn” — Inquirer (Steven Rea)
• “Lack of originality is where 21 really deals a losing hand” — starpulse.com
• “In a multiplex of dumb-luck hits, it’s a kick to watch Spacey and a gifted young cast use smarts to deal audiences a winning hand” — Rolling Stone

Tonight, Di Bruno Bros. in Rittenhouse Square hosts the 4th Annual Bald Ball, where they’ve come up with some brilliant plan to raise loads of loot for cancer research by shaving people’s heads. Expert cutter Joe McMenamin from Groom Salon will be on hand to shave you nice and pretty, like my editor here.

And if you’re not into losing your hair, you can still hobnob with all the Rittenhouse dandies amidst lots of wine and cheese. 6:30 p.m. $45.

For those about to rock, I give you Georgia’s hard-loving, hard-living, oft-compared-to-Skynyrd Drive-By Truckers and their big, bad sound driven by lots of whiskey and not one, not two, but three guitars.

They pay a visit to the Fillmore on South Street tonight in support of their new, critically acclaimed album, Brighter Than Creations Dark. 9 p.m., $24.

If you want to avoid the scalpers and Craigslist scams, consult this handy guide to the shows soon to go on sale …

Fans of hip-hop and R&B, get your credit cards ready, because there is no shortage of killer shows for your enjoyment. The one I’m most excited about: Bootsy Collins (pictured) — the enigmatic and a little bit crazy man who pretty much invented the funk bass — is bringing his Tribute to the Godfather of Soul to the Electric Factory on May 1st ($40, on sale this Friday at 10 a.m.). In support of their fantastic and soon-to-be-released (there’s an advance copy floating around the office) new album, Rising Down, The Roots team up with Gnarls Barkley on June 7th at Penn’s Landing ($49.50, also this Friday at 10 a.m.). And significantly less riveting but still worth mentioning, the very respectable Erykah Badu graces the Tower (wish more acts would go there) on May 11th ($39.50 to $60, on sale Monday at 10 a.m.).

For a show that couldn’t be any more demographically different from the aforementioned acts, look no further than those British madmen known as Iron Maiden. Though I’m not a tremendous fan, I do admit to playing “The Number of the Beast” in the morning at the office if I am overly tired (read: hung over). It does wonders. Camden will never be the same after their appearance at the Susquehanna Bank Center (the old Tweeter, in case you haven’t been keeping track) on June 17th ($29.50 to $75, on sale Saturday at 11 a.m.).

And for those of you who find all of this appalling and have absolutely no musical taste, you’ll always have Belinda Carlisle. Yes, I said it: Belinda Carlisle. Now, the Go-Go’s are perfectly OK by me. They served a purpose at a certain time in a certain place. But some solo careers are best left unpursued, and Miss Heaven Is a Place on Earth should have let go a long time ago. (That said, she absolutely should continue posing nude in men’s magazines, like she did in 2001 at the age of 42.) If you vehemently disagree with my read on her musical talent, head to A.C. on May 17th when she takes a gamble at the House of Blues ($35 to $47, on sale Friday at 10 a.m.).

The University of the Arts’s Vocal Department skips right over the Handel and Bach chorale works in favor of Muppets, Fraggles, and Sesame Street: The Music of Jim Henson. Completely silly, yes, which is precisely why I like it. Plus, it’s free. 7 p.m. at the Arts Bank.

In from Nashville, Johnny Cash and June Carter will play a benefit concert in Philadelphia this week. Well, kinda. When local Johnny Cash tribute artist David Stone (pictured) performs on Friday, you probably won’t know the difference. On the phone last night, in his smoky, calculated drawl, Stone explained the difference between a tribute band and an impersonator, and probably wanted to break my legs when I brought up Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

What’s up on Friday?
It’ll be me and June Carter playing. We’re going to be doing all the duets between 1965 and 1975. You can count on “Jackson,” and “It Ain’t Me Babe.” Soroptimist International of Indian Rock is a club that helps young women get back on their feet and provides scholarships for their education. They approached us and we felt it was a good cause.

You call yourself a “representation” of Johnny Cash. What does that mean?
We provide an authentic note-for-note reproduction, complete with costume changes and authentic instruments. We keep it in character and do it with dignity. For those who haven’t seen him, we’re the next closest thing.

You’re not an impersonator?
If you look at Elvis impersonators, they give great indignity to the person their impersonating. The moves that they do are grossly exaggerated and overused. We stand for who these people were as people and what they stood for: a way of life, of hard times and hope. You’ll never see us marrying people at the Johnny Cash Chapel in Vegas.

So, no worries about a the stigma that comes with being an impersonator?
I defy anyone to look at our show and call me an impersonator. That type of person wouldn’t come to see us anyway. Screw ‘em.

How accurate is the stage show?
If something didn’t sound right, we’ll go back to the record and listen to it again. Sometimes, that even means practicing the mistakes. We found out that Johnny Cash didn’t put his guitar over his back as much as we thought he did. And there’s one suit that we got rid of because it wasn’t the right shade of black.

What did you think of Walk the Line?
I think Joaquin Phoenix did a good job at representing a very complicated character. But I don’t think he sounds much like Johnny Cash. They did a passable job on the music.

And what about Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story?
I’ve seen the trailer and I think it was … I’m not going to say. I don’t know … I’m just not going to say.

Why did you become Johnny Cash?
The rule in our family growing up was that you had to take a year of piano lessons. A minister came and played a guitar, and I asked my parents, “If the minister can play guitar, why can’t I?” The Johnny Cash Show was on television at that time and I was taken with him. Here was this great, big, tall badass. He flashed that big spiritual smile and said “I’m Johnny Cash.”

Have you ever had an audience like the one Cash played to at Folsom or San Quentin Prison?
We’re actually in talks with San Quentin to play the 40th anniversary show for the prisoners there in February 2009. I just talked to the assistant warden this morning. There’s a lot of I’s to dot and T’s to cross.

David Stone: The Johnny Cash Experience, March 28th at Spring Mill Manor, 171 Jacksonville Road, Ivyland. $45; for tickets, call 215-357-8670. Benefits the Soroptimist International of Indian Rock.

If my memory serves me correctly, going back to a lit class long ago that I cut more than I didn’t, Pericles is one of those Shakespeare plays that might not, in fact, have been written by Shakespeare, or at least not in its entirety. The theory goes that Shakespeare may be responsible for some of the scenes, but not the earliest ones in the piece. But I suggest you leave this wonky debating for the guys with the elbow patches on their tweed jackets and pay a visit to the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, which is tonight previewing their version of the work, starring local talents Damon Bonetti as Pericles and the lovely Christie Parker as Thaisa. 7 p.m.; $20 to $28.