You've no doubt glimpsed the SFMOMA banner ads around town, but tomorrow is your last chance to view the Richard Avedon photos as they deserve to be seen: up close and slowly.

Our Museum of Modern Art is the only U.S. spot to host the spectacular retrospective of Avedon's pioneering art. Shooting fashion spreads in Paris in the 1950s, Avedon went on to photograph rock stars, actors, politicians, civil rights movement icons and manual laborers. Using a still camera, black-and-white film and a plain, usually white backdrop, his portraits were full of movement, expression, emotion and character.

Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Bjork and Twiggy are here. A wall of mugshots became a "Name That 1960s-70s Politico" game for me and my friend: "Wow, Henry Kissinger!... George Wallace!... Uh, Shirley Chisholm?"

My favorite part was the life-size portraits of a wizened African-American former slave, a no-nonsense teen-ager who skins rattlesnakes, a sinewy coal miner and other ordinary people.

The exhibit mentions that Avedon and his life were references for the movie Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire as a fashion photog and Audrey Hepburn as a bookseller-turned-model in Paris. So after SFMOMA, I rented the movie and at home, enjoyed some gorgeous Avedon images of Audrey Hepburn.

Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004 closes tomorrow at 5:45 p.m. SFMOMA is on Third Street near Mission.

Tonight--all night--is your chance to see the movies and the 210-foot Coit Tower in ways you've never seen them before: the former on the latter.

Tomorrow you'll get a second chance, and it'll be a memorable antidote to Thanksgiving football TV.

The mega-movie marathon is a marvel of high technology and physics, ultra-long telephoto lenses and hefty projectors, choreographed by two San Francisco Art Institute graduates and blessed by the Rec and Parks Department. Using three projectors hauled onto Telegraph Hill rooftops that circle Coit and are 120 degrees apart from each other, the towering cylinder is transformed into a 360-degree set of movie screens, according to masterminds David Mark and Ben Wood. The Coit screen is visible as far as three miles away, or about as far as Russian Hill or the Ferry Building.

The special screening, honoring the 40th anniversary of Native Americans' occupation of Alcatraz, is of a collection of short films about the demonstration and about the local Ohlone Indians. On November 20, 1969, about 80 people landed on the island and demanded ownership so as to establish an Indian-focused university and cultural center. The stand-off ended in June 1971 after the government cut off power on Alcatraz and removed the last 15 demonstrators.

Showtime is dusk, around 6 p.m. Tune into KPOO (love those call letters!), 89.5 FM, for the accompanying audio broadcast. If you miss the first showing, no worries--the series of films will be repeated until dawn. And it'll rev up again tomorrow, from sundown to sun up.

WHAT: Shorts about Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island.
WHEN: Nov. 25 & 26, dusk til dawn.
WHERE: Recommended viewing sites are Telegraph Hill, Pier 31, Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach.

For more information about the projection's mechanics, check Wood and Mark's website.

I'm still seeing people wearing flip-flops, and most days we're basking in warm sunshine. But if you're ready for some winter-appropriate action, you'll find it right in town--at the seasonal outdoor ice rinks.

• The Union Square Holiday Ice Rink is open daily through Jan. 18. Admission is $4.50-9.50, and renting skates costs $4.
• The Embarcadero Center Holiday Ice Rink is in Justin Herman Plaza. It's open daily through Jan. 3, except when booked for private parties. Admission is $5.50-9.50; skate rental is $3.50.

Also in Union Square, Macy's towering fir tree will be officially lit up on Friday, Nov. 27, at 6:00 pm. The 85-footer is from Mt. Shasta.

November is a farce full of political incorrectness.

In our city of liberal political correctness, the David Mamet play at American Conservatory Theater has been enough of a hit to score an extended run. It's timely (big hint: the title), and it's set right before Thanksgiving, when the president traditionally pardons the national turkey that's facing the death penalty.

Mamet's president, Charles Smith, seems a lot like George W. Bush: ready to invade far-off lands, ranking low in the polls and willing to dispatch problem people on secret flights to Bulgaria.

But the gleefully corrupt, lame duck Smith, who sees potential to squeeze campaign donations out of everyone and everything, is meant to represent the presidential office and money-driven politics more than the Republican Party or right-wing presidents. An ACT article in the play program cites a Village Voice essay by Mamet (entitled "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'") in which the playwright says he discovered that Bush's faults "whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster--were little different from those of a president whom I revered," i.e., JFK.

So the play spins off to skewer folks of all types and persuasions, believers in sacred cows, taboo pigs and national turkeys included. Presidential speech writer Clarice Bernstein, a lefty lesbian trying to turn her wedding into a televised media event, picks up her boss' wheeling-dealing skills. None of the characters is particularly noble.

The president's jaded chief of staff has one of the best lines--he reminds Smith that his approval rating is lower than Gandhi's cholesterol. The humor's not gut-busting, but Mamet's play has some easy laughs without deep intellect. Catch November before it ends on the 22nd.

* For tickets or more information, check ACT's website.

* Probe Mamet's brain further in his Village Voice essay.