MONDAY, OCT. 18, 2010 >>>

1. The Tacoma Cult Movie Club presents "They're Coming To Get You! - a night of living dead films, plus trailers, educational shorts, a chapter from a serial and the notorious raffle - at 7 p.m. inside the Acme Grub Cage.

2. John Bishop from the Vancouver campus of Washington State University will lecture on "The Paradox of Enrichment and other Ecological Wonder from Mount St. Helens" at 12:30 p.m. inside SCI 309 on the University of Washington Tacoma campus.

3. Momenti Rubari Trio - Betsy Perkins on soothing vocals and spicy percussion, Richard Lopez on sultry alto flute, Tarik Bentlemsani on acoustic guitar, and Jeff Parkhurst on drum grooves - will fill The Royal Lounge with Latin jazz beginning at 7 p.m.

4. Astrum Lux Lucis, singer of the conscious rock band One World (R)evolution, will perform at 7 p.m. inside the Mandolin Café.

5. DJ Jason Diamond spins roots reggae beginning at 9 p.m. during Rebel Monday/Industry Night inside O'Malley's Irish Pub.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

SATURDAY, OCT. 16, 2010 >>>

1. The Gig Harbor Film Festival continues today at the Galaxy Uptown Theatres. Be sure to catch Camp Unity, an award-winning documentary about Iraqi youth uniting through hip-hop, jazz, orchestra, and Broadway at an American Arts Academy in Kurdistan, at 1:05 p.m.

2. The Northwest Repertory Singers, in conjunction with Arts Crush, provide produce picking music at the Proctor Farmers Market beginning at 10 a.m.

3. Sanford and Son Antiques hosts the Tacoma Harvest Fair from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. loaded with baked goods, gourds, jam and pickled veg competitions, Most Awesome Mustache Contest, Greater Tacoma Mutt Show, Best Pansy Container Garden, Mr. and Miss Tattoo Tacoma and much more. The entire thing is rather tongue in cheek, and meant to be a fun celebration of Tacoma.

4. Painter Christopher Mathie will offer a high-energy, fast paced painting performance from 6-8 p.m. inside Mavi Contemporary Art. Twelve-string guitarist Sam Weis will keep the energy elevated.

5. The Fall Fashion Lore Runway Show (presented by urbanXchange) will go down at King's Books in Tacoma beginning at 7:30 p.m. Promising that they've been, "stockpiling extraordinary goods for a month now," and that these stylish-goods will "explode on Tacoma this Saturday night in a delicious display of style inspiration," the show will no doubt be one of the truly boffo events of the weekend. Even better, local-favorites Basemint will plug in along with Nicolas Hartzell.

LINK: Concerts go on sale today

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

BRING ON THE WEEKEND >>>

Admittedly, I'm sick. I'm snotty. My throat hurts. And I'm not even at the office today.

Yet, The Prefunk - a regular weekend primer for you and your liver - waits for no one ... not even the sick. The show must go on - and so it will.

Above you'll find the prerequisite Prefunk picture of an alcoholic household pet. Below you'll find the usual wild, intoxicated ranting the Prefunk has become known for.

Enjoy.

Click! Family Flick: Casper @ The Grand Cinema

SATURDAY, OCT. 16, 10:30 A.M.

Really, truly, a person couldn't ask for more out of a local cable company. As gross and disgusting as the big name cable providers have become, Click! always seems to be there for Tacoma - the little guy, doing what's right. Hell! They even have billboards featuring Thane Davis and his wife, Patricia Lecy-Davis.

Direct TV, on the other hand, just has Beyonce and that gyrating "upgrade" jingle.

I hate that fucking jingle.

I'll take Click! any day.

Besides providing Tacomans with economical cable TV, however, Click! also regularly gives back and gets involved with the community.

Example: The Click! Family Flick at The Grand Cinema, an event that goes down every third Saturday morning of the month at Tacoma's favorite independent film house.

What's so cool about it?

Oh, nothing, except it offers your family a chance to go out to the movies ... for free!

That's right. Free!

This week Click! and The Grand offer up Casper, the classic family flick about the friendly but lonely young ghost who can't seem to help scaring people.

Casper, the friendly ghost / The friendliest ghost you know / Though grown-ups might
Look at him with fright / The children all love him so ... and now for free!

PREFUNK: OK, it might not necessarily be the "coolest" move in the book, but in this age of understanding surely Click! and The Grand realize the families come in all shapes and sizes. Just because you live all by yourself in some empty beer can filled apartment in the Stadium District, sleep until 3 p.m. most days all by yourself, and haven't felt the touch of another human being for at least five months (since your last yearly physical), it doesn't mean you and your collection of action figures don't constitute a family.

I say round up all the still-packaged Luke Skywalker figurines, catch breakfast at the Hob Nob, then walk on down to The Grand with your "family" (read: action figure collection) and take advantage of Click!'s free family flick

Note: The event is limited to the first hundred in attendance, so please leave the Wookie collection at home. That would be stretching it. No need to be rude.

See you next week.

THE LOWDOWN ON WHAT'S UP THIS WEEKEND >>>

WEATHER REPORT

Friday: Mostly cloudy, hi 58, lo 38

Saturday: Mostly sunny, hi 57, lo 39

Sunday: Mostly sunny, hi 54, lo 41

>>> FRIDAY, OCT. 15-SUNDAY, OCT. 17: GIG HARBOR FILM FESTIVAL

This weekend the third annual Gig Harbor Film Festival will prove once again there's plenty of life across the Narrows by welcoming a variety of locally-made films, independents, documentaries, shorts and more to the Galaxy Theatres Uptown. Upping the ante, special guests scheduled to appear at the Gig Harbor Film Fest include Hal Linden, Karen Black and an unnamed special mystery guest that's not Hal Linden or Karen Black. Awesome!

• Galaxy Theatres Uptown, click here for times and prices, 4649 Point Fosdick Dr. NW, Gig Harbor, 253.851.3456
  

>>> SATURDAY, OCT. 16-SUNDAY, OCT. 17: REPTILE EXPO

Oh, you said herpetology? Whew. Hundreds of reptile enthusiasts gather for a series of seminars and demonstrations containing homages to cold-blooded creatures this weekend. Snakes, spiders, lizards and much more featured in more than 100 exhibits, and a variety of books and supplies, slither into the Puyallup Fairgrounds for this annual event. The main attractions, however, are the giant boa constrictors. After all, who doesn't love a good cuddle at night?

• Puyallup Fairgrounds Expo Hall, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, $7, Ninth and Meridian, Puyallup

>>> SATURDAY, OCT. 16: DONKEY CREEK CHUM FESTIVAL

For far too long, this country's notion of the fruits of the sea began and ended with fish sticks, or, far worse, Red Lobster.  But if you live in the Northwest and don't know your fellow salmon, shame on you.  You need a little schooling.  You need Donkey Creek Chum Festival.  The mature salmon are finding their way back to Donkey Creek so local environmental groups and fish enthusiasts will join together for a day of everything salmon, plus kayak races and art.  

• Donkey Creek Chum Festival, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., free, 8714 N. Harborview Dr., Gig Harbor

>>> SUNDAY, OCT. 17: LUTEFISK DINNER & BAZAAR

The Weekly Volcano will join all those who worship Thor, Odin and other Norse gods Sunday at the Sons of Norway's annual Lutefisk Dinner & Bazaar.  While loaded with crafts, games and music, we really attend the festival for the food.  We will dive in to some big slabs of yummy jellied pressed fish called Lutefisk while reading from the Rigsbula: The Lay of Rig from the Poetic Edda. Afterward, we'll take a nap and dream of large sledgehammers and cute pointy helmets and enormous women shaped like huge pomegranates belting out Wagner.

• Normanna Hall, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., $9-$18, 1106 S. 15th St., Tacoma, 253.752.8686
  

>>> WHERE OUR STAFF IS GOING

MATT DRISCOLL Editor and Longtime Weekend Hustle Procrastinator
Honestly, I'm not sold people care what the hell I'm doing this weekend. Also, I'm one hundred percent certain what I do on the weekend is far less glamorous or exciting than people probably assume. Does laundry excite you? Hell yeah! I have some of that shit on tap this weekend! Do trips to Target make you hot? Damn straight! I go to Target AT LEAST TWICE every weekend! Is it intriguing to you that, much like Seahawks fans, I have nearly every Sunday of the fall and winter ruined by an inept football team and its failings, only my team is called the Broncos? Well hot shit! It just happens to be true!

Also, if you really must know, there's talk in the Driscoll household of finally checking out the Gig Harbor Film Festival this year, and spending Saturday making fun of the Gaither Homecoming Tour stopped at the T-Dome. Happy now?

PAUL SCHRAG Senior Contributor
I am furiously editing the final draft of The Suppressed History of America, available in June from Inner Traditions/Bear&Co.; going dancing at an as-yet undecided Seattle spot; and interviewing people for a couple of potentially awesome Weekly Volcano cover stories. I will be listening to Nate Dogg and Lamb of God the entire time.

NIKKI TALOTTA Features Writer
This weekend I am in the holiday spirit. Decorating the house with cobwebs and candles, pumpkin carving, (or in my son's case, bumkin carving, 'cause he found one that totally looks like it has butt cheeks!) and my favorite - roasting pumpkin seeds. Yum! By the way, if anyone has any roasting recipes, I'd love to try something new. ...

JOE IZENMAN Music/Theater Critic
If you're looking for me or any of my co-workers on Friday evening after work, I suggest you try Dorky's Arcade. Possibly around the pinball or Ms. Pac-Man machines. Saturday night we might be found at the Creative Education Experiences auction in the Primo Grill event space. Sunday? Probably in a basement somewhere eating chips and playing Dungeons & Dragons with other assorted pillars of the community. It seems like something we'd do.

KRIS BLONDIN Food/Wine Writer
Heading to The Office (downtown Tacoma) for their official grand opening, and then to Seattle Saturday night for dinner at Peso's Kitchen. Sunday, nursing the hangover I'm sure.

JENNIFER JOHNSON: Lifestyle/Leisure Writer
Possibly attend a fashion designer's birthday soiree before Zombie Prom on Friday night - yay for fake blood! Saturday morning 16-mile bike ride (please no rain) followed by huge brunch at The Office Grand Opening party, then swing by Tacoma Harvest Fair at Sanford & Sons in the afternoon. Watch Reefer Madness at a Burien theater to end the night. Sunday, I will attempt to sleep in before going to church.

JOANN VARNELL Theater Critic
It's a Saturday night party hopper. First up - birthday dinner with a bacon wrapped sausage roll filled with bacon. Second - a vegan murder mystery dinner party circa 1950.

REV. ADAM MCKINNEY Features Writer
Friday, if I'm finally over this cold/flu/whatever, I'm going to head down to The New Frontier and try not to breathe on people so much. Tarek Wegner and Spencer Kelly (plus others?) will be DJ'ing, so that ought to be fun. Saturday, regardless of whether I'm healthy, I will be carving pumpkins with my friends before going to see Sugar Sugar Sugar at The New Frontier. Missed them the first time they came around, so I don't want to make that mistake again. You should pick up their album, Can't Get Enough. It's great.

CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL: Theater Critic
Having ventured Into the Woods at Capital Playhouse, I'm ready to spend one final weekend in The Midnight Sun, where I'm currently demonstrating the Meisner acting technique's indistinguishability from making shit up.

STEVE DUNKELBERGER Meat Market Correspondent
Well, I will be out and about for Joe's Diner at Tacoma Little Theatre and then Voxxy's birthday at Jazzbones on Friday. Saturday might bring dinner at a benefit auction to aid a young East Pierce County girl with Dravet Syndrome. The benefit at the Buckley Eagles lodge will have a special performance by Aces Up! I'll end the night at the soft opening show of the Tacoma Comedy Club.

ALEC CLAYTON: Visual Arts Critic
I'm going to a Pride open house shindig.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

YOUR DAILY GUIDE TO THE 2010 TACOMA FILM FESTIVAL >>>

The 5th edition of the Tacoma Film Festival wraps up today with a full schedule of films on the heels of seven days and 99 features and shorts screened throughout Tacoma.

Though official judges already named this year's TFF winners, the Audience Choice award will be announced tonight during the Closing Night Celebration beginning at 6:30 p.m. inside The Grand Cinema. Festival directors have chosen two Pacific Northwest-connected films for the final night: the short silent pixilation Here and Gone followed by Craig Johnson's poised and poignant first feature True Adolescents. Both filmmakers will be in attendance to answer questions.

LINK: TFF goes local

LINK: TFF on twitter

LINK: TFF website

LINK: We wrote a TFF cover story

YOUR DAILY GUIDE TO THE 2010 TACOMA FILM FESTIVAL >>>

Strangely, the allure of free movies enticed but a mere dozen or so devotees to the University of Washington campus Tuesday evening. I suppose the Tacoma Film Festival can't match dinner's siren call for a weary student.

What influences magnetically pull us in one direction instead of another? four short films asked. The answers vary - for the men in Robert Sickels' entertaining doc Walla Walla Wiffle, life centers around a one-day wiffleball tournament each year in Eastern Washington. Wives roll their eyes as business owners, bank VPs and others become boys again with help from a featherweight yellow bat. Yet recreation ventures into obsession for some; one hardcore player, also a family man, makes the curious comment, "I look forward to this [tournament] more than anything else in life."

Read more...

YOUR DAILY GUIDE TO THE 2010 TACOMA FILM FESTIVAL >>>

Sunday morning film culture expert Warren Etheredge hosted and handed out the Tacoma Film Festival best film awards, as determined by these judges. Here are the winners:

Best Feature Film - EARTHWORK

Best Documentary Film - BACK TO THE GARDEN

Best Short Film - ANA'S PLAYGROUND

Best Animated Film - A COMPLEX VILLAINELLE

Best Regional Film -SHUFFLE

The Audience Choice Award will be announced at the Closing Night festivities Thursday, Oct. 14 at The Grand Cinema.

Click here to see a schedule of today's Tacoma Film Festival films.

LINK: TFF goes local

LINK: TFF on twitter

LINK: TFF website

LINK: We wrote a TFF cover story

VIDEO HOT SPOT >>>

Christopher Wood, a film critic for the Weekly Volcano, reviewed last night's Grit City Flicks mini festival, which screened to a packed room at the Washington State History Museum as part of the Tacoma Film Festival.

Click here to see a schedule of today's Tacoma Film Festival films.

LINK: TFF goes local

LINK: TFF on twitter

LINK: TFF website

LINK: We wrote a TFF cover story

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Tacoma Diaries almost proudly announces the premiere episode of season 7, The Teacoma Party. In this episode, Mike and Steve lose their rational thought process and join the local chapter of the Tea Party. Wackiness ensures.

George Michael is out of jail and ready to go-go.

Google cars drive themselves.

YOUR DAILY GUIDE TO THE 2010 TACOMA FILM FESTIVAL >>>

Rejection hurts. We encounter it in every stage of our lives - as the school dance wallflower, a student ignored by the universities, an employee not considered for a raise. If you take filmmaking seriously, chances are you've dealt with festivals uninterested in work that claimed months or even years of your energy.

A humor-filled workshop with Warren Etheredge can put your film in perspective, and replace those nagging feelings of self-doubt with confidence. On Saturday morning I attended his class at The Grand Cinema, put on in conjunction with the Tacoma Film Festival. The man knows his medium - he's fought in the moviemaking trenches personally, and as current curator of Bumbershoot's 1 Reel Film Festival, plenty of shorts, both excellent and questionable, fall under his scrutiny.

Held annually in Portland, his discussion is titled "What's Wrong with This Picture?" Etheredge takes an opposite stance from most lecturers, arguing that audiences can learn more from flawed films than flawless ones. Moreover, cinema is not this hopelessly subjective art; most of us know good (or bad) work when we see it.

With this commonsense approach, the personable moderator and his audience examined three shorts not accepted into this year's Festival. The filmmakers stood courageously by as our group freely voiced complaints with issues like story pacing, audio, and performance.

Etheredge offers to aspiring artists these nuggets:

• Given its nature, a short must set up its situation quickly. "A story should be as long as a piece of string," he quoted a former teacher as saying. Every aspect of the production, even running time, serves the plot.
• Beginners should let someone else edit their footage.
• Don't fill your cast and crew with friends; only hire those who can do their job better than you.
• Pay SO much attention to sound. Etheredge says, "Audio can level your film faster than anything else." Your audience will never lose themselves in movies with poor soundtracks.

Just this week I submitted my own piece to a Seattle fest, wishing I had known a few of these guidelines. But we grow with every new project. None of us can escape all rejection and criticism, but by caring enough about the craft, you can deal.       

Click here to see a schedule of today's Tacoma Film Festival films.

LINK: TFF goes local

LINK: TFF on twitter

LINK: TFF website

LINK: We wrote a TFF cover story