• “Mocumentaries” have a tendency to be either really, really funny or really, really not, but there are exceptions. Drop Dead Gorgeous, a beauty pageant satire filmed in faux-documentary style is one of those exceptions. Certain parts of it are brilliant, with a keen, biting wite and parts of it aren’t nearly as clever as the filmmakers apparently meant them to be. Overall, though, it’s the sort of movie totally worth watching with friends, pizza, and beer which makes its weekend run at Central Cinema just perfect.
• The Grand Illusion is all about food this weekend: the Organic Shorts Festival, a series of short films about the state of agriculture in America and Ruby’s Town, about an annual turkey race held between two towns who depend on turkey farming for their livelihood both start Friday and run through the weekend Go back Monday through Thursday for films in the Rural Route festival and see short films about rural experiences all over the world and the invisible inhabitants of Iceland.
  Late night brings the reprise of Pets, a 70s sexploitation feature.
• I’ve been meaning to go to the Port Townsend film festival every year since it started but somehow I never get around to it. SIFF’s got its audience award winner this weekend: Eden, a film by MIchael Hoffman in which chef Gregor pursues his passion for food and the titular waitress.
• Jack Black isn’t always funny, but when he is, he’s really, really funny. He stars in Be Kind, Rewind along with Mos Def, a film with definite comedic potential: after Black accidentally erases all the videotapes in the store where Def works, he sets out to replace them by recreating and refilming every movie the store’s few loyal tape renters request. Be Kind, Rewind opens this weekend; if you see it at the Metro this weekend you have a chance to win prizes in their trivia contests.
• Another film festival winner–from Berlin this time–is Alice’s House which opens at the Varsity; Alice is a manicurist in Sao Paolo struggling to escape the domination of her difficult family life.
• Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog is a Nebula award winning novella by Harlan Ellison about a young man wandering the wastes of post World War IV America in the company of his trusty telepathic dog. It’s a provocative tale that constantly challenges the reader’s expecations. It’s also the source material for one of the weirdest films I”ve ever seen. This 1975 cult classic stars a young Don Johnson and Jason Robards and is this weekend’s midnight movie at the Egyptian.

Related posts:

1. Weekend Film Agenda
2. Weekend Film Agenda: the non-SIFF edition
3. Weekend Film Agenda plus
4. Weekend Film Agenda
5. Weekend Film Agenda