Who says you have to wait for the weekend to go out?

 Tonight make your way down to the Rendezvous Jewel Box Theater for Strikethrough by the fine folks from the Seattle School , this month featuring C. Davida Ingram performing “What a Body Can Do”.  Doors at 8 pm.

Tuesday is opening night of My Fair Lady at the Paramount.   If you’ve somehow gone your whole life without seeing this play (or the excellent Audrey Hepburn-starring, Marnie Nixon-singing film version), this clever musical adaptation of a George Bernard Shaw play updating the Pygmalion legend by having an arrogant professor of linguistics, Henry Higgins, boast to his pal Colonel Pickering that he can train any woman to speak so well that she can easily pass as nobility.  Challenge arrives in the form of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle and her ne’er do well father.  This revival of the play celebrates its 50th anniversary and is well worth seeing to hear the many classic songs the musical has contributed to the showtune lexicon alone.

Tuesday night from 7 – 8:30 pm at the Central branch of the Seattle Public Library, novelist Alice Hoffman reads from her new work The Third Angel.  On Wednesday night at the North East branch, Theodore Duncan, representing the Seattle Opera Guild, presents a preview of I Puritani by Vincenzo Bellini.

This morning, Crosscut posted an excerpt from a speech former Seattle mayor Charles Royer gave to a group of visitors several years ago. In it he discusses some of the challenges Seattle faces getting stuff done. Namely, the process to form a task force to research the viability of creating a committee has stalled and this is cause for concern among the various citizen oversight panels. Says Royer:

Cheers, John.

One thing about most film festivals, whether they’re large or small or whether they focus on revivals or entirely new programming is that inevitably some of the films are excellent and some of them are, well, less so.

Sometimes, though, you get lucky and a film festival will contain nothing but excellence.  Such is the case for SIFF Cinema’s United Artists Series.

Way back in 1919, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffiths banded together to form United Artists, a film studio designed to present the movie-going audience with films in which artistic merit would be at least as important as any of the other factors that went into making a movie.  Then, even as now, movie studio heads were generally more concerned with making a buck than making art; the founding of UA was meant to counter that attitude by presenting the idea that profit could be made by making films that really mattered.

Over the years, UA managed to make an awful lot of movies that mattered.  From April 30th’s screening of The Thomas Crown Affair through March 21’s screening of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, SIFF is presenting a fine selection of those films.   As it happens, over the years I have seen every single of the films in this series.  I have my favorites, of course, but there’s not a bowser in the bunch.  There’s timeless comedy:  the sometimes goofy, sometimes provocative humor of Some Like It Hot remains as relevant today as it ever was.  There’s stinging social commentary in the form of Midnight Cowboy and In the Heat of the Night.  There’s action, adventure, suspense, horror, romance–just about anything you’d want from a film is represented in this series.

You don’t have to take my word for it, though–SIFF and Metroblogging Seattle are giving you a chance to win tickets to see some of the great films in this series.  We’re giving away a pair of tickets to three different films: 

• Marty, on May 6, stars Ernest Borgnine in a stunning, Oscar-winning performance as a socially awkward man who finds the courage to break out of his rut and pursue a real, meaningful love
• Some Like It Hot, on May 11, is deservedly one of the best-known film comedies of all time, starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, and Marilyn Monroe
• Last Tango in Paris is an intense drama about a widower (Marlon Brando) who has a passionate affair with young woman (Maria Schneider) who is about to be married.

To see a great film, go see any of the movies in this series; to win free tickets, please send your first and last name and the name of the film you’d like to see to seattle.metblogs@gmail.com by the end of the day on April 30.

Tomorrow marks the start of the Elliot Bay Water Taxi season which runs through the end of October (however there are rumors that the taxi will soon provide year-round service). There will be a kick off party at Seacrest Dock in West Seattle at noon with food, live music and activities. King County Councilman Dow Constantine will be on hand to host the event, hopefully wearing his bright yellow Converse that he wore last year. Seriously, his shoes are awesome. Also, rides during the day will be free, instead of the $3.00 it normally costs for a one way trip. If you’re driving, I suggest parking up near the West Seattle Farmer’s Market at the Junction, browse around the market, then take the free shuttle down to the dock. That way you can enjoy two fun activities going on in West Seattle this Sunday.

Photo courtesy of Shawn from last year’s event.

Hello, Seattle. I’m spending the weekend in California running around a polo field to watch a bunch of bands. If you’re interested, occasional dispatches can be found at la.metblogs.com. Wish you were here!

photo by smenzel via our group pool.

I spotted this shot by flickr user smenzel in our group pool this morning. My wife and I have been using Amazon Fresh for about a month since they started service to our zip code. Anyone else use the service? What do you think about it?

Washington Weekend technically kicked off on Thursday, with a faculty/staff BBQ in Red Square, but the University of Washington has a ton of events packed into the next couple of days. Granted, I’m a bit of a nerd (and a recent Midwestern transplant to boot), so things like touring the giant research vessel at the College of Oceanography and Fishery Sciences’ Open House truly appeal to the part of me that always wanted to be a marine biologist but was thwarted by the supreme lack of ocean in central Illinois… I digress.

Additionally, today saw the official dedication of the UW Tower (formerly known as the Safeco Tower, and likely to remain known as that for as long as the Safeco name remains inscribed in the building). Tomorrow’s festivities include open houses galore, a simulated cybersecurity competition at Microsoft, and the Plateau Native Arts Celebration at the Burke Museum, including beadwork and saddle-making demonstrations.

The exhibitions and demonstrations should be enough to keep the whole family occupied for the better part of a day, and is only a few short neighborhoods away from a relaxing evening at the Ballard Jazz Festival. Enjoy your Saturday!

^{Paula Reynolds, president and CEO of Safeco, former owner of the tower, passes a symbolic key to
University of Washington President Mark Emmert.}

I was tipped off to this post by a friend of mine. The Ballard Food Bank could use your help!

Here are the details of the full post:
(more…)

• Despite my complete agreement with Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper that Michael J. Fox is, indeed, “the anti-Elvis”, I’ve always had a soft spot for the actor.  There’s just something about him that I find appealing.  Thus, I suppose it’s kind of weird that I’m just about the only person I know who doesn’t like Back to the Future, but the truth is that I really just don’t like that film.  If you’re one of those people that does–there are tons of you out there–swing by the Egyptian this weekend at midnight and see it up on the big screen.
• Two great documentaries open this Friday at local theaters:  Planet B-Boy is an appealing look at how B-boying, also known as breakdancing, grew from subculture in the streets of NYC to an international art form.  Catch it at the Varsity and then stick around the same theater to check out The First Saturday in May, a look at six trainers scrabbling for a shot at the 2006 Kentucky Derby.
• The Grand Illusion, in association with Scarecrow and Three Dollar Bill Cinema, continues its tribute to the 100th birthday of Bette Davis with showings of The Nanny, Davis’s excellent turn as the very creepy title character and the glorious, notorious Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
• SIFF continues the Seattle Polish Film Festival with an animated short film program followed by Immensity of Justice, a story of a shocking crime and an analysis of criminal justice.
• It’s sex comedy, Italian-style, at NWFF with 1961’s Divorce – Italian Style, the first foreign language film to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the complex humor of 1963’s Seduced and Abandoned. 

Mark your calendars now:  Three Dollar Bill Cinema are having their first annual AuctionFest at the Bell Harbor Conference center on May 3rd featuring a silent auction, a sit-down dinner, hosted wine and a live auction themed  Some Like It Hot after one of cinema’s wittiest, most entertaining films ever.   Also upcoming is the third annual Translations: Seattle Transgender Film Festival, May 8 – 11.