SIFF Cinema begins a two week-long celebration of the films of Kurosawa Friday night with Stray Dog. Kurosawa’s foray into noir begins with a young policeman whose gun is stolen on a trolley. Feeling responsible for the crimes committed with it, the rookie cop seeks out the villian with his senior partner in tow. One of the celebrated director’s early works and seldom screened in the US. See details of the whole series on SIFF’s series page.

When you picture mountain biking in your head are the people involved largely male? It’s hardly a surprise if they are; though there are many women active in dirt bike riding, they’re rarely represented to the same degree as their brothers. This changes with Awesome Land: Women of Dirt at Northwest Film Forum. Featuring Tammy Donahugh, Stephanie Nychka, Cierra Smith, Emily Johnston, Lisa Myklak, Jill Kintner, Leana Gerrard, Dawn Cashen, Katrina Strand, Kathy Pruitt, and Darcy Turenne, Awesome Land takes a look at bicycle downhill racing, dirt jumping and free riding and shows how these women have contributed to the development of gravity mountain biking.

Paul Newman was already an executive producer of Sometimes a Great Notion, the 1970 film based on the 1964 Ken Kesey novel of the same name, as well as the leading man when original director Richard A. Colla left the project due to good, old-fashioned artistic differences. Newman offered the job to George Roy Hill but Hill took a pass so Newman ended up as producer, star AND director. Newman stars as Hank Stamper, an independent logger in the fictional Oregon town of Wakonda. When he refuses to take part in the local logging union’s strike, he and his family go to war with the whole town. Complicating matters are his issues with his dad (Henry Fonda), his wife (Lee Remick) and his brother (Michael Sarrazin).

Fans of twisted, tacky, and outright tasteless humor will want to head to Central Cinema for this year’s version of Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Animation Festival, running Friday through Thursday at 7:00 (all ages) and 9:30 (21+).

Actor Bruce Campbell and director Sam Raimi both made their debut with the relentlessly frightening and gory Evil Dead, this weekend’s midnight movie at the Egyptian.