Abstract sketch comedy; some of the worst Sci Fi dreck from the 80s; and it's Ms. Jackson if you're nasty, all on offer Monday night in Seattle. more ›

We couldn't be more excited by the news that Queen Anne's Uptown Theater's operations will be taken over by SIFF. We had feared the building would be torn down and turned into condos like every other abandoned movie house in town. more ›

You may have heard that a recently-approved element of the Mayor's Nightlife Initiative is brand-new cab stands at popular nightlife destinations. We at Seattlest, as fans of not driving home drunk, fully support this measure. But in the meantime, catching a cab successfully in Seattle is not impossible. Cabbing veterans Alex Hudson and Sarah Anne Lloyd bring you a few handy tips until those cab stands become a reality. more ›

Scary news, sad news and news that makes us skeptical. Here's what's cooking around Seattle on your Thursday afternoon. more ›

Alex reviews "A Midsummer Night's Dream," decides that it is, in fact, dreamy. more ›

This week I felt like doing something fancy. It was Boyfriend’s birthday, and I wanted to get dressed up, do something with my hair, drink something besides boxed wine and watch something beautiful for a few hours. And though by no means a stranger to performance and artistic experiences, I had never been to the opera. So we trudged through Wednesday’s bizarro weather, gulped down a couple Manhattans and made our way to the Seattle Opera’s performance of Massenet’s “Don Quichotte” at McCaw Hall. more ›

Editor's note: Since Morgen was busy shooting, she turns the narrative over to Seattlest lit writer and avowed Dave fan Kim Banti. more ›

Pacific Northwest Ballet's ALL THARP performance may be your one shot to see a ballerina footing it across the stage of McCaw Hall in daisy dukes. We suggest you check it out. Not only because of the aforementioned denim booty shorts, although that's a boon, but because Twyla Tharp's showcase highlights one of the most famous examples of crossover ballet, the intermixing of classical and modern, and for us, a nice bridge between the streets and the marquee. A chance to see how hip-hop, folk, contemporary and traditional movement all combine into a night of physical ephemeralness, it's an absolutely wonderful way to spend an evening. more ›

Totally exciting news: Conan O'Brien is going on tour. He's bringing his Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour Seattle to Seattle. The tour's includes music, comedy, hugging, and the occasional awkward silence -- all the elements that made Late Night with Conan O'Brien a consistent joy. He'll be at the Marion Oliver McCaw Hall in Seattle Center on April 18. It was a real bummer to see the comic genius of Conan get bumped off the air by Jay Leno's meaty, unfunny fist. But if it means we'll get to see him perform live, well, we guess we can live with it. more ›

We had to choose just one night of PNB's Swan Lake, and so we went with retiring Louise Nadeau's Odette/Odile--as did as many other people as it takes to fill McCaw Hall. Nadeau and Karel Cruz were everything we wanted: love at first sight's boundary-blurring union of echoing gestures, and then, in a little black dress, Odile's "You want this?" rampage. We ran into a friend, though, who was back for a fourth time, and told us how Jonathan Porretta kept his Jester's schtick evolving from night to night. Check the casting combinations for the six shows left, tonight through Sunday. more ›

We're mentioning this mainly so you don't try driving hurriedly around McCaw Hall this morningas many: the city says "as 7,600 people are expected" to show up for the Starbucks 2009 Annual Shareholders Meeting, which starts in half an hour, at 10 a.m. It lets out at noon, so you might want to give Seattle Center a miss over lunchtime, too. more ›

ZIPCAR OPEN HOUSE: Drop in at the grand opening of an actual downtown office for Zipcar--in the old Dept. of Licensing location at 3rd and Union. The open house runs until 5 p.m., and if you stop in and join Zipcar today, there's no annual fee for your first year. We're told there's also a prize wheel where you can win driving credits and other goodies, plus free snacks. We use the Zipcar ourselves, and we're happy to hear that the City of Seattle is joining them in a car-sharing arrangement for city employees. more ›

Every time we've seen Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player in the video store, we've glanced at it and put it back, unable to imagine how the Truffaut we know from Au Revoir Les Enfants would draw good work from a pulp crime novel. more ›

It's the most extravagant of all operas. In fact, the spectacle of Aida (that triumphal march! those elephants!) often outshines the music and singing. Not this time. Seattle Opera's current production of Verdi's masterpiece is a finely integrated staging and immensely satisfying night of theater. more ›

Before last night's screening of SIFF's opening film Battle in Seattle, amidst all the self-congratulatory speeches, Mayor Nickels remarked that the 1999 WTO riots are "strongly rooted in the fabric of our city" and that every Seattleite would be well-served to have their feelings of the events "validated by an outside perspective." We'd be apt to agree---if only the outside perspective that followed wasn't such ham-handed dreck. more ›

If we learned anything at Pacific Northwest Ballet's Laugh Out Loud Spring Festival last night, it was that pointing your fingers while dancing en pointe is hee-larious. Ba-dum-ching. We'll be here all week. The fest, another genre-busting divergence from the norm by director Peter Boal, aims to celebrate all that is wacky and funny about ballet. They mean funny "ha-ha" but there's some funny "strange" thrown in as well. more ›

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None of this stuff about "timeless" settings for Tosca: the story takes place in Rome over a specific, eventful weekend in June, 1800, as Napoleon's troops are invading Piedmont on Italy's northern border. more ›

Tonight's show deserves special attention because Reign of Terror is, to our knowledge, the only noir film set during the French revolution. NoirFan62 says:

The great Anthony Mann takes a film that would probably play mostly as a colorful, sweeping, epic piece dealing with the French revolution and turns it, with the help of cinematographer John Alton, into a dark, shadowy and claustrophobic film noir/adventure/spy/suspense tale period piece featuring excellent performances from a cast that includes Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart and Arlene Dahl.

, a seven-day festival of classic film noir, starts at SIFF. The shows are being introduced by "Czar of Noir" Eddie Muller. more ›

Today SIFF hosts the Seattle opening of the documentary The Rape of Europa, about the efforts to save art stolen and/or desecrated by the Nazis in the runup to and during WWII. The Stranger loves it. The Seattle Times loves it. By all accounts, Seattlest shouldn't be as excited by this movie as we are, but we find something poetic about the preservation of culture in the face of war. For now we'll leave you with the trailer, which should convince you that learning about this little-known part of our collective history is worth both your time and money. more ›

We can guarantee that when you think of French New Wave cinema, a sultry feeling of cool washes over you. Suddenly, even if you can't name one French New Wave film, you're driven to wander forlornly down moodily lit city streets wondering where your lover has gone while an ultra-cool soundtrack plays in the background and your lover is trapped, desperately trying to reach you. more ›

Ah, those crazy Frenchies, at it again. This time, they're going to pull off a robbery. The gang that couldn't shoot straight, but with accents, The Band of Outsiders. The cute gal is Anna Karina, her boyfriends are Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey, and the director is the embodiment of French cinema's nouvelle vague, Jean-Luc Godard. more ›

Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Jules Dassin, Federico Fellini -- thanks to distributor Rialto Pictures, their restored films are popping up in theaters around the country, and, happily, here in Seattle. more ›

When we're not blogging about food, wine and opera, Seattlest works as the sommelier at Sorrentino atop Queen Anne. (Keeps us out of the bars, don't you know.) more ›

magazine claims, "You can't swing a dead cat this time of year without hitting a Top 10 List." Never one to waste a perfectly good dead cat, we decided to take a swing and create a Top Random-Number Shows Seattlest Saw This Year. And now, without any further ado, here's how your favorite bloggers broke down the year: more ›

This morning we were glancing through the Going Out section of the Seattle P-I when we ran across these two questionable entries:

"War and Peace": 1 p.m. Sergei Bondarchuk's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel (part one screens today) is widely considered to be one of Russia's greatest achievements. Right up there with Ivan Drago and those wooden dolls that open up to reveal a bunch of smaller wooden dolls. SIFF Cinema, Nesholm Family Lecture Hall, McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St.; 206-464-5830; seattlefilm.org. $7-$10. Also at 7 p.m.

"As You Like It": 7:30 p.m. This Shakespeare comedy of mistaken identities, clowns and women dressed as men dressed as women gives further credence to the theory that the Wayans brothers are descendents of the Bard. Bainbridge Performing Arts, 200 Madison Ave. N., Bainbridge Island; 206-842-8569. $15-$20.