The Stranger

At first, you think it's all in the trees. Green and pink and orange and blue and brown leafless trees with dendrite fingers reaching in from the corners of each of 12 paintings, into the blank landscape, seen from above. Then you start to notice floating heads, cute, decapitated. Then the way the horizon line connects through all 12 paintings, around the three walls of the gallery. How this is one panoramic view of an irresistible imaginary place. Making this for you is what Claire Cowie has been up to. (James Harris Gallery, 312 Second Ave S, 903-6220. 11 am– 5 pm, free.) by Jen Graves

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In 1963, Judy Garland was the star of her own TV variety series and a desperately unhappy drunk. In this hour-long holiday fantasia, Open Circle Theater imagines the dress rehearsal for Garland's legendarily messy 1963 Christmas special. With improv genius Troy Mink in the title role, expect a night of inspired, lightly upsetting comic mayhem. (Open Circle Theater, 2222 Second Ave, www.octheater.com. 8 pm, $15.) by David Schmader

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The Godfather has topped best-of-American-film lists for so long that contrarians keep trying to pick it off, just for the thrill of the hunt. Fuck that shit. No movie comes close to touching The Godfather. There are a thousand examples of its perfection, and here's one: Nobody has ever made a cinematic death scene as towering, and as lonely and small, as the heart attack in the tomato garden. Added three-and-a-half-hour bonus: The Godfather Part II, cinema's greatest sequel, offering such a rich, dark, sprawling trip you'll be tempted to think it's better than the first, and you'll be wrong. Both films screen in lush new restorations. (SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St, 633-7151. Part one: 12:15 and 8 pm. Part two: 3:45 pm. $10. Through Jan 1.) by Paul Constant

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Today is the first full day—and second night, for those counting menorah candles—of Hanukkah, the annual festival of lights in which Jews celebrate a certain before-Christ miracle involving victory in battle and some very slow-burning oil. Also: food! As Angela Garbes noted in these pages in May, there aren't many places in this area to eat Jewish food, but two worth checking out are Goldbergs' Famous Delicatessen in Bellevue and Eats Market Cafe in Westwood Village. Also, a $3 box of Manischewitz matzo-ball-soup mix is its own special miracle. (Goldbergs' Famous Delicatessen, 3924 Factoria Square Mall SE, 425-641-6622; Eats Market Cafe, 2600 SW Barton St, 933-1200.) by Eli Sanders

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Surf into Xmas on a wave of gooey '80s cheese with the Beta Society, the Seattle-based film collective behind this variety-style show of "very special holiday TV moments from the decade that brought us Full House, Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains." Among the delights: video offerings from Dennis "Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell" Haskins, John "Evening Magazine" Curley, and the titular Thicke himself. (Re-bar, 1114 Howell St, www.click4tix.com. 10 pm, $14, 21+.) by David Schmader

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"No songs about dreidels. No Israeli folk dancing." So proclaims Good for the Jews, the musical comedy collaboration of David Fagin and Rob Tannenbaum, back for one exceedingly well-selected night only at the Triple Door. The shtick is Jew-based musical humor and—most promisingly—the potential for audience offense is real enough that the show comes with a warning. Go for the lack of other options, stay for the Passover song "They Tried to Kill Us, We Survived, Let's Eat." (Triple Door, 216 Union St, www.thetripledoor.com. 7 pm, $20, all ages.) by David Schmader

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This is among the holiest of holidays in the Western tradition. What better day to get thee to a movie theater and worship at the altar of Meryl Streep? She is something on the order of a god, and fittingly in this one she plays a nun—a lying, vengeful, witchy nun. Doubt has everything you want it to have: a satisfying visual texture, a cold energy, a prurient central mystery, I-fucking-hate-you dialogue, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and very few characters (i.e., lots of Streep). (See movie times, www.thestranger.com, for details.) by Christopher Frizzelle

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