The Stranger

Putting a long-overdue honky-tonk spin on the classic Pygmalion, 1984's Rhinestone stars Dolly Parton as a boobalicious Henrietta Higgins and Sylvester Stallone as the guy she has to turn into a bona fide country singer—and if she fails, she's got to have sex with Ron Leibman! This movie is terrible, and tonight we'll be watching it all the way through, hosted and casually annotated by me. (Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave, www.brownpapertickets.com. 7 pm, $7.) by David Schmader

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21 Landings is a looped video of some sort of flying animal—Is it a monster? Is it entirely biological?—trying to land on the surface of an alien environment. The stop-motion animation is from the creature's perspective, so all we can see is something leglike, and all we can hear is a whooshing noise. This is a singular opportunity to wander into a movie theater—it plays all day, for free—and sit in the dark with a few other people and contemplate something not of this world. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863. 10 am–5 pm, free.) by Paul Constant

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The first line of Kurt Schwitters's 35-minute-long performance poem, which is almost never performed, is "Fümms bö wö tää zää Uu." Now that's Dada: self-murdering nonsense. (Schwitters was his own outpost in Dada, staying marooned in Hanover, making his house into a curated heap of trash.) Actress and vocalist Kristen Loree will perform the complete text against a backdrop of Jack Ox's paintings. The paintings, based on Ox's translation of the poem, run continuously for 800 feet. Boomboom, boomboom, boomboom! (As Tzara would say.) (Chapel Performance Space, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N, 789-1939. 7:30 pm, $5–$15 donation.) by Jen Graves

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A weeknight in January: sounds kind of bleak. But on this second Thursday of 2009, two of Seattle's most accomplished electronic-music producers threaten to turn Nectar into a hot, throbbing simulacrum of a bustling club in Berlin. The Sight Below chills with gaseous, pulsating tracks that wed sublime shoegazer rock to subzero techno. Caro (aka Randy Jones) offers a warmer, funkier brand of tech-house, proving that Caucasian instrument/software-inventor types got soul, too. (Nectar, 416 N 36th St, 632-2020. 8 pm, $8, 21+.) by Dave Segal

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Two reasons to watch this movie about a washed-up professional wrestler: its first 30 minutes and Mickey Rourke. Why the first 30 minutes? Because they are not chained to the machine of the Hollywood plot, but loosely explore the day-to-day world of a man who wrestles for a few bucks and who drinks—not to forget his glorious past but to enjoy the present. Why Mickey Rourke? Because no other actor could better understand the soul of a person who had a spectacular rise the '80s and a spectacular fall in the '90s. The wrestler and the actor are one and the same. (See movie times, thestranger.com, for details.) by Charles Mudede

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Sunday is a tough night to crack for a dance party, but the new monthly 2nd Sunday has the best shot of any since Flammable. Tonight's debut features NYC electro freak-funk duo Free Blood, who opened for Hot Chip here in April and feature John Pugh, aka that lanky, stomping, falsetto singer formerly of !!!. Future nights will feature equally ambitious out-of-town talent—promoters/resident DJs Ben Cook (proprietor of Rong Music) and H.M.A. (full disclosure: Dan Savage's babydaddy) have booked Tim Sweeney for next month and hinted at DFA-affiliated heavies for the spring. (Chop Suey, 1325 E Madison St, 324-8000. 9 pm, $8, 21+.) by Eric Grandy

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