Here's what's going on this week:
Thursday, December 5

• Tonight at 5 p.m. at the Tap and Mallet is a Beer and Chocolate Food Pairing with Hedonist Chocolates. [source: Tap and Mallet website, 2013-Dec-2]
• From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. is the Park Ave. Holiday Open House along Park Avenue from Alexander to Culver. [source: City of Rochester website, 2013-Dec-4]
• At 6 p.m., Nate Larson, and Marni Shindelman will present a Wish You Were Here lecture in the Dryden Theatre.
  

  Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman use publicly available embedded GPS information in Twitter updates to track the locations of user posts and make photographs to mark the location in the real world. Their act of making a photograph anchors and memorializes the ephemeral online data in the real world and probes the expectations of privacy surrounding social networks.

  [source: Eastman House calendar, 2013-Dec-2]

• At the Flying Squirrel at 6 p.m. is An Evening with Mike Kuzma on the Leonard Peltier Case and Freedom of Information with a screening of Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier (Suzie Baer, U.S. 1992, 85 min.) [source: Flying Squirrel website, 2013-Dec-2]
• Tonight from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. is the Opening Reception for RoCo's 23rd Annual Members Exhibition. [source: Rochester Contemporary Art Center website, 2013-Dec-2]
• Tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m. is Art of Murder at the MuCCC.
  

  In a remote estate in the countryside of Connecticut, Jack Brooks, one of most accomplished and eccentric painters of his generation, awaits the imminent arrival of his art dealer. But the visit is not a standard one, for Jack feels wronged, and he is intending to kill the man. As Jack lays out of his intentions for the evening, his wife, Annie, calmly paints. She is reluctant to go along with the plan, until Jack's threat of violence convinces her otherwise. Harried and annoyed, Vincent, Jack's flamboyant art dealer arrives. Will Jack carry out his it plan? Will Annie help him? Or is something else going on?

  [source: MuCCC website, 2013-Dec-2]

• Starting at 8 p.m. at Abilene is a screening of Blue Obsessions (a.k.a. Anna Obsessed, Martin & Martin, U.S. 1977, 75 min.) followed by a Q&A with writer Piastro Cruiso.
  

  Anna's marriage has lost its passion. After a traumatic rape, she is befriended by the beautiful Maggie, and succumbs to her charms. The film's production values capture the look and feel of misty film noir, especially with a serial rapist hovering in the background. Dark and foreboding, the film's best moments detail the simmering passion between Haven and Money that pays off when the lovers introduce Leslie into their now illicit relationship. It all unfolds like a smoky wet dream. The dreamy ambiance keeps you glued, and the finale is impossible to predict.

  [source: Abilene website, 2013-Dec-2]

• The Dryden will screen The Ring (Alfred Hitchcock, U.K. 1927, 108 min., DCP) tonight at 8 p.m. with live piano accompaniment by Philip C. Carli. (Really, Dryden? Digital projection? You've got some explaining to do with this one …) Boxer Bob Corby hires Jack Sander as his new sparring partner. But tensions rise when Jack's wife, Mabel becomes smitten with the heavyweight champ. Hitchcock's first and only original screenplay, The Ring shows an audacious young director's experimenting with montage, an arresting array of camera angles, and character's states of mind. Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has called it "the most visually sophisticated of Hitchcock's silent pictures." [source: Dryden website, 2013-Dec-2]
• Starting around 8:30 p.m. at the Bug Jar is The Saturday Giant, Cammy Enaharo, and Eyeway. [source: Bug Jar calendar, 2013-Dec-2]
• The Younger Gang plays at Sticky Lips BBQ Juke Joint starting around 9 p.m. [source: Facebook, 2013-Nov-27]
• Meanwhile at Dinosaur, it's wicked fun, saxophone-driven, percussive groove-rock band The BuddhaHood starting around 10 p.m. [source: Dinosaur Bar-B-Que website, 2013-Dec-2]

Friday, December 6

• Today from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Barnes and Noble is hosting a Book Fair to Support City Library Branches — unironically. [source: City Newspaper events calendar, 2013-Dec-4]
• Updated: Tonight from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church (220 S. Winton Rd.) is Alternative Fair.
  

  Metro Justice's values are integral to our annual Alternative Fair. You can enjoy Family Holiday Shopping with a conscience at Metro Justice's 32th annual Alternative Fair, featuring thousands of unique fair trade, earth friendly, and locally produced goods that support a strong local economy and a just and sustainable world.

  [source: Facebook, 2013-Dec-5]

• Tonight from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. is the Opening Reception for Recursive Relations, new work by Colleen Buzzard in Anderson Arts Building Studio 401. [source: artist e-mail, 2013-Dec-4]
• Tonight from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. is a First Friday Open Studio at Mark Widman's Studio, upstairs at Rochester Contemporary, featuring works by Marta Filipek. [source: Facebook, 2013-Nov-24]
• From 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Flying Squirrel is a screening of The Corporation (Mark Achbar / Jennifer Abbott, Canada 2003, 145 min.) as part of Expanding Democracy / Shrinking Corporatism: A Film Series and Fundraiser.
  

  Provoking, witty, stylish and sweepingly informative, The Corporation explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Part film and part movement, The Corporation is transforming audiences and dazzling critics with its insightful and compelling analysis. Taking its status as a legal "person" to the logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask "What kind of person is it?" The Corporation includes interviews with 40 corporate insiders and critics — including Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Michael Moore — plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.

  [source: Flying Squirrel website, 2013-Dec-2]

• Today from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Gandhi Institute is a Holidays Talking Circle.
  

  Are the holidays difficult for you? Are you overwhelemed? lonely? ambivalent? For the second year, we're hosting a space that welcomes holiday blues, grumpiness, and everything else we are taught not to mention this season.However you are feeling this season, join us for conversation, connection, and culinary nibbles.

  [source: Gandhi Institute flyer, 2013-Nov-22]

• Tonight starting at 7 p.m. at Writers and Books is First Fridays Wide Open Mic hosted by Norm Davis. [source: Writers and Books website, 2013-Dec-2]
• The Younger Gang plays at Bernunzio Uptown Music this evening from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. [source: Bernunzio Uptown Music website, 2013-Dec-2]
• This week's 7 p.m. movie (and weekend 4:30 p.m. matinee) at the Cinema is Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener, U.S. 2013, 93 min.)
  

  A divorced woman who decides to pursue the man she's interested in learns he's her new friend's ex-husband.

  [source: Cinema coming soon page, 2013-Dec-4]

• Tonight at 8 p.m. and on Sunday at 2 p.m., the Dryden will screen Bad Santa (Terry Zwigoff, U.S. 2003, 91 min., 35mm).
  

  Alcoholic, misanthropic con man Willie T. Stokes works once a year . . . as a department store Santa Claus. Alongside his partner, Marcus (Tony Cox), Stokes plans to knock over a small Phoenix shopping mall managed by straight-laced Bob Chipeska (John Ritter) and his intense security chief Gin Slagel (Bernie Mac)—if he can manage to keep it together amid all of his alcoholism and sex addiction. The ultimate adults-only Christmas movie, Bad Santa is a crass, shameless, no-holds-barred farce that still manages to have a heart beneath its gruff exterior.

  [source: Dryden website, 2013-Dec-2]

• The Cinema's 8:35 p.m. movie this week is All is Lost (J.C. Chandor, U.S. 2013, 116 min.)
  

  After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face.

  [source: Cinema coming soon page, 2013-Dec-4]

• Starting around 9 p.m. at The Firehouse Saloon is fun ska from Mrs. Skannotto. [source: JamBase calendar, 2013-Dec-2]
• Tonight at 10 p.m. at Abilene is the return of great, fun 1960's-styled rock band The Hi-Risers. [source: Abilene website, 2013-Dec-2]

Saturday, December 7

• Today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the MuCCC is Breakfast with Krampus.
  

  Sick of the crass commercialism of the holidays? Come learn about — and get harassed by — Krampus, the stick-wielding anti-Santa of European folklore. Bring a new, unwrapped toy to donate to needy children. If Krampus thinks your offering is worthy you'll get a free breakfast treat. If he thinks it's crap, it's no food for you. And Krampus might drag you to hell.

  [source: MuCCC website, 2013-Dec-2]

• From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. is a Holiday Event at the Mount Hope Cemetery North Gatehouse.
  

  Explore a special holiday event that will offer Mount Hope Cemetery themed items for sale or donation. A variety of items will be available including: prints from the recent City Hall Link Gallery Show "A Beautiful Place to Rest: Rochester's Mount Hope Cemetery," calendars, posters, mugs, books and more! Many items have been donated and the proceeds from these offerings will benefit the cemetery's reforestation efforts, thereby ensuring a legacy of green space for generations of visitors to enjoy.

  [source: City of Rochester website, 2013-Dec-4]

• It's A Wonderful Life in the South Wedge runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., centered around Star Alley Park. [source: South Wedge website, 2013-Dec-2]
• From 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Flying Squirrel is a screening of Redefining Democracy in the Americas (Michael Fox / Silvia Leindecker, Venezuela / Brazil / U.S. 2008, 114 min.) as part of Expanding Democracy / Shrinking Corporatism: A Film Series and Fundraiser.
  

  From Venezuela's Communal Councils, to Brazil's Participatory Budgeting; from Constitutional Assemblies to grassroots movements, recuperated factories to cooperatives across the hemisphere — this documentary is a journey which takes us across the Americas, to attempt to answer one ofthe most important questions of our time: What is Democracy?

  [source: Flying Squirrel website, 2013-Dec-2]

• From 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. tonight is an Art Opening for Winter 2013 at the Tap and Mallet with works by Cordell Cordaro, and Phil Bliss. [source: Tap and Mallet website, 2013-Dec-2]
• Tonight at 7 p.m., 9 p.m., and 11 p.m. in Hoyt Auditorium, the UofR Cinema Group will screen The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, U.S. 1993, 76 min.) [source: University of Rochester Cinema Group website, 2013-Dec-2]
• The Dryden wills screen Piranha (Joe Dante, U.S. 1978, 94 min, 35mm) tonight at 8 p.m.
  

  Riding high in the successful wake of Jaws, this quintessentially campy creature feature remains one of the most lasting monster-movie franchises in American cinema. Spawning remakes in two and three dimensions as recent as 2010, the original Piranha carries a uniquely gruesome, tongue-in-cheek charm which later versions fall short of. Dante's terrifying river dwellers are rendered in true B-movie fashion, representing the talent and resourcefulness of filmmakers seeking to thrill audiences on a shoestring budget. Come join the frenzy and witness the cinematic beginnings of "the deadliest man-eaters of all!"

  [source: Dryden website, 2013-Dec-2]

Sunday, December 8

• From 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Flying Squirrel is a screening of This Is What Democracy Looks Like (Jill Friedberg / Rick Rowley, U.S. 2000, 72 min.) as part of Expanding Democracy / Shrinking Corporatism: A Film Series and Fundraiser.
  

  Cut from the footage of over 100 media activists, This is What Democracy Looks Like captures the historic events of the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. The film marks a turning point in collaborative filmmaking and achieves a scope and vision possible only through the lenses of over 100 cameras.

  [source: Flying Squirrel website, 2013-Dec-2]

• This afternoon at 5 p.m. in the Dryden Theatre is The James Card Memorial Lecture by Janice E. Allen.
  

  James Card—the "founding father" of film curatorship at George Eastman House—built an amazing collection of films with limited resources and a contagious enthusiasm for movies. How did he find (and preserve) so many treasures of the moving image? Janice E. Allen, an undisputed leader in film restoration, witnessed Card's collaboration with her father, John E. Allen, an unsung pioneer in the field. This year's tribute will feature the screening of some of the most beautiful unknown jewels in the museum's film holdings gathered by John Allen and Card in the course of their joint adventure in the rediscovery of our cinematic past.

  [source: Eastman House calendar, 2013-Dec-2]

Monday, December 9

• Tonight at 8 p.m., the Eastman Wind Ensemble performs in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. [source: Eastman School of Music calendar, 2013-Dec-2]

Tuesday, December 10

• At 8 p.m., the Dryden will screen The Trials of Muhammad Ali (Bill Siegel, U.S. 2013, 86 min., DCP).
  

  More than a boxing documentary, director Bill Siegel (Hoop Dreams) focuses on one of the toughest fights Cassius Clay ever had to endure outside the ring. Following his refusal to join forces in Vietnam and his conversion to Islam, Clay found himself in court trying to overturn a five-year prison sentence. Race, religion, and political dissent are front and center in this fascinating look one of the champ's hard-fought battles to rise above adversity.

  [source: Dryden website, 2013-Dec-2]

Wednesday, December 11

• From 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Square Park (353 Court Street) is an Open House for the Center City Master Plan. "The final public meeting at which citizens can learn about the draft Center City Master Plan, offer your input and understand the timeline for completing the updated plan. The goal of the updated plan is to be a concise, easy to read document." [source: City of Rochester website, 2013-Dec-4]
• Updated: Tonight at 6 p.m. at City Hall in Room 302A is a Public Meeting of the Rochester Preservation Board to discuss a proposed new apartment building adjacent to George Eastman House.
  

  The critical issue on the agenda is whether the Preservation Board should approve a Certificate of Appropriateness for the proposed 99-unit, four-story apartment building at 933 University Avenue, immediately east of George Eastman's house and gardens, a National Historic Landmark in the East Avenue Preservation District. This public meeting may represent the last opportunity for concerned citizens to influence whether this project will go forward, with irreversible adverse consequences to Rochester's most important preservation district, to our flourishing neighborhood, and to George Eastman House. This forum will also give us the opportunity to affect key aspects of this project, including whether the developer will be allowed to: remove a set of established trees that shield the eastern vista from our landmark property; build a swimming pool less than 20 feet from our property line; "rehabilitate" the historic John H. Kitchen house, which is now the clubhouse for the Monroe Voiture 111, without undergoing a meaningful review of which components of the existing structure should be preserved and how the renovated structure should appear.

  [source: Eastman House e-mail, 2013-Dec-5]

• The Eastman Philharmonia performs in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre tonight at 8 p.m. [source: Eastman School of Music calendar, 2013-Dec-2]
• Tonight at 8 p.m., the Dryden will screen Death Race 2000 (Paul Bartel, U.S. 1975, 80 min., 35mm).
  

  One of the most beloved films from Roger Corman's New World Pictures, the cult classic Death Race 2000 uses the premise of a violent, futuristic road race to skewer everything from America's taste for violent sports and entertainment to the dystopia fad of the 1970s (Rollerball, The Omega Man, Logan's Run, etc.) that was rapidly running its own course. It's the year 2000—or, at least, the future—and the masses are kept opiated through nationally televised, cross-country races in which outlandish figures like the freakish Frankenstein (David Carradine) and the crazed Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone) rack up points by running down children, picnickers, and the elderly. But dissension is brewing in the form of a group of anti-fascist rebels, and the world just might change before the race is over. Funny, violent, and self-reflexive, this action comedy from the future director/writer/star of Eating Raoul is one worth braving the roads for. (Just watch out for Matilda the Hun.)

  [source: Dryden website, 2013-Dec-2]