Perfect Summer Events

SIFF Opening Night
May 25

Wear your sneakers for the sprint to the hors d'oeuvres tables: Seattle International Film Festival's kickoff party is always overpopulated, underprovisioned, and a lot of fun in spite of both. The first-night film is The Illusionist, a period drama starring Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti that scored with at least a couple major critics at Sundance. Twenty-five days and nearly 300 movies later, SIFF will close with another crowded, can't-miss party, on June 18. Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St., 206-324-9996, www.seattlefilm.org. LYNN JACOBSON

X-Men: The Last Stand
May 26

Hugh Jackman and your other favorite mutants are back to kick some life into the summer blockbuster season. (See review, p. 116.) Other dates to mark on your movie calendar: Superman Returns on June 30, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest surfaces on July 7. And if by some chance you didn't get enough of 9/11 the first time around, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center opens Aug. 9. Check www.seattleweekly.com/film for showtimes. LYNN JACOBSON

Team Dresch
May 26

The Portland-based Team's Personal Best and Captain, My Captain didn't make an impact on the music scene—they made a music scene. The reverberations of their mid-'90s queercore movement have been felt in the Northwest ever since, and this is the first club gig in their original lineup since Olympia's Homo-a-Gogo fest. With Libber and Swan Island. Neumo's, 925 E. Pike St., 206-709-9467, www.neumos.com. $8 adv./$10 DOS. RACHEL SHIMP

Sasquatch! Festival
May 26–28

It's hot, it's dry, and it's a long drive from Seattle. But watching musicians like Neko Case and the Flaming Lips wail away while the sun dips behind the expansive Columbia River Gorge can bring you to the brink of transcendence. Leave Seattle early to beat the I-90 traffic so you can catch Wolfmother on Friday night. Gorge Amphitheatre, 745 Silica Rd. N.W., George, 206-628-0888, www.hob.com. BRIAN J. BARR

Folklife Festival
May 26–29

Seattle's summer launches with four days of "ethnic, folk, and traditional arts"— including Spanish bagpipe, Balkan women's choir, Ugandan strings, Japanese flute, madrigals, mariachi, and "xtreme marimba." Plus film, storytelling, crafts, food, and—don't just sit there—a full lineup of workshops and participatory music and dance events. Seattle Center, 206-684-7300, www.nwfolklife.org. GAVIN BORCHERT

Pike Place Market Festival
June 3–4

For this 34th annual "Meet the Producer" weekend, Washington wine pros, top chefs (Thierry Rautureau from Rovers, Mauro Golmarvi from Assaggio, more), local bands, and area artists will gather in the alley to welcome summer. Pike Place Market, between Virginia and Pike streets, west of First Avenue, 206-682-7453, www.pikeplacemarketstreetfestival.com. LAURA CASSIDY

Northwest New Works Festival
June 9–11 and 16–18

Make yourself an instant expert on the Northwest's indie dance and theater scene by blocking out a couple evenings to visit On the Boards this June. Four different showcases over the course of two weekends will introduce you to (or update you on) Gaelen Hanson, Marya Sea Kaminski, Alia Swersky, Gust Burns/Maureen Whiting, and many other local notables. 100 W. Roy St., 206-217-9888, www.ontheboards.org. LYNN JACOBSON

French Drawings
June 10–Sept. 17

Daumier's wry caricatures of fatuous politicians and poignant sketches of the downtrodden, Ingres' delicate pencil portraits, and Degas' pastel dancers are a sampling of the 19th-century French drawings and watercolors from the vast collections of the Baltimore and Walters art museums on display at Tacoma Art Museum, the only West Coast stop on this tour. (For a preview: www.frenchdrawings.com.) 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253-272-4258, www.tacomaart museum.org. SUE PETERS

Pacific Northwest Ballet
June 11

Some of the most memorable moments of Peter Boal's first season flash by again, for one night only: Matthias Goecke's punk explosion Mopey, Susan Marshall's languidly suspended Kiss, plus excerpts from Jerome Robbins' In the Night, Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs, and all of Ulysses Dove's sizzling quartet Red Angels. McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, 206-441-2424, www.pnb.org. ROGER DOWNEY

Northwest Mahler Festival
June 12–29, July 18

If most community orchestras don't have the manpower to tackle the repertory's biggest works, their players can team up for informal, enthusiastic read-throughs of works by Mahler and his late-romantic colleagues (June 12–29, repertory TBA) plus a July 18 public concert centering on a piece by their namesake (this year, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde). Meany Hall, UW campus, www.nwmahlerfestival.org. GAVIN BORCHERT

Anthony Bourdain Dinner
June 13

If you heard the hubbub about last year's Thomas Keller dinner at Union, you're primed for this one, starring America's favorite adventurous eater. The globe-trotting Travel Channel chef and Union's Ethan Stowell will cook from Bourdain's Les Halles cookbook. Union, 1400 First Ave., 206-838-8000, www.unionseattle.com. LAURA CASSIDY

Built to Spill
June 13–15

Idaho's favorite sons perform like simple dudes jamming out in a garage. It's all the same to these guitar heroes; they'll perform with or without an audience, which is all part of BtS's onstage magic. Their latest record, You in Reverse, is their first in five years and their most insistent since 1999's Keep It Like a Secret. Showbox, 1426 First Ave., 206-628-3151, www.showboxonline.com. BRIAN J. BARR