Seven

The fastest turtle wins the race Friday nights at Crafted Tap House and Kitchen in Coeur d’Alene.

Stirling rose to fame on YouTube after posting videos on her own channel, which has more than 1.3 billion views. She released her debut in 2012 and put out music independently because major labels weren’t “interested.”

In “The Dressmaker,” Kate Winslet plays Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage, a seamstress who returns to her tiny Australian hometown, nursing a lifelong grudge against her former neighbors and hoisting a Singer sewing machine like a six-shooter.

While Hollywood has long celebrated chess as a great equalizer across race and class – an ideal element for an underdog tale – it rarely turns its lens on modern African culture in such a realistic and respectful way. “Queen of Katwe” is as much a portrait of marginalized life in Uganda as it is of an unlikely champion. In telling the true story of chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi, director Mira Nair captures the vibrancy of a small village, the toughened dignity of its people, and a state of poverty so oppressive you can feel the desperation in the dusty air.

Like the best true stories translated to film, this well-known ending works for director Peter Berg, not against him. He and writers Matthew Sand and Matthew Michael Carnahan know, as Ron Howard did with “Apollo 13” and James Cameron knew with “Titanic,” that it’s not about whether they live or they die or if the ship goes down or all are saved. It’s about the process and those decisions, big or small, corrupt or well-intentioned, that made this disaster inevitable.

After a steady stream this year of Batman, Superman, Captain America, X-Men and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it’s time now for a group of kids who float, are invisible, who spark fire, manipulate plants, control bees and give life to inanimate objects. Not really, X-Men exactly. Call them X-Tweens.

Crises of masculinity abound in John Krasinski’s second directorial effort “The Hollars.” He also stars in the film, a story of a man coming to grips with his past, present and future family.

Mick Fleetwood has perhaps one of the most prominent surnames in rock, having lent it to the enduring, platinum-selling pop outfit Fleetwood Mac. But the towering British drummer now has another namesake, the rootsy quartet known as the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, which stops by the Fox Theater on Wednesday.

Trevor Sensor makes music for barflies, writing sketches about the lounge lizards and wayward souls that haunt the dimly lit corner booths in small town taverns. The singer-songwriter, who opens for Foy Vance at the Bartlett on Thursday, has a primal, smoky growl that reminds us of Tom Waits, and his observations about lonely people in lonely places would be right at home in a Warren Zevon or Leonard Cohen song.

Packing can be a nuisance, but Madigan says she thrives in the organized chaos of constant touring and wouldn’t do well with a 9-to-5 job.

On its surface, “Chicago” is a glitzy celebration of tabloid sensationalism and Jazz Age excess, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find a dark and gritty morality play about egotism, obsession and corruption. The beloved musical, which opens at the Modern Theater Spokane this weekend, walks that razor-thin line between comedy and tragedy, and it will likely never go out of style.

The reincarnated Poldark struck some viewers as more of a “do-gooder” than Robin Ellis’ portrayal of a moral but willful man in the original series, Turner acknowledges. But he says change is ahead for the Revolutionary War veteran engaged in new fights on his home turf of Cornwall, England.

With the blockbuster cast that Fuqua has assembled, including Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio and Peter Sarsgaard, as well as stunning cinematography by Mauro Fiore, this Western epic remake should be an easy home run. It’s all there – except for the writing, and that failure is the Achilles’ heel that never lets this version of “The Magnificent Seven” achieve liftoff.

Welcome to the very strange, and strangely moving, world of “Storks.” Writer-director Nicholas Stoller, known for his more adult comedies, such as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Neighbors,” delves into the family-friendly animated genre in a little movie about where babies come from. Or where they used to come from. In this world, the old wives tale of storks delivering bouncing bundles of joy is real history, though the birds have been relegated to delivering packages for CornerStore.com after one became too attached to a baby.

In “Blair Witch,” another group of aspiring filmmakers (including the younger brother of one of the characters from the original) decide to find out what really went down in those freaky woods. Specifically, they want to find the dilapidated house in which the first film came to an abrupt stop. This crew goes in better prepared, with high-resolution cameras mounted on earpieces, GPS tracking devices and even a drone they use to get an aerial view of their surroundings. The only thing they forget to bring is a script.

If you’ve been considering a new pet, but find cats and dogs a bit mundane, the Spokane County Reptile and Exotic Animal Expo on Saturday may be just the place for you.