Seven

Scabland Lit brings poet and painter Heather Cahoon to Spokane for a “pop-up art show.”

With “Hands of Stone,” Robert De Niro officially enters his Burgess Meredith-in-“Rocky” phase, bringing the ringside grizzle and rumpled gravitas by the pound. In writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz’s peppy, none-too-probing biopic of Panamanian champion Roberto Duran, played by Edgar Ramirez, the “Raging Bull” Oscar winner (and let’s not forget “Grudge Match”) takes the role of legendary trainer Ray Arcel. He’s the man behind the man. And good or bad, there’s always a man behind the man in boxing.

Richard Tanne’s film follows the first date of the future first couple, “Before Sunrise” style. It’s a little bit about politics, but mostly just about these two remarkable people, their life stories and what they want to do in the world, which at this time is simply “more.”

Fitz and the Tantrums make party music in the purest sense of the term. Fronted by Michael Fitzpatrick, the Los Angeles six-piece specializes in upbeat, catchy pop gems that stack hooks on top of hooks. The band, which performs at the Knitting Factory on Tuesday, recently released its third album, a self-titled collection that chugs along with the insistence of a wedding DJ trying to fill a dance floor.

Abi’s Artisan Ice Cream and Sweet Peaks Ice Cream opened within a week of each other on North Fourth Street. But, “There’s no such thing as too much ice cream.”

Unity in the Community, the annual multicultural celebration, returns to Riverfront Park on Saturday. This year’s theme is “Embracing Culture and Diversity.”

“Make It Matter with Music” is a musical revue hosted by local jazz vocalist and theater director Abbey Crawford and featuring various local stage performers. Taking the stage at the Bing Crosby Theater on Saturday, the show will also serve as a fundraiser for the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, the Modern Theater and Friends of the Bing.

On Band of Horses’ fifth studio album “Why Are You OK,” the neo-folk rockers, who perform at the Fox on Tuesday, push themselves further away from the deliberately ragged sounds of their earlier recordings. According to frontman and primary songwriter Ben Bridwell, “Why Are You OK” is a record about artistic trepidation, a document of an indie rock star’s fears of growing up and becoming complacent.

Born and raised in the small resort town of Pinetop-Lakeside, Arizona, singer-songwriter Zella Day, who opens for Michael Franti at the Knitting Factory on Tuesday, always fantasized about making music in Los Angeles. Day’s latest album, “Kicker,” is defined by the wide-eyed optimism of a small town kid newly arrived in a big, sparkly city, a collection of stories about runaways, modern-day outlaws, hippies and heartbreakers. In that sense, it’s a distinctly Los Angeles record.

Perhaps not every quirky true story needs a biopic starring Meryl Streep, as evidenced by Stephen Frears’ bizarre “Florence Foster Jenkins,” the story of a wealthy older woman who launched an amateur singing career in the 1940s, despite her distinct lack of talent. It’s a film that dares you to give it a bad review, simply so it can turn around and call you a bully who picks on the people who try.

This largely wordless first third is magic. The rest of “Pete’s Dragon” concerns how Pete is discovered, and what happens when Pete and Elliot are confronted by the civilized human world populated by the citizens of the logging community.

Philip Roth novels don’t usually make themselves at home on screen, as anyone who slack-jawed their way through “The Human Stain” can attest. “Indignation” is a bracing exception. It’s beautifully acted and the tone is witty and grave.

Leave it to Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg to take animated films to a realm they’ve never gone before – the hard R-rating. “Sausage Party” is the rude, crude, foul-mouthed “Secret Life of Snacks” that could only have come from the brains of Rogen and Goldberg, who dreamed up the idea 10 years ago. It’s taken that long to get two studios in Annapurna Pictures and Sony Pictures to bring this ballsy notion to fruition, and the result is unlike anything you’ve ever seen – and probably won’t ever be pulled off in the same way again.

Our seven entertainment suggestions from around the Inland Northwest for the next week.