The Free Holiday Film Series is a primo way to pass time between Christmas and New Year's. It pays tribute to five directors and actors who stopped passing time in 2003. Movies start at 1:30 p.m. at the Museum of Art, 11150 East Boulevard. The lineup:
Olympia, Part I: Festival of the Nations (Friday) -- Leni Riefenstahl's look at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is one of the greatest sports docs ever made.
Little Women (Saturday) -- The 1994 version was good. This 1933 offering, with Katharine Hepburn, is even better.
The Ghost Breakers (Sunday) -- Bob Hope investigates a haunted castle.
Hard Times (Tuesday) -- Charles Bronson kicks ass, bare-knuckle style, as a Depression-era street fighter.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Wednesday) -- Elia Kazan's debut (pictured) chronicles a young girl's life with an alcoholic father. -- Michael Gallucci
Work It
Art gets useful at Vivid Gallery.
12/25-1/30
If art can be beautiful when it hangs on a wall, it's even better to eat off. Or so goes the thinking at the ARTcade's Vivid Gallery, where mosaic tables, stained-glass pieces, tiki masks, and other items of functional art by local artists are on display. "I don't do traditional stained-glass work," sniffs Deby Cowdin, artist and co-owner of Vivid. Indeed, she adds agates, bark, and moss to it, and ends up with a table that looks an awful lot like a tree. The pieces are on display through January 30 at Vivid, 530 Euclid Avenue (in the ARTcade). It's open from noon to 3 p.m. Monday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. For more information, call 216-241-7624. -- Melody Caraballo
Calling All Exhibitionists
12/25-1/24
Spencer Tunick's providing the perfect chance to go (bare) shoulder to shoulder with fellow, ahem, patrons of the arts. It's a nude photo shoot for Manmade and Natural, an exhibition that will be on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art beginning January 25. Since 1992, Tunick has made a career out of snapping photos of naked folks in public places, showing that "the body remains soft and vulnerable in this concrete world." For your chance to be vulnerable, log onto www.mocacleveland.org/tun-ick/tunick.html. The photo shoot happens at a site to be determined on the weekend of January 24, so be sure to undress warmly. Participation is free, but registration is required. -- Cris Glaser
