1. The 39th annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival further solidifies the Birkenstock-infested love-in as one of this city’s premier and most adventurous festivals. Featuring more than 60 acts from more than 18 countries on seven beachfront stages, July 15 to 17 at Jericho Beach Park, this year’s lineup includes the New Pornographers, M. Ward, Little Scream, Jojo Abot, Geoff Berner, Bruce Cockburn, Lee Fields and the Expressions, Jolie Holland and Samantha Parton, San Fermin, the Wainwright Sisters and Haiti’s Lakou Mizik, among others. Detils and tickets at thefestival.bc.ca.
2. The Cinematheque screens new restorations of A Touch of Zen (1967) and Dragon Inn (1971), by famed Shaw Brothers studio alumnus King Hu, who became the leading figure of the popular historical swordplay genre known as wuxia. Bodies fly July 14 to 18, 29 to 31 and Aug. 1. Details at thecinematheque.ca.
3. As part of Vancity Theatre’s Cinema Salon series, local journalist Adrian Mack introduces and presents Rude Boy, the 1980 film about a hapless, young Londoner in the late 1970s who goes to work as a roadie for The Clash. A revealing historical document and entertaining rock movie, Rude Boy screens July 19, 7:30 p.m. For more information, go to viff.org.
4. Author, collector, historian and former Letterman writer Steve Young drops by the Rio Theatre June 15, 7 p.m. for an evening of retro-fitted “corporate musical infotainment on film.” The Lost World of Industrial Musicals is an oddball selection of clips from lavish Broadway-style shows commissioned by American corporations from the 1950s to 1980s for conventions and sales meetings, promoting everything from Purina dog food to the industrial use of silicones. You’ll be singing “Silicones, Silicones” for days afterward. Details at riotheatre.ca.
