Arts Hound

Please resist Black Friday (or Brown Thursday, or whatever the people who camp outside Best Buy call it these days). If you must indulge in retail therapy, try walking off those Thanksgiving calories and buying some local art on Last Friday ArtWalk in the Whit Nov. 29. Pop into Paper Moon Photo Studio, 543 Blair Blvd., for the show Remember the Red featuring art by those in the community affected by HIV in observation of World Aids Day; donations go to the HIV Alliance. More art for a cause can be found 6 to 9 pm at the Eugene Whiteaker International Hostel, 970 W. 3rd Ave., for the Womenspace art show benefit, with works by David Francis Willis and Indy Micha Kidd.

The UO Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is hosting its “Be Our Guest” Thanksgiving weekend open house; see all the exhibits — like the stunning National Geographic Greatest Photographs of the American West — for free!

Blue is the Warmest Color

Silver screen picks: Thanksgiving is primetime to get a head start on viewing Oscar contenders, as well as the great films that the Oscars ignore. The most buzzworthy film du jour — 12 Years A Slave — is Steve McQueen’s brutally honest depiction of antebellum America and the true story of a free black man from upstate New York who is abducted and forced into slavery. Blue is the Warmest Color, screening at the Bijou, is one of the other buzziest (and most controversial) films of the year. Highly acclaimed at Cannes, critics are calling this a “raw” and “elegant” depiction of young love between two women. David Minor Theatre brings back the oldie but goodie Pan’s Labyrinth — a fantastical tale that takes place in 1940s Spain during the height of fascism. For something on the lighter side, we hear Thor: The Dark World is a hoot.