WORDS—Who knows, right? After years of frustrating latency, maybe spelling skills were only waiting for a night in depressing January to issue forth from you like a verbose Niagara, like a bespectacled rainbow phoenix. There are no bragging rights like spelling bee bragging rights, so head down to Dig a Pony for the monthly Amazing Stumptown Spelling Bee, and roll those dice. DIRK VANDERHART
Dig a Pony, 736 SE Grand, 7 pm, $5
FILM—In Selma, director Ava DuVernay takes on the 1965 Alabama marches for voting rights led by activists including Martin Luther King Jr. Much ink has been wasted on her (mild) depiction of LBJ; more deserving of our attention is her willingness to dig into the very real violence of the Jim Crow-era South and the complicated work of political strategy. MEGAN BURBANK
Various theaters, see Film Times