MUSIC—In a season piled high with saccharine and facile gratitude, let’s be truly thankful for easy choices. When Alabama Shakes brings its soaring, soulful strains to West Burnside this evening, you will either be in attendance or you will have consigned yourself to a tuneless and coal-dusted holiday purgatory. Can’t get tickets? Listen from the street! Easy! DIRK VANDERHART
w/the Weather Machine; Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside, 8 pm, sold out, all ages
FILM—Pixar’s made a lot of great movies—but their latest, The Good Dinosaur, is one of their best. It’s sweet and funny and sad and gorgeous to look at, and it features a Tyrannosaurus rex with Sam Elliott’s voice. These are all reasons for you to see it immediately—and see it on the big screen, where you can appreciate each phenomenal detail. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Roseway Theater, 7229 NE Sandy, 11 am, 1:45 pm, 4:30 pm, 7:15 pm, $7