... er, fest.

That would be the Tacoma Film Festival, which starts tomorrow night.

Now in its third year, the weeklong treat for local film buffs boasts more than 80 indie offerings on a menu that is heavy with short films and documentaries. Among the latter, topics range from the whimsical – the title, "Weiner Takes All: A Dogumentary," says it all about a dachshund racing epic – to the grimly topical – "America Betrayed" alleges government mishandling of national disasters.

The balloon goes up at 8:15 p.m. tomorrow at the Grand Cinema with, appropriately enough, a movie about balloons. "On Paper Wings" sheds light on a little-known episode from World War II in which the Japanese military used giant paper balloons with bombs attached to try to attack the U.S. Carried across the Pacific by the jetstream, the balloon bombs fell all over the West but only one, which landed in Oregon, actually killed people.

The festival runs through Oct. 9. Read the full schedule.

Due to the Presidential Debate Thursday night, King's Books is rescheduling its Banned Film night (part of Banned Books Week activities.)

The new time is 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3. Films shown are "Freaks" and "Fahrenheit 451." At King's Books, 218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma.253-272-88001, www.kingsbookstore.com

Brian Nicholson, "Escape from Culture Crayon."

The fall installation is up at the Woolworth Windows and Tollbooth—and the social culture references come thick and fast.

The Tollbooth, that creative use of a former TV-Tacoma info-booth, is filled with a Brian Nicholson video. Nicholson’s “Escape from Culture Crayon,” strings together hand-done cartoons and homemade-style video footage in a montage of arch references. Bart Simpson morphs into Charlie Brown who morphs into a Spiderman thing: the drawings are clever and draw you into a lava of uncertainty. It’s followed by not-so-clever loops of a nerdy guy happily setting his T-shirt on fire—the frankly embarrassing college-y feel is mitigated by a funky soundtrack.

Over in the Windows, the allusions keep coming. Io Palmer's giant princess bed-curtain made of macramé, baubled and beaded and backed by a hair-bobble wall-paper, is presided over by a dressmaker’s dummy in black Dickies waitress outfit. In the next Window, the outfit is now for a ‘50s nurse, sweeping up the remains of the curtain which prove to be chopped-up hair braids (fake, hopefully.) It’s deliciously gross, a nightmare from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Then there’s a clothesline strung with random pages from magazine articles on cultural quirks, from Gregory Euclide. Finally, on the Broadway/S. 11th St corner, is one by Michelle Forsyth to make you laugh out loud: a mosaic of yellow-and-green dandelions, their fuzzy outlines beautifully and precisely pinpointed with a grid of tiny pushpins. The joke? Read the walltext: “On the morning of November 7, 1940, the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge dramatically collapsed… This piece documents some dandelions growing near the site.”

You gotta love it.

The window down on Commerce St is filled up with a surreal installation by Nickolus Meisel. Plus, the TaCo folks seem to have figured out the condensation problem that used to add a mysterious fog to the art.

All artwork is on view 24/7 through November 8.