Lit in Satanic red, the Northwest Sinfonietta played the stories of two deals with the Devil Saturday night in "Devil May Care": Michael Daugherty's "Dead Elvis" and Igor Stravinsky's "The Soldier's Tale." Written 70 years apart, they're very different--but each showed off the ensemble and solo playing of the seven Sinfonietta members.

"Dead Elvis" is the piece every bassoonist dreams of playing. Where else can you get up in front of an ensemble, shimmy your way through all the virtuosity your instrument can drum up, and dress up as a rock star at the same time? And Francine Peterson, principal bassoon of the Sinfonietta, didn't disappoint. Punctuated by fun Elvis gestures and garbed in that famous shiny gold-and-white pantsuit, the wigged and shaded Peterson took her bassoon through its paces. And she showed off considerable chops: gunshot doubletongueing for the opening four notes of the Dies Irae (Daugherty takes this medieval funeral chant as Elvis' ironic theme-tune), a wailing high E, some funky bopping during the '50s rock section. While Peterson made a more reserved than egotistic King, she totally nailed his solo.

Fine rhythmic work from bassist Todd Larsen and super-tight playing from the group added to the dynamic. A bit more high-note oomph from both Larsen on bass and Craig Rine on clarinet and the piece would have truly rocked.

After intermission came "The Soldier's Tale"--a morality piece about a soldier who does a deal with the Devil and regrets it. It's a tricky piece to do well. Stravinsky's colorful, narrative music can get irritatingly repetitive, and the text can be downright clunky. Narrator Jose Gonzales and his screenwriter wife Lisa Halpern did a good job of smoothing out the second problem. The text, thanks to their changes, was mostly elegant and flowing, though it could have done with many more contemporary allusions than the single joke allowed (the Devil's magic book ensured not just stock predictions but never having to be bailed out by Congress). Gonzales adroitly handled a sensitive amplification system, and created a silky-tongued Devil and an honest, perennially stupid Soldier. Yet a certain self-consciousness permeated, and took away from the magic.

Musically, however, the performance couldn't be faulted. Superbly together, the musicians blended and soloed intricately, a shining trumpet (Charles Butler) melting into wistful clarinet (Rine) and bassoon (Peterson) and down-to-earth bass (Larsen.) As the soldier's violin, James Garlick carried the evening, with personable lilting solos.

The addition of dancer Amy Weaver during the section where the soldier cures the ailing princess was a sweetly surreal addition to the imaginary story.

Saturday evening was, in sum, a stylish example of the kind of playing the Sinfonietta excels in, and the kind of imaginative programming they've set for the season.

Make that a “Weiner.”

The first sell-out of this year’s Tacoma Film Festival was “Weiner Takes All: A Dogumentary.” With a title like that, who could stay away?

Certainly not the 110 people who filled the auditorium of the Grand Cinema where the droll dogu-, ah, documentary played at 3 p.m. Saturday.

A very tongue-in-cheek look at the world of dachshund racing from director Shane MacDougall, “Weiner” featured competitors with names like Noodles, Peanut and Spike.

It’s a picture with backbiting. Or rather, butt-biting, where a well-timed nip to the hindquarters can turn a leader into a loser in the time it takes for a set of long jaws to snap shut and start a dogfight right there on the track.

It’s a picture that revealed that some competitors have attention spans as short as their stubby little legs, wandering sideways when the starting gate lifts, or in some cases refusing to come out of the gate at all while the rest of field dashes toward the finish line.

It’s a picture where one poor pooch comes dressed in a set of hot-dog buns with a squiggle of faux mustard on its back. I swear I could see critter turn hot-dog red with embarrassment.

“The dogs were awesome and the people who brought them were a little crazed,” said Sharon Anderson, a nurse from Tacoma who attended the screening with a girlfriend who owns a dachshund. Anderson was no doubt referring to a woman in the movie who put into perspective the relationship between dog and owner and the home they share when she said of her pooch,” She lets us live here.”

“Hysterical,” is how Annette Hockman of Gig Harbor described the movie.

The audience laughed throughout. And at the end they applauded heartily.

Want to know what all the guffawing was about? You’re in luck. “Weiner” screens again at the Grand at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday.

Your mother always warned you not to take candy from strangers. Yet there was Angela Soper on Saturday, handing out caramels in Tacoma to people who didn’t know her from Adam. And you know something? Her mother surely would have approved.

That’s because Soper, a resident of Salt Lake City, is the co-producer of “Courthouse Girls of Farmland,” a documentary shown this weekend at the Tacoma Film Festival. Her mother, Eileen Herron, is one of its stars.

And the caramels? Made by Soper’s brother Jerome Herron and wrapped in brightly colored paper bearing the legend “The Treat’s on Us! Award-winning ‘Courthouse Girls of Farmland,’” they were sweet treats intended to tempt Tacomans to attend the Saturday afternoon showing of the movie.

From start to finish, “Courthouse Girls” has been a family affair. It’s the story of how Eileen Herron, an 86-year-old resident of the small Indiana town of Farmland and six other senior lady members of her bridge club – the youngest was 77, the oldest 94 – posed nude in 2005 as part of a campaign to save the town’s historic 19th-century county courthouse. The building was slated for demolition, and Mrs. Herron and and Jerome Soper and Jerome’s business partner Larry Francer wanted to derail the effort. Inspired the story of a group of middle-aged Englishwomen who took it all off in the late ‘90s to pose for a charity calendar (the 2003 movie “Calendar Girls” was based on the incident), the four decided that a similar calendar would be just the thing to draw attention to their crusade to save the courthouse.

Did it ever.

“It created such a ruckus in town that these women were posing provocatively,” said Soper. Actually, the photos were quite tasteful, with porcelain replicas of the courthouse placed in such a way as to conceal any naughty bits. Still, some folks got their backs up. Someone even called the whole thing “geriatric soft-core porn,” Soper said.

But the campaign rallied supporters and the courthouse was ultimately saved. Along the way, Soper, Jerome and Francer decided to produce a film about the brouhaha. They hired filmmaker Norman Klein to direct it.

When it was done, Jerome, the owner of a gift and candy store in Farmland, came up with the idea of making homemade caramels to be help promote the picture. The siblings taste-tested the idea earlier this year at a film festival in Breckenridge, Colo. They persuaded five of the calendar ladies to go forth and hand out the candies, and by the time they were done, the women had become local celebrities. And the picture wound up winning the festival’s top audience award.

Sweet!