Spirit Week: Films of Faith and Transcendence  The Vancity Theatre has put aside the time to contemplate some of the deeper questions posed by our imprisonment here inside the material realm. Starting Friday, Spirit Week begins with two films very favourably reviewed in this week’s Straight: Sacred and Icaros: A Vision. Saturday (July 29) finds In Pursuit of Silence and Shadows of Paradise (featuring David Lynch) added to the bill, which continues through the week with Notes on Blindness (July 30), Following the Ninth (July 31), and Obit (August 1). More details on the program, including an opening night panel discussion, here.

Stalker  Speaking of faith and transcendence, the Cinematheque follows last week’s return of Solaris with Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 masterpiece Stalker, also in a crisp new restoration, now even more mysterious and possibly life-changing. See it with your inexpressibly meaningful black dog any time between Thursday (July 27) and Monday (July 31). Actually, you probably shouldn’t bring your dog.

Drive  If it’s not obvious on first blush (and that blush is neon pink), this very self-conscious provocation from director Nicholas Winding Refn represents one too-talented hipster’s unique version of post-Millennial transcendental cinema, right? Enigmatic but not, Ryan Gosling’s character the Driver is what he does, which is driving, standing there with his hands in his pockets, fucking people up, and radiating a sort of amoral purity. That’s it. We should all be granted such mindful simplicity. See it late at the Rio Theatre on Friday (July 28).