`The Target Shoots First' Offers An Inside Look At The Music Biz

Art and commerce can make the least likely bedfellows, as Christopher Wilcha demonstrates in his engaging new documentary, "The Target Shoots First," which plays at 8 p.m. tomorrow at 911 Media Arts Center.

A handheld video diary of Wilcha's Dilbert-like experiences at Columbia House, where his knowledge of alternative music helped him swiftly climb the corporate ladder, it often plays like a mid-1990s version of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."

Mandatory office parties, misunderstandings between "the suits" on the 19th floor and the neglected workers on the 17th floor, useless support groups, covered-up dismissals, stress-producing meetings that make it impossible to get any work done - they're all here. "I feel like an idiot savant with a magic marker," says one under-utilized employee.

At one point, Wilcha leaves his Manhattan office to take a look at the company's Terre Haute manufacturing base, where we learn that the average record-club member ends up paying about $8 for every CD. By film's end, Wilcha hopefully concludes that he's created a new, cagier business within this business: "We not only convinced kids that consuming was cool, we made them think it was an act of defiance."

"The Target Shoots First" is also, incidentally, a kind of history of the Nirvana phenomenon, as viewed through the perspective of a record club that hopped on the grunge bandwagon in hopes of boosting CD sales. Kurt Cobain's death plays a significant role in the necessarily rushed finale.

Also on the program is Elizabeth Hesik's "Lake Castaic," a sardonic look at artificial environments. Tickets for tomorrow's show (which 911's calendar erroneously lists as happening tonight) are $2 for 911 members, $4 for others.

Summer shorts

A vintage animation collection called "Cartoons of the 1930s" plays at 8 tonight in the Speakeasy's back room in Belltown. The titles include Ub Iwerks' "Puss in Boots," Fritz Freleng's "I Haven't Got a Hat," Burt Gillett and Tom Palmer's "Hunting Season" and Dave Fleischer's "The Old Man of the Mountain," with Betty Boop and Cab Calloway . . . . Tom Hunden's new 45-minute documentary, "Neophonics," will be screened at 9 tonight at Raverbooks. This locally produced look at "Seattle's Electronic Dance Celebrations" is reminiscent of Jon Reiss' rave-scene documentary, "Better Living Through Circuitry," which played the Seattle International Film Festival . . . At 1 and 3 p.m. Sunday, the Grand Illusion's children's series continues with a collection of comedy shorts: Buster Keaton's "The Balloonatic," W.C. Fields in "The Dentist" and Laurel and Hardy in "Leave 'Em Laughing."

Around town

At dusk tomorrow, the original Fremont Cinema is back in the parking lot behind the Red Door Alehouse with a "Monsterama Shriek Show" including "Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy." The show begins with The Primate Five, a Seattle garage band, performing in gorilla suits. The all-16mm presentation will also include "Santo vs. the Vampire Women" . . . Greta Schiller's documentary about Nelson Mandela's gay anti-apartheid accomplice, Cecil Williams, "The Man Who Drove With Mandela," begins a four-day run Thursday at the Little Theatre on Capitol Hill. The theater is wrapping up its circus series this weekend with Fellini's "La Strada," which plays tonight through Sunday . . . The Grand Illusion is screening the 1969 Marlon Brando kidnapping drama, "Night of the Following Day," at 11 p.m. tonight and tomorrow and the rarely shown "The Secret Life of Plants," featuring Stevie Wonder, at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday . . . Warren Etheredge will direct a script reading of Royce Scott Buckingham's "Little Indignities" at 7 p.m. Monday at the screenwriters' salon at the Market Theater. The Bellingham writer's script concerns two women who are neighbors and love the same man . . . "The Sixties British Invasion of America - On Film" ends at 6 p.m. Thursday with "Bedazzled" at the Henry Art Gallery Auditorium . . . This weekend's edition of Soundtrack Cinema, at 10 p.m. tomorrow on KING-FM, 98.1., features John Williams' early scores, including "The Reivers," "The Missouri Breaks," "The Rare Breed" and "The Towering Inferno" . . . Tonight at dusk, the Fremont Friday Night Outdoor movies series continues at the Adobe parking lot under the Aurora Bridge with "Pulp Fiction" . . . The Moonlight Cinema series, at the Redhook Bowl in Woodinville, is showing "Mission Impossible" at dusk Tuesday . . . . . . Five of General Cinema's Seattle-area theaters have been certified by Kodak ScreenCheck for providing optimum on-screen image quality: Pacific Place, Gateway, Kitsap Mall, Lincoln Plaza and Renton Village. While many theaters are plagued with dim projection, the Kodak-approved theaters all project 16 footlamberts of brightness at the center of the screen and 12 footlamberts at the edges . . . Sandy Cioffi's local 16mm film project, "Just Us," featuring a mostly teenage cast and crew, is shooting today through Friday at several Seattle locations.

Out of town

The Olympia Film Society has a free screening of "The Incredible Journey" at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the Capitol Theatre in downtown Olympia. The society is also showing "Beshkempir: The Adopted Son" and "Lovers of the Arctic Circle," Sunday through Thursday at the same location . . . The Everett Theater Society's outdoor series, "Cinema Under the Stars," continues tonight with a Bugs Bunny festival and next Friday with "The Black Stallion." The shows are presented at Camp Patterson's Thornton A. Sullivan Park at Silver Lake. Suggested donation is $1. The Everett Parks and Recreation Department is co-sponsor . . . Local filmmaker Peter Wick's debut feature, "Long Strange Trip," has been named the runner-up for best picture at the Long Island International Film Expo . . . Next Friday through Aug. 30, the Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon will show two of Ray Harryhausen's special-effects classics: "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" and "Mysterious Island."