Make room, Mike Scott. Starting Thursday, everyone in New Orleans is a critic. The New Orleans Film Society is holding the 23rd annual New Orleans Film Festival from October 11 to October 18, featuring some of the best films from around Louisiana and the world. Throughout the week, the festival packs in more than 200 films, 70 directors, panels and parties into 8 days of cinematic adventure.

by Leon Perniciaro

Festival season is nearing an end, but there’s plenty in the city to get your mind back right: watch a documentary on the side effects of progress; or another documentary on workers’ self-management in Argentina, sponsored by OccupyNOLA; hear James Miller talk about his fight to save UNO’s athletic program, listen to HR Hegnauer read selections from her newest poetry, watch a 1994 drama about a priest choosing between religion and his secret gay life; or hear Amy Elizabeth Smith talk about her adventures in Latin America with Jane Austen’s novels.

Today, celebrate Memorial Day at the WWII Museum with the Patriotic Band and Victory Belles, seek revenge vicariously through God Bless America, an independent film screening at Zeitgeist, or get your blues with Lil Red and Big Bad at BMC. On this day in history, Napoleon is crowned in Milan, Italy (1805), Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard is born in St. Bernard Parish (1818), and Irving Berlin’s musical “Louisiana Purchase” premieres in NYC (1940). The details of the day:

Today, Norman Rockwell is the topic at the WWII Museum, Keith Sonnier talks sculpting light at NOMA and The Urban Voodoo Machine (+beaucoup others) play Allways Lounge. In purer times, Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower in Cape Cod, MA (1620), Jack the Ripper killed his last known victim, Mary Jane Kelly (1888), the first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published (1967), Spiro Agnew (1918), Tom Fogerty (1941), Susan Tedeschi (1970), and Sisco (1978) were born, and Charles de Gaulle died (1970); and it's World Freedom Day. So get liberated with these:

August 1, when  Israel annexed East Jerusalem (1967), whe MTV aired its first music video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles (1981), and when the first Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was held (1995). It's the birthday of Herman Melville (1819), Yves Saint Laurent (1936), Jerry Garcia (1942) and Coolio (1963), and last day of Mark Antony (30 BC). Don't worry about staying within boundaries today as you check out these:

July 20, when the first unit of the Women’s Army Corps began training during WWII (1942), when the Special Olympics was founded (1968), when Colombia declared independence from Spain (1810), when Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrendered to U.S. federal troops (1881), when Cormac McCarthy (1933), Natalie Wood (1933), and Vitamin C (1969) were born, when Bruce Lee died (1973) and National Friend’s Day in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Makes some new amigos today at these happenings:

July 13th, when Henry R. Schoolcraft discovered the source of the Mississippi River (1832), when the Battle of Bayou La Fourche took place in Louisiana (1863), when Guglielmo Marconi patented the radio (1898), when the draft law was passed (1923), when Frank Sinatra made his recording debut (1939), and when the first atom bomb exploded in New Mexico (1945). It’s Harrison Ford (1942) and Cameron Crowe’s (1957) birthdays, and American photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s death (1946). So hang on the river, go to Bayou La Fourche, listen to OZ, TUL, and WNO, watch Titanic (or better yet Fast Times at Ridgemont High), or ignore history with the following alternatives:

July 12, when the Congress authorized the Medal of Honor (1862), when a fever epidemic began in New Orleans, which would wipe out 4,500 people (1878), when the 16th Amendment was approved, providing power to tax incomes (1909), the first televised tennis match (1928), and apparently, the very day that U.S. Surgeon General Leroy Burney connected smoking with lung cancer, in 1957. It’s birthday time for Julius Caesar (100 B.C.), Henry David Thoreau (1817), Pablo Neruda (1904), and Bill Cosby (1937), and goodbye to the legendary D. T. Suzuki. So let’s be totally clear, whatever we do:

July 11, when Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities was published (1859), when The U.S. Marine Corps was created by an act of Congress (1798), when Big Ben chimed for the first time (1859), when Vice President Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel (1804), when Tijuana, Mexico was founded (1889), when Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird was first published (1960), when E.B. White (1899) and Lil’ Kim were born (1975), and when George Gershwin died (1937). So read some lit., eat a crumpet, drink a Horchata, and see some French films, which are among these offerings:

July 9, when the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, granting full citizenship to African Americans (1868), when the inaugural Wimbledon Championships opened (1877), when British and Canadian forces captured Caen, France in WWII’s Battle of Normandy (1944), when Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles(1962), and when Pan Am Flight 759 crashed in Kenner, Louisiana, killing 145 (1982); it’s when June Jordan (1936), O.J. Simpson (1947), Courtney Love (1964), Jack White (1975), and Fred Savage (1976) were born, and when Zachary Taylor, the nation’s 12th President, died. So take a walk in City Park, and then: