Year: 2002

One of the reasons we’re not too worried about covering the latest and greatest whosies and whatsits here in the Broken Clock is that we want to reserve space for the timeless, the classic, the perennial favorites. A great sin of the present generation is assuming that local heroes the Jayhawks have done nothing notable since Hollywood Town Hall, or since cofounder Mark Olson ditched the band. But listen: Smile, which came out in 2000, was every bit as hummable, memorable, and collectible. We have it in our CD player right now to prove it. Many critics were not so much pleasantly surprised by Smile as they were wholly knocked on their asses. We don’t know whether there’s a new record in the works or not, but we’re pleased Gary Louris still makes his home here, and is showing no sign of corruption in the pure, clear folk rock he seems to generate effortlessly. For all their evil ways, major labels still have their pride—and the fact that they continue to support franchise players like the Jayhawks is cause enough to celebrate peace on earth and goodwill toward the Man. Don’t let the holidays distract you from what’s really important—this happy hometown gig from a local treasure.

Dave Ray is an all-around mensch, and it’s a crying shame that he’s been afflicted with a pretty serious battle with cancer. In any case, friends, let’s not mince words: You will not get too many more chances to see the legendary trio that played a big part in establishing the Dinkytown folk scene of the 60s—the same one Mr. Bob Dylan sprang out of. You want to see a piece of living history? Get thee to First Avenue and pay your respects to these giants of Minneapolis music, white blues, and flat-picking folknik fun. First Avenue, (612) 332-1775, first-avenue.com

It’s admirable that the collaboration between these three giants of the opera world has lasted so long, not to mention a good thing for popular music in general. When Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and Jose Carreras first got together 12 years ago, the unexpected appearance of a supergroup of opera was such an artistic and commercial smash that it may have singlehandedly reversed opera’s long, slow decline into obscurity. Purists sniffed that the shows were all about booming bombast and big personalities, and that pop success was luring Pavarotti in particular to spend too much time collaborating with rock stars. The Tenors couldn’t care less about such highbrow carping. Part of the reason they joined up in the first place was that they all love soccer: Their first trio performance was at the 1990 World Cup. It is true that Domingo is the only one still in peak voice, but the combined showmanship of the three will surely make this a night to remember. Xcel Energy Centre, (651) 265-4800, xcelenergycenter.com

Though you may not be familiar with it as yet, this annual Christmas show has already attained veteran status. This is only the second year it’s been staged publicly, but writer/director Michael Sommers has been putting it on for family and friends for 17 years. Based on medieval passion plays and featuring a set based on illuminated Gothic manuscripts, Open Eye’s pageant retells the Christian nativity story through the eyes of an unusual perspective character: Lucifer. The story goes back and forth between the hardships of Mary and Joseph, the earthy, double-entendre prone shepherds, and the Devil’s arguments with The Other Guy about the proper role of evil. Adding to the near-Shakespearian feel, it’s all told in rhymed verse. Kevin Kling stars as the bewildered Joseph, whose marriage isn’t turning out the way he thought it would. (Still recovering from a nasty motorcycle accident, Kling says working on this show “has been a tonic.”) Southern Theater, (612) 340-1725, www.southerntheater.org

We all serve the greater good in our own way. Some people cure polio. Some build rockets that go to the moon and back. The MST3K guys made unwatchable movies watchable, livening up terrible B-films with zinging commentary and mocking goofball skits during ten seasons on local TV and later on cable. Ordinarily we hate people who talk during movies, but there are some films so wretched that the audience must start sassing back in self-defense. This box set is a good introduction to the MST madness, with episodes featuring both original host Joel Hodgson and replacement Mike Nelson. Of the four films in this collection, the best of the worst is easily The Creeping Terror, a schlocky 50s monster movie made so incompetently that the director narrates most of the film himself because he accidentally dropped his recording equipment in a lake while filming. And Bloodlust is worth it just for the spectacle of seeing a young Robert Reed (future sitcom dad Mr. Brady) chased down like a dog. The DVDs also include the original versions of each film, though you should be warned that without the ameliorating buffer of wisecracking robot puppets, these cinematic trainwrecks might be extremely dangerous, or perhaps just boring.

Caddyshack is quoted more often by drunken frat brothers, and Meatballs codified the slacker lifestyle a decade before the word came into use. But the hero of a generation has shined so brightly in so many films, we couldn’t begin to decide which Bill Murray film we like best. (Even his serious turn in Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge was good, dammit! OK, that may be going too far.) It’s been great to see Murray keeping up his chops in recent years. If anything, his roles in hipster art flicks like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums have proven that the man can connect across generations, and that wooden-faced thing he does so well really is acting. Stripes, of course, was made at the peak of his career and market value, and captured the essence of the Murray schtick as kind-hearted cad. (Ghostbusters did too, but there he had to share precious screen time with the increasingly corpulent Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver’s moneymaker, and the underappreciated Harold Ramis). Groundhog Day, on the other hand, is a brilliant piece of writing Murray had to meet halfway, and both the film and the actor never got due credit. If there is a catechism of 80s humor, then Bill Murray has something to do with almost every article of faith. You might say he’s a Cinderella story, outta nowhere, a former greenskeeper now about to become the Master’s champion…

One of the problems with seeing films like Pedro Almodóvar’s latest, Talk To Her, is that it inspires a profound guilt for all the time we’ve wasted on the latest Hollywood drivel. It’s doubly regrettable that this marvelous film will make its way to town during the holiday release frenzy and will probably get lost among the explosion fests. So, please let the brats off at the multiplex to see Bond or Potter, and bring a friend with whom you can share something deeper than a box of popcorn. Almodóvar, whose All About My Mother won the 1999 foreign film Oscar, has again plumbed the depths of sorrow, loneliness and difficult loves—but this time from the men’s point of view. Benigno and Marco befriend each other when they are both caring for lovers who have been put into comas as a result of trauma. But while Marco has known his Lydia for a long time, Benigno’s only spoken with Alicia once before her accident. During their time together at the private clinic where the two women are cared for, Almodóvar tells their stories via the men’s monologues with the comatose women and through effortless movement through the past and present. All this is not to say that the director abandons his infatuation with bizarre behavior—in this case it’s an act so out of bounds that one can’t help but be intellectually repulsed. At the same time, Almodóvar leaves us enchanted by the humanity and sympathy of the character who perpetrates the outrage. Allegories abound here, and you’ll have to pay close attention to get everything Almodóvar throws at you, but that’s an effort that will be rewarded with something more than the regret you’ll have at wasting another $15 on something you can see on cable in six months.

Although the music on his Ziggy Stardust album is one of David Bowie’s career highs, it was the theatricality surrounding it that was truly revolutionary. His androgynous glam-spaceman persona was stunningly exotic in 1973, and the sense of drama created by the lavishly conceived live shows helped make the Ziggy period one of the most heavily mythologized in rock and roll. (Rocky Horror, Velvet Goldmine, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch would all have been impossible without Ziggy; you decide if that’s good or bad.) Part of the reason might be that it ended so abruptly and before the faithful were ready—attributable as much to Bowie’s exhaustion and boredom as his canny sense of showmanship (always leave ’em wanting more). D.A. Pennebaker’s concert film documents the precise moment of Ziggy’s official retirement, the London performance where Bowie announced that he was hanging up his microphone—ambiguously enough to further fuel his PR machine, since it was unclear whether Bowie or Ziggy was the one quitting. Pennebaker, apparently brought in at the last minute, may not have been the best choice—his unblinking-eye cinema verite style was at odds with the most deliberately artificial musician of his day. Still, though segments of Ziggy Stardust have aged poorly (there may be nothing so painful as hippie pantomime), it remains a vital snapshot of Bowie’s greatest contribution to rock, the notion that a musician’s identity could be artistically crafted just as much as his music. Oak Street Cinema, (612) 331-3134, oakstreetcinema.org

Plenty of Hollywood types lead secret lives, but nobody beats the tale spun by Chuck Barris in his 1982 autobiography: He claims that when he wasn’t goofing with Jaye P. Morgan as host of The Gong Show, he was jetting around the world for the CIA, using his cover as a TV producer to mask his real job: contract hit man. It’s Jerry Springer crossed with The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Frankly, we think Barris made it all up (he penned another memoir in 1993 that mentions nothing about it), but you have to admire any story told with such a straight face and so compellingly bizarre. Too bizarre, probably, to be more than a cult success as a film, but the prospects for Confessions are improved by the presence of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the wunderkind of weird who dreamed up Being John Malkovich. Advance word is that Kaufman’s script is one of his strongest, which ought to help shore up any stumbles from first-time director George Clooney, who co-stars as Barris’ menacing CIA handler. This could be a breakthrough role for Sam Rockwell, who stars as Barris, if he can manage to muscle past Clooney, Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore for that coveted face time on E.T.

This sixpack sarcophagus of cinema, screening in conjunction with the MIA’s “Eternal Egypt” exhibit (see our preview, p. 17), offers a half-dozen films showcasing Hollywood’s take on the time of the Pharaohs. While you wouldn’t want to confuse any of these with a history lesson, as sheer entertainment, they ain’t just Cheops liver. Three versions of The Mummy unravel before your eyes, the best of which is the iconic 1932 version starring Boris Karloff (December 20-21). The robust 1959 Hammer remake with Christopher Lee (January 10-11) is also a good way to (ahem) scarab some thrills, but you could skip the February screening of the slicker, but far dumber, 1999 version. The “Portraits of Egypt” trio deals more with the living than the undead, but historical accuracy is still downplayed in favor of grand spectacle—ancient Egypt being a favorite setting for Hollywood’s lavish, old-style period epics. One of the more notable is Cecil B. DeMille’s 1934 Cleopatra (January 3-4), starring seductive Claudette Colbert at the height of her fame as the devious and doomed Queen of the Nile. Howard Hawks’ campy Land of the Pharaohs (January 17-18), while not one of William Faulkner’s better moments slumming as a studio screenwriter, does have a young Joan Collins in full-on vamp mode as a queen scheming to get her husband interred in his pyramid tomb earlier than he planned. MIA, (612) 870-3131, artsmia.org