Month: April 2003

We will never forgive them for that maudlin “Under the Bridge” song—one of the most heinous pieces of unfiltered pap to hit saturation rotation in the past 20 years. But we know you love them. After all, you made Californication one of the bestselling records in their whole storied career. For now they’ll stay on provisional status, if for no other reason than the perennial homage to George Clinton and Funkadelic that is their road show. Bring out the adult-sized diapers, and let’s rock. Xcel, (651) 265-4800, xcelenergycenter.com

On her three previous, criminally underheard records, Amy Rigby won our hearts with her tuneful, world-weary wit, mapping out the emotional landscape of the mid-30s woman who feels wiser with age just as the world’s become more confusing with time. There’s nothing here as transcendent as “Sleeping With the Moon” or funny as “Cynically Yours,” the two best songs from 2000’s The Sugar Tree. But “Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?” has Rigby’s best blend of bawdiness and disappointed realism. And she approaches a perfect merging of sentimentality and cynicism—one of her strongest songwriting skills—on the fragile 9/11 lament “Don’t Ever Change,” with its desperate yet optimistic line “I’m holding on to everything that’s good in this world; there’s a lot that’s good in this world.” Rigby plays the 400 Bar May 16. 400 Bar, 400 Cedar Ave., (612) 332-2903, 400bar.com

Whatever she does, it matters—right? Easy to forget that the ersatz Material Girl skillfully retooled her whole M.O. back in 1998, suddenly creating “serious music” in connection with William Orbit, right about the time she discovered yoga and Pilates. Ray of Light was actually a critical success, and 2000’s Music also had its fans among the mostly unreadable and spineless cognoscenti. We always thought the offerings were as thin on disk as they were on the runway, but hey, she’s an American Icon (uh, living presently with her British husband in the British Isles), and everything truly American always must have a hollow ring to it. We may sit this one out. We haven’t decided.

We’ve been reading occasional snipes against the White Stripes that suggest a backlash against their meteoric rise. If so, that’s ridiculous. Never mind their media oversaturation, the opening dates for the Rolling Stones, Jack White’s new career as a Hollywood actor. Look past the red/white color scheme that just happens to be an effective branding method to make their product stand out in the marketplace, and the weird revelation that Jack and Meg White are divorced spouses and not brother and sister like they claimed, which always struck our suspicious minds as clever biographical manipulation with press coverage and mythmaking in mind. The only important thing is the music, and Elephant is as heavy as its name. Recorded in two weeks entirely on vintage pre-1963 equipment, their fourth disc mines more gold from the blues-punk vein the Whites work so successfully. Their approach, combining deep affinity for old blues with an all-out rawk attack of Pixies sneer and Stonesy swagger, isn’t as original as their proponents like to claim—Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s been living in this house for years. But with a record this potent we’re not going to quibble, we’re just going to turn up the stereo.

It strikes us as a teensy bit redundant to shell out for multi-DVD sets of two TV sitcoms that are still on the air in reruns all over the place. Still, the wise man plans ahead for the future, storing up treasures for the lean times yet to come. We’re especially partial to the first year of Cheers for the presence of Diane and Coach (the show just wasn’t as good without them) and occasional guest-star Harry Anderson, in the sneaky con-man persona he was known for before Night Court turned him forgettable and vanilla.

Dull and dry is never a problem with David Attenborough. The BBC’s grandfatherly grandmaster, perhaps the world’s premier practitioner of pop-science storytelling, has a knack for making you feel the same joy of discovery that he so obviously does. His latest series is a 10-part companion piece to his stunning 1998 Life of Birds that takes him from New Zealand to the Arctic Circle to survey the furry creatures of the world. It’s full of arresting images—an orangutan paddles a canoe, an elephant swims, a grizzly snaps its jaws on a salmon while Attenborough calmly narrates from only a few feet away. His childlike joy at seeing a blue whale surface just yards from his boat is charming and utterly infectious. He doesn’t shy from the stark reminder of violence in the animal world—his 1990 Trials of Life infamously showed killer whales not merely hunting seals, but casually toying with them before the decisive strike. But with his gentle British lilt and creative presentation—and backed by the Beeb’s crack crew of wildlife cameramen—he makes it a pleasure to use your brain. Plus, there’s otters. Who doesn’t like cute, furry otters?

So much nostalgia TV in one place, you can almost smell the crimebusting. In case you feel like watching the entire run of a 70s cop show from the beginning but you have no idea which one, this collection is, like, a total godsend. Here are the very first episodes—not the pilots, when the cast and concept of a series are often wildly different from the real show, but the actual season-one openers—of five of the polyester decade’s most well-known police dramas: Starsky & Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, S.W.A.T., Police Woman and The Rookies. (Well, the Angels were really private eyes, not cops, but then you’d have to title the DVD Four Great 70s Cop Shows and Also a Private-Eye Show, or Five Shows That Often Feature Criminals With Feathered Hair, and the boys in marketing probably said no to that.) If you do find your interest piqued by these (ahem) arresting examples of Me Decade programming, know that the complete first seasons of Angels and S.W.A.T. are both out on DVD by the end of spring, followed by the second Angels movie and a Samuel Jackson-led remake of S.W.A.T. in summer.

One cannot live on arthouse films alone. The summer tradition of big, booming, brains-optional blockbusters has returned, and the first two out of the gate are ones we’ve been looking forward to, perhaps a little guiltily. We don’t have any grandiose expectations for the return of Marvel Comics’ mutant metaphors for prejudice and teenage angst; X2 is burdened by more characters and nicknames and powers than anybody should bother to keep track of. But the guys with lasers coming out of their eyes ought to blow stuff up real good. The Matrix movies are more streamlined, thanks to a story structure with only one primary character—Keanu Reeves’ Neo, the high-tech action hero with Buddha nature. But Reloaded also has to set up November’s trilogy-closing Revolutions, not to mention having a much better film to live up to than X-Men. If the writer/director Wachowski Brothers can deliver on the fight-scene promise shown in the Reloaded trailers and still deliver a story with some real ideas in it, we’ll gladly be the first to say “whoa.”

A weighty drama about the burdens of guilt and redemption seems like an awful stretch for writer and first-time director Ed Solomon. His previous credits are all comedies, including Men In Black, Charlie’s Angels, and the Bill & Ted movies—not terrible films, but ones with absolutely zero gravitas. On the plus side, cinematographer Roger Deakins (Shawshank Redemption, half a dozen Coen Brothers films) means the visuals will be terrific. And what a cast: Holly Hunter, Morgan Freeman, Kirsten Dunst, and Billy Bob Thornton (yeah, a flake, but a great actor). Those four working together might be able to make an Ed Wood movie resemble Shakespeare. Thornton anchors the story as a remorse-wracked ex-con who dedicates his life to making amends for the murder of a convenience-store clerk, and winds up entangling all four characters’ lives in trying to connect with his victim’s sister (Holly Hunter). We’re betting Levity will float or sink based entirely on Solomon’s untested skill at fashioning drama. Edina 4, 3911 West 50th St., Edina, (952) 926-1621

We’ve known for years about this wonderful little museum on the shores of Lake Calhoun. Founded by the man behind the cardiac pacemaker and Medtronic, it celebrates the many wondrous roles of electricity in medicine and in life. It’s always been a fun place to take the kids—and now they’re really going to foam at the mouth, with this irresistible exhibit of inventions created by kids in the Bakken’s education programs. Bakken, 3537 Zenith Ave. S., (612) 926-3878, www.thebakken.org