Year: 2005

In a stroke of great creativity (and, let’s face it, a move to bring in younger audiences), the SPCO is inviting families to come hear classical music with a slightly gross twist. This particular afternoon features songs inspired by the insect world: Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, Kenji Bunch’s “Arachnophobia,” Ervin Rouse’s “Orange Blossom Special,” and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee.” Musicians include Gary Bordner, Steven Copes, Julia Bogorad-Kogan, and Kathryn Greenbank; in the lobby: bug-themed crafts by Creative Kidstuff. 651-224-4222; www.thespco.org

Stacia Rice long has been a fixture on local stages, though we became enamored of her last year when she starred in a blockbuster production of Tennessee Williams’ workhorse, A Streetcar Named Desire. Anyone so capable of unlocking the vintage desperation and fragility of Miss Blanche DuBois, American literature’s most famous coquette, deserves special attention and her own gaggle of groupies. So it’s with great interest that we note the founding of Rice’s new company, Torch Theater. Although her choice for an inaugural text–The Miracle Worker, an antiquated, saccharine-sweet 1959 play by William Gibson about Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan–might raise an eyebrow, Rice’s performance as Sullivan will no doubt be powerful enough to blow the dust right off any outmoded lines. 711 W. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; 952-929-9097; www.torchtheater.com

We’re not sure that people in, say, San Diego would get such a kick out of hearing a swingy jazz rendition of the Replacements’ “I Will Dare,” but in these parts, such a thing scores high in both the nostalgia and novelty categories, with extra points for being beautifully and creatively executed. This trio, made up of Semisonic’s John Munson, the Suburbs’ Chan Poling, and vibes-guy-about-town Steve Roehm, has remade local and national punk rock classics for its self-titled CD debut. Live, the three should shake up the super-cool environs of the Dakota Jazz Club in just the right way. 612-332-1010; www.dakotacooks.org

For a woman who sometimes breaks down in tears during concerts and walks off stage (whether she’s a victim of pathological shyness or an art-rock-related behavioral disorder, we’re not sure), Chan Marshall is showing real guts. To record her new album, she recruited some of the greatest soul players around, including guitarist Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, who wrote “Take Me to the River,”his brother Leroy “Flick” Hodges, and drummer Steve Potts, who played with Booker T. and the MGs. What they made of the scrawny white girl with the mousy little voice is anyone’s guess, but one thing’s for sure: Good things happened in Memphis during the making of this newfangled old-fashioned soul album. Marshall, who grew up in the South, admirably gooses up her normally wavering and plaintive vocals to meet the demands of this sexy, funky brand of soul. The Greatest pays tribute to a great moment in music history without simply imitating it. This is still a Cat Power album, but with a louder heartbeat.

David Letterman seldom interviews musicians when they perform on his show, and that might have something to do with the legacy of Tom Snyder, whose The Tomorrow Show aired on NBC from 1973 to 1982 before being replaced by Letterman’s own program. During his run, Snyder hosted a notorious slew of punk rockers, most of whom were studiously unprepared for their time on the talk show hot seat. Johnny Rotten was as easy to interview as a junkyard dog; the Ramones stared shyly at their feet, slouching and shuffling and buried in hair; and, perhaps most memorably, Wendy O. Williams blew up a vehicle onstage in an inspired performance Snyder was clearly not expecting. This DVD set uniquely documents the Tomorrow Show’s punk years with interviews and performances by PIL, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, the Jam, the Plasmatics, and others. Raw, unrehearsed, and occasionally repellant, these stripped-down appearances captured punk rock as it was meant to be–loud, rude, and fun. Even after two decades of marketing-created musical “outlaws,” they still feel like a revelation.

Enjoy the silence? Nah. Give us music anytime. On New Year’s Eve, the Bell Auditorium hosts Twin Cities acts Fog and Traditional Methods to respectively score the silent films The Naked Island and Tabu, A Story of the South Seas. Kaneto Shindo’s 1960 film The Naked Island follows the daily toils and trials of an island family in Southwest Japan, for which Fog’s minimalist keyboard and guitar should provide a resonant backdrop. Tabu, a Polynesian love story, won an Academy Award in 1931 for its gorgeous cinematography, and hip-hop act Traditional Methods ought to give this steamy vintage classic new edge and nuance.

Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, former grouse-beater for the Queen Mother, tries to drive an Oscar from the Hollywood moors by writing this original screenplay for the celebrated Merchant Ivory production team. Ismail Merchant’s death in May makes The White Countess the duo’s final production, and it’s a strange one. Against the backdrop of pre-World War II Shanghai, a blind diplomat struggles to keep his sanity after the death of his family. He falls in with a disgraced Russian countess who supports her family by working for tips in a sordid nightclub. The Redgrave women (Natasha Richardson, mother Vanessa, and aunt Lynn), Hiroyuki Sanada (the “Tom Cruise of Japan”), and Ralph Fiennes, in his sixth film of the year, give this bizarre and complex tale a sheen of elegance.

Some people are masters at creating their own mystique. Notable examples include Greta Garbo, J.D. Salinger, and, more recently, J.T. LeRoy, who may not even exist if you ask the New York Times. Terrence Malick would be high on such a list as well. A filmmaker who declines interviews and doesn’t like to be photographed, Malick has forced judgment based solely on the merits of the small number of films he’s directed: Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line. Lucky for him, and for the filmgoing public, each of his offerings has been gorgeous and brilliant. In Malick’s films, nature is grand and expansive, creating an enveloping context for his characters. Each setting–whether it’s a Texas wheat field filmed at the “golden hour” or a South Dakota prairie barren enough to encapsulate the psyche of a bored, murdering teenager–serves as a nuanced and complicated character unto itself. No doubt the same is true of Malick’s latest, The New World, which retells the fabled story of Pocahontas (Q’Orianka Kilcher) and Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell), who helped found Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.

The masterful Julian Barnes returns with an epic, complex, and fascinating tale of two men brought together by a third, fictional character: Sherlock Holmes. In the midst of grieving the death of his wife, Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is roused from a deep depression when he receives a letter from a man who has been wrongfully convicted of bizarre crimes, requesting the assistance of the writer (and his legendary deductive skills) in proving his innocence. Loosely based on true events, the tale unfolds so gracefully that the identity of the famous writer isn’t immediately obvious. Barnes manages to transform one of the most storied–and critically examined–personalities in literary history into a vivid figment of his own imagination, and turns this interesting historical episode into an engrossing mystery all his own.

Phil Donlay’s Category Five is the sort of ripping good yarn that real guys are supposed to like. All the archetypal, Ian Fleming elements are in place: a hot-shot zipping around the world in hot airplanes and cars, a brilliant and beautiful love interest, and plenty of personal and political intrigue. And to keep things clipping along, the plot whirls around in the vortex of a Category Five hurricane that is about to destroy a major American city. The flying sequences are hair-raising, so we’re not sure we can in good conscience recommend this as an airplane read, although Donlay could perhaps calm our fears with some more prosaic stories from his real life: When he’s not writing, he flies jets for a living. And as real guys will understand, that’s cool.