The Rake Magazine

Month: February 2007

  • Good Job. Now Tell Us Who Advises Cheney.

    Interesting piece today from former Rake writer Al Eisele on The Huffington Post.

    He’s entirely correct in citing another terrific piece of work by the upper echelon of mainstream journalism. But do keep on reading, as Eisele’s readers rip HIM for giving the MSM a nano-second’s break from the hellstorm over their far more egregious failures. Common theme: A cut-’em-a-new-a**hole story on something like the treatment of returning vets should NOT feel like an exception that proves the rule.

    And do check out this link to a chat between PBS’ “Frontline’s”: Lowell Bergman and Steve Talbott on issues related to their excellent, four-part … MSM … series, “News War”. Part 3 premieres next Tuesday.

  • Based on Nothing

    This is what I’m doing tonight. And tomorrow, since I’m taking the day off, I’ll toss off my agenda in advance: After all this time, I’m finally going to a rock ‘n’ roll show–The Alarmists (along with Melismatics and Friends Like These) at the T-Rock, just after the boyfriend and I take his grandma out to dinner.

    Other mentionables: The Spark festival at the Southern and closing weekend for that Jon Ferguson show.

  • This Weekend: Gallic Alternatives in Downtown

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    Le Fils (The Son), 2002. Written and directed by the Dardenne brothers. Starring Olivier Gourmet and Morgan Marinne. Showing Friday night at 7pm.

    and for the children:

    Les Contes de la Rue Broca. Directed by Pierre Gripari. Showing Sunday afternoon at 2pm.

    Both films are being shown downtown at the Alliance Francaise de Minneapolis/St. Paul.

    Sick of the Oscars? By now we’ve had nearly a month of ‘controversies’, a month of wandering past those bright yellow Little Miss Sunshine boxes at the video store, of hearing the film pundits bark about Dreamgirls. Yeah, you could go and see The Departed or Babel if you really want to, or you could see a movie downtown. And not at Block E. No, you could visit the Alliance Francaise in the heart of the lovely warehouse district, where you can catch, this Friday, the Dardenne Brothers’ Le Fils. You could even enjoy the snow they predict will be falling, as you wander out of some fancy restaurant and walk through the romance to the Alliance. In fact, you ought to get some romantic mileage just saying “Alliance Francaise” over dinner–it just sounds sweet, doesn’t it?

    I do have to say, however, that Le Fils is not exactly an upbeat movie. But it is beautiful, a simple and yet compelling treatise on forgiveness. A week after Valentines Day, maybe you’re back to fighting and need some of that. Le Fils is the story of a broken man, Olivier, a shop teacher at a school for wayward boys, who becomes obsessed about one of his charges. That is all you will get from me, for the story unfolds patiently, and when it reveals its secrets, it is devastating.

    More importantly, though, is the Alliance’s Sunday children’s show. It appears that the AF is going to screen children’s features, aimed at the very young (under 7, please), the last Sunday of every month, at least through April. I say ‘most importantly’ because alternative children’s films are scarce. Kids have it rough: where adults can take in Norbit or highbrow fare like Volver, what do kids have? Nothing but third-rate cartoons and CGI on the big screen.

    In fact, I would argue that Le Fils would be good fare for the wayward teen. A great night out even if they aren’t wayward. But I digress…

    Frankly, I couldn’t find much on Les Contes de la Rue Broca, except that it seems to be based on a popular French storybook about North African immigrants. The film will be in French (of course) without subtitles. So it looks to be not only a great afternoon treat for your kids in French immersion classes, but a really nifty story about a side of Paris we might not have ever thought about. Which is just what you want from a kids film!

    Both features will have light refreshments (popcorn, pop, water–no wine, as this is Minneapolis, not Cannes), and a suggested donation of $5. For directions, visit the Alliance Francaise website.

  • SATELLITE RADIO? I'D SAY, "YES">

    I don’t currently subscribe to either XM or Sirius satellite radio. But there have been times I would have sold my mother to the Arabs, (to quote Woody Allen), for anything that offered relief from the unmitigated crap that qualifies as “local broadcasting” across huge swaths of the continental USA. I mean, westbound out of Minnesota you can get maybe as far as Pierre S.D. before the “charm” of the voices of colloquial America have you pounding your head on the steering wheel.

    One big reason is that “local broadcasting” in the heavily-consolidated, Clear Channel-take all, post-TeleCom Act of 1996 age means there are very few actual locals on “local radio”. Instead you get a hell of a lot of Rush Limbaugh, regional Rush Limbaugh-wannabes and syndicated Christian/bigot preachers inveighing against homosexuals and the U.N. All that and soulless, whitebread “radio-country” crap. (Would it kill these alleged country stations to play Hank Williams and Lucinda Williams? The Drive By Truckers? Come on!)

    The long-predicted announcement that XM and Sirius are planning to merge gives Congress an opportunity to right a few of the big time wrongs that followed the TeleCom ’96 Act. As Cong. Ed Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, told the Wall Street Journal yesterday, “In light of the dramatic consolidation of radio ownership in the U.S. terrestial radio marketplace in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, I believe the merger of the only two satellite radio companies must be assessed with an eye toward ensuring that it does not have a similar deleterious effect on diversity on the dial and localism in radio coverage and reporting.”

    “Deleterious effect” Well, amen to that, Congressman. Markey is probably just blowing brave smoke, but he seems to understand the bland, monopolized and, I dare say, politicized mess that 11 years of unchecked consolidation has brought. More to the point, what with the new, Democratic-controlled Congress having oversight over approval of this proposed merger, it is possible to re-think 21st century radio.

    The trick, it seems to me is creating a legal template that assures true(r) diversity — not just different call letters for programming that all comes out of some New York or San Antonio studio. The best way, it seems to me is by finding a way to keep satellite subscriptions low-to-non-existent, and using that competition to force stagnated, ad-choked terrestial radio to clean up its act.

    One proposal worth exploring seriously is a la carte programming. As in, let me pick 20 satellite channels for a buck, or 50 for $5, or something like that, instead of insisting on $13 for everything, and see what happens. Like many of you, I’m maxed out on monthly subscription fees. But ask yourself, wouldn’t you pop for satellite radio if it only cost you the price of a couple espressos a month?

    The other is squeezing local stations onto the one big satellite system. Don’t get me started on the way Congress and the FCC never get tough with terrestial broadcasters — WHO PAY NO MONEY, EVER, FOR THEIR LICENSES. I think it’d being amusing to watch {the parent companies) of big local stations, like, say, WCCO, KSTP or KFAN, bidding for a priority spot on a satellite, if each Top 50 metro area was only going to get one, or two. (Clear Channel of course owns a fat chunk of XM).

    Since terrestial broadcasters haven’t paid Dime One for the right to print money from the public airwaves, maybe they could pay cash straight to the government kitty for spots on a bird — required of XM/Sirius as a condition of approval.

    I haven’t bought into satellite to this point because, A: I’m a cheap bastard. B: It hasn’t been portable enough, yet. (but its getting there.) C: I’ve got hundreds of CDs that’ll get me from here to there just fine, and without 30 minutes of commercials every hour, and finally, D: Some of the best hours of road-tripping I’ve ever enjoyed came with a serenade no more expensive than a sunroof open to the whistling wind.

  • Jeffrey vs. Frank

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    rocco and jeffrey forever!

    Just for fun, from Gawker …

    Jeffrey Chodorow is unhappy with NYT food critic Frank Bruni’s review of Kobe Club, Chodorow’s new steakhouse.

    THROWDOWN! Jeffrey, of the Rocco’s-media-fabulocity-failure and head of China Grill restaurant group, has taken out a full-page ad in the Dining section giving Frank the what-for.

    Salient points may have been made, but when you start a blog that stalks Bruni with the intention of delivering e-razzberries, you’re just some kind of nutty.

  • For Your Lunch Break: Trailers, Trailers, Trailers!

    Now that we’re hip-deep in the muck of the winter movie season, we can look ahead to some of the more promising flicks–March and April, in particular, offer some tantalizing choices. I recall my younger days back in old Mt. Pleasant, MI, and the spring giving us little more than cheap horror, lousy John Hughes rip-offs, and tepid romantic comedies. I’d grab the Sunday New York Times and drool over the ads for the art-house flicks and wish, wish, wish that Tom Cruise would drop dead.

    Today, of course, we have the internet, DVDs, and the like, to make the urchins back in my home-town waste their hours more productively. Those kids have coffee shops and laptop computers and… ah, hell.

    Anyway, I’m always impressed by trailers, their ability to sum up a movie in a minute or two. Thus far, the best trailers I’ve seen in the past few months have advertised two of the worst movies I’ve seen: Little Children and the forthcoming Black Snake Moan. So take these with a grain of salt.

    Grindhouse. What a concept: a double-feature (literally, there’s two full-length movies) by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, with trailers and ads in between. Three to four hours of blood and gore and sex like only they could offer up. It just occurred to me, though, that Tarantino might just be more prudish than we think–has there ever been a nude scene in any of his films? I don’t think so… The trailer is awesome, the movies look like they’ll be at least entertaining, though Rodriguez is unbelievably erratic. Could be a long night.

    Zodiac. Lots of blood this spring. But this feature is already being billed as David Fincher’s (Se7en, Fight Club) masterpiece, two-and-a-half hours of utter tension. The story of the pursuit of San Francisco’s notorious Zodiac killer, this one’s being marketed brilliantly–great trailer, and they’re sending us critics these creepy replicas of the Zodiac’s Halloween cards. Eesh. Looks tremendously entertaining.

    The rest of these have decent trailers, but the movies themselves… well, we’ll see:

    Across the Universe. 60s musical featuring songs of the Beatles sung by the beautiful people! Didn’t they do this already with Hair?

    Pride. The story of an African-American teacher in inner-city Philadelphia who, unbelievably, starts a swim team for the local toughs who can’t shoot hoops because they took the net down. What?! ‘Based on true events’ (what does that mean exactly?), the trailer’s fun until it devolves into a literal weep-fest, which means the movie’s much worse. I bet there’ll be a good soundtrack, though.

    The Valet and Angel A. Two French films, one a typical sex comedy, the other a sexy action film. The first, a long-suffering valet accidentally walks into a paparazzi shot of a prominent and very married man walking with his lover, a supermodel. In order to protect his marriage, his handlers pay the valet to date and live with the supermodel, to make it seem that she was on that streetcorner with him. Get it? Like a croissant, The Valet could be buttery and light, a simple joy, or it could be dense and cheap and off-putting with its artificial taste.

    Of the second, Angel A is about a punk in trouble with the local mob gets help in the form of a long-legged, sexy, sexy, sexy angel. She dispatches the mob, no doubt undresses, and vanishes. Is she the devil? What? From the guy who brought us The Fifth Element and The Professional. Will this film be the devil (as in, awful) or an angel (as in, fun).


    Hot Fuzz     is the new comedy from the guys who brought us Shaun of the Dead, which had its moments of brilliance. This one looks to have the same moments, especially in the scene where Simon Pegg points out that a fellow detective has a Guinness moustache. This time, Pegg is sending up action films. We’ll see.

  • Toner-Ink Wednesday

    Ugh. Ash Wednesday. The day on which my Catholic guilt really kicks in. Even though I no longer go to church like I used to, I still feel inclined, every year, to sacrifice something for Lent. What on earth will it be this year, when I’ve already given up so much and seem to have a problem with getting “off the wagon,” as it is? For example, one year, back in college, I gave up meat for Lent (not fish, per the standard) and haven’t touched the stuff since. Then last year I gave up refined sugar–a move that, admittedly, was more inspired by “stomach issues” than for any want of character-building sacrifice. But alas, I have consumed very little refined sugar ever since Fat Tuesday of last year. As for this year… Shopping? (Non!) Red wine? (Mon Dieu!) Or maybe sex? Because, you see, THAT I could do without. (Hi mom.)

    But one thing’s for sure–it’ll be easy to abstain from recreation this evening because, as it turns out, there’s very little to actually do. There are a few good art exhibitions, sure. But most will require action before 5 p.m. There’s some decent theater going on too, but I’ve already covered all that. Glug, glug. Sigh.

  • Keith Moyer Takes a Ripping

    Brother. Everyone following the next great transition at the Star Tribune ought to read this posting on MnSpeak.

    The high key vernacular — phrases like, “leaving in droves” and such — are standard with disgruntled, PO’d sales reps at every TV and radio station in town. So take that with a grain of salt. But the poster’s anger at the de-contenting of an influential public utility — the primary source of the broadest range of news in this market — is heartfelt. And what I always like to remind bystanders at this point in one of these outbursts over brutal cost-cutting is that the Star Tribune for all the ominous clouds on the horizon, is still turning profits your average widget factory would kill for.

    One caller here to Slaughter Central reminds me that when the Avista deal went down in December, Moyer said he was staying on in part because he received assurances that his management team would remain in place, (except Anders Gyllenhaal, who had already bailed for south Florida). Does his change of mind now suggest he believes that promise is no longer operative?

    As the note says at the top of the post, MnSpeak editor, Matt Bartel, a diligent fellow, has a high degree of confidence that the writer is in fact a Star Tribune employee.

  • Postponing Sacrifice

    Lookin’ for something to do on Fat Tuesday. Well, the Turf Club has an ai’ight bill. Starting at 10 p.m., the lineup includes The Brass Kings, Molly Maher, Jon Rodine, and, my favorite on this list, Charlie Parr. The shindig’s sponsored by Mercy Seat–a punk-rock ministry out of Northeast Minneapolis.

  • Last Word

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    So now we’re freakin’ enough for a KARE11 Extra? Batten down the hatches, the world of dining is under siege! There’s nothing but tater-tot hot dish on the horizon … why have we been forsaken?

    Good God. Three restaurants closed. It does not signify the coming apocalypse.

    Franks-a-Million closed. Remember how the city burned and any self-respecting hot dog lover fled for the first Chicago-bound commuter flight? Oh, the hot-dog draught and how we never recovered from it! Except for Uncle Franky’s. And the Bulldog. And Joey D’s.

    And then Goodfellows closed. Remember the homeless fine-diners, wandering the streets aimlessly searching for foie and white table-cloths? Remember how all the hotels boarded up and everyone stayed locked in their homes for 362 consecutive days? It was sad how no one wanted to carry on. Except at La Belle Vie. Or The Oceanaire. Or WA Frost. Or Mission. Or Vincent.

    But now, now some Vaunted Independents have closed. Farms are converting to parking lots and co-ops are becoming strip clubs. There absolutley IS no future for an innovative cook who just wants to put out some humbly fine fare. Except at 112 Eatery. Or Restaurant Alma. Or Willie’s Wine Bar. Or Heartland. Or Lucia’s. Or Spoonriver. Or Cafe 128. Or Corner Table. Or Fugaise.

    Sophia closed, say goodbye to music. Chico Chica closed, that’s the end of spice my friends. Awada’s closed, no more suburban dining, it’s over. Tiburon closed, we hate Aruba.

    I went through the restaurant database recently, and cleared out 38 restaurants that had closed or changed hands. That’s 38 plus the ones I’d done immediately upon closing over the last two or so years. 38+

    Because that’s what restaurants do, they open and close. They ride the tide or they fail as businesses. They are businesses, and chefs need to be managers as well as artists.

    But where was all the media fanfare for the last 38? Why didn’t they inspire such “warnings” about the state of our fair cities? In fact it might be interesting to check out the doomsayers’ annual review columns from the last two years. If our dining climate has been souring so much, how could they have possibly written a positive word?

    The only reason the recent three got so much attention is because they were media darlings and it’s Jan/Feb and we’re stapled to our warm computers. No doubt, we hate to see our friends go, but everyone needs to stop slapping our towns around for not being good enough to support them.

    We are. They weren’t good enough for us.

    Please. Everyone, shut up already. Including me.