Author: Ann Bauer

Howard Hawks’ magnificent film noir classic, The Big Sleep, opens with a stark, moonlit scene of a car being dragged out of the Malibu Bay with a dead chauffeur inside. Never in the course of the film — which has Humphrey Bogart as private eye Philip Marlowe investigating a blackmailing scheme and falling in love…

Full diclosure: Mitch Omer and Cynthia Gerdes (pictured below) are two of my best friends in the world. (photo by Elena Bauer) They’re also the owners — along with Steve Meyer and Mark “Pappy” Anderson — of Hell’s Kitchen, with locations in downtown Minneapolis and Duluth. Now, I’m not the only one who loves Hell’s…

If you haven’t seen Waitress, now’s your chance. It’s showing at the Hopkins Cinema for $2.50 per ticket. Part fairytale, part romantic comedy, part cautionary fable, this film is far from perfect but it’s fun, colorful, unique, and features a killer performance by, of all people, Andy Griffith. A modern morality play about infidelity, spousal…

My mother is a gifted caretaker. She’s nursed me through three births and two surgeries. I’ve watched her sit with dozens of friends and relatives who were sick or grieving. When I was very young, she volunteered at a hospital and I remember the things she told me when I would go with her: people…

So it’s clear these are tough times, financially speaking. What with a recession looming, the Fed staying a grim course with interest rates, gas prices hovering in the $3 a gallon range, and housing values all over the country tanking like so many penny stocks — the future for middle-American homeowners is looking mighty cloudy.…

Via, the stylish new restaurant by Mission American and Atlas Grill partners Anoush Ansari and Hadi Anbar, is now open in the old Pizzeria Uno location on France Avenue, across from Southdale, in Edina. If you sensed a few freakish juxtapositions in that sentence — “stylish” “Pizzeria Uno” and “Edina” — you’re not alone. The…