rakemag

Hmm. Which do you think would be most difficult: Learning English as an adult, starring opposite Hollywood yester-hunk Richard Gere, or kindling a torrid love affair with film star and “Wicked Game” crooner Chris Isaak? Chinese émigré Bai Ling has accomplished all of that, and much more, since leaving her homeland fifteen years ago. In … Read more

Some complain that coverage of the war in Iraq is too negative. Others complain that the countless civilian deaths and deteriorating living conditions are being kept from American eyes. One thing is certain: The media has yet to present much of any picture of Iraq’s citizens. Which makes the release of this documentary, filmed by … Read more

After the last sizzling chunks of downtown Minneapolis’ fireworks drop into the river, head over to the Soap Factory for an open-air screening of dozens—perhaps a hundred! Maybe a thousand?—films before you go home. It’s fully possible when the films are just ten seconds long. But that’s time enough to experience pathos, hilarity, and maybe … Read more

Bearing a Joycean title (“yes” is the last word of Ulysses) and delivering dialogue in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets, Sally Potter’s newest film is unabashedly poetic. The superb cast delivers the verse deftly, concentrating on meaning rather than meter, thus making it an almost transparent device. We notice it just enough to admire it. … Read more

Roald Dahl is said to have hated the movie adaptation of his creepy children’s story so much that he refused to permit the book’s sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, to be filmed. It’s too bad he didn’t live to see Tim Burton’s mind-bending remake, which takes the director’s eye-popping style to soaring new … Read more

Rude humor is the hallmark of a good summer camp film, and this parody mines all the classic elements of the genre: sexual frustration, bodily functions, and the struggle of the geek to stay alive in the Lord of the Flies-like societal breakdown that inevitably occurs when former Saturday Night Live stars take preteens into … Read more

History on the hoof. Frankly, we have our doubts that the two-year makeover that’s about to begin on Lake Street is the kind of “help” that place needs. By 2008, the county promises us that one of Minneapolis’ most vibrant and ethnically diverse commercial corridors will boast a more genteel streetscape, along with pothole-free traffic … Read more

Lanesboro, Minnesota’s Commonweal Theatre Company is known for mounting quality productions of challenging works, in what is apparently part of a local tradition. During Prohibition area men came in from the fields to stage a period melodrama—dressed as women. Playwright Jordan Harrison’s Act a Lady (originally commissioned by Commonweal) brings humor and intrigue to the … Read more

The sexy Varsity opened this spring in hopes of being all things to all artistes: coffee shop for socializing or solitary pondering; stage for emoting or escapism; bar for all of the above. Now it’s staging a play perfectly suited to such funky and flexible environs. The Artificial Jungle, a film-noir send-up by Charles Ludlum … Read more