Author: rakemag

With seminars on everything from poetry to quilting, along with teachers from such faraway places as Korea, the Split Rock Arts Program’s summer workshops at the University of Minnesota make for a tasty arts buffet. Each Tuesday brings a fresh set of writers reading and visual artists showing slides. This year’s teachers include local stars like poet Ray Gonzalez, painter Cheng Khee Chee, and novelist Sheila O’Connor, and visitors like Oregonian poet Dorianne Laux, Korean textile artist Chunghie Lee, and Californian children’s author/illustrator Gerald McDermott. An open reception follows each soiree, since we all know that tasty vittles and fine conversation make any arts event that much better. 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; (612) 625-6000; www.bookstore.umn.edu

They’ll be murdering, stealing, and backstabbing all month down at the Oak Street, which sounds like fun to us. July’s repertory slate is a good mix of the titles long recognized as noir royalty (Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Chinatown) and enough lesser-known beauties to pique the interest of hardened criminophiles. Good bets include Burt Lancaster’s debut The Killers, the labyrinthine The Big Clock, and the Independence Day weekend’s trio of undeservedly overlooked Alan Ladd/Veronica Lake films. Rounding things out are a fistful of well-known 1990-era noirs all worth a second or even third look, among them David Lynch’s bizarre Blue Velvet, the Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing, and The Grifters, the twistedly Freudian adaptation of Jim Thompson’s novel starring John Cusack. (612) 331-3134; www.mnfilmarts.org

Fresh off his box-office success with School of Rock, director Richard Link-later’s returned to his low-key, high-concept indie roots. Sunset picks up on his 1995 romance Before Sunrise, catching up with the characters played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy nine years later. The two of them wander around Paris, talk, visit a coffeeshop, talk, go for a boat ride, talk, and talk, and talk, dancing around the question of whether they’re still in love. You needn’t have seen the earlier film to appreciate what Sunset offers. If you were taken with both My Dinner with Andre and Wings of Desire, this one’s for you. (612) 825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com

After making a splash on the U.S. film-festival circuit (including our own local fest), this German documentary’s making a welcome solo return to arthouses. If you’re up for something in the vein of Winged Migration or The Saltmen of Tibet, don’t miss it this time around. It’s about a family of Mongolian camel-herders who face a crisis when its mama camel rejects her newborn. A cute-as-a-button boy named Ugna and his big brother travel to the big city (or what passes for such in Mongolia) to hire a violinist, apparently common practice in the Gobi Desert for soothing unmotherly camels. The cinema verite approach gives an intimate view of daily life in a culture that’s both strange and strangely familiar: Kids in Mongolia play games on the living-room rug too, but they use animal bones instead of Yahtzee dice. 3911 West 50th St., Edina, (952) 926-1621, landmarktheatres.com

The unavoidable compression needed to turn this medieval-monastery murder mystery into a two-hour film makes Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1986 adaptation both less rich and less strange than Umberto Eco’s triumphal novel—and yet still, it’s a nearly perfect palimpsest, enjoyable both on its own terms and as an adjunct to the book. Annaud invests the film with a wonderfully creepy Gothic atmosphere, and his eccentric approach to casting pays off with a set of faces that are, well, terrifically eccentric. Rose was also a career-saver for Sean Connery, who was at the time considered so washed-up that the American backers pulled out of the film after he was cast. (Available July 6)

He’ll certainly never make a better film than Manhattan, especially considering his output in the last few years. But for pure entertainment, we’ll take Woody Allen as goofy joke-schlepper any day—the Woody in his New Yorker essays, his Standup Comic album, and his first half-dozen films, including this terrific 1969 mockumentary. His first full-fledged directorial effort is a daffy but deft sendup of gangster movies, loosely held together as a biography of incompetent robber Virgil Starkwell, whose poor penmanship turns his holdup note into “I have a gub,” and who argues with his wife about what shirt to wear during a bank heist. (“Beige is in poor taste,” he insists.) Sure, it’s lightweight, but it stole our hearts anyway. (Available July 6)

We’d have an easier job if Leo Kottke would stub his toe just once so we could qualify our praise. But our favorite picker has reduced us to fawning again with yet another masterpiece. As usual, his delightfully obtuse liner notes have virtually nothing to do with the content. What’s changed is that his cover tunes offer some of the best material. Horton Vaughn’s “Mockingbird Hill” will get folks hitting the repeat button repeatedly. Vocals will be found only in the Los Lobos collaboration, “The Banks of Marble,” a song that proves (again) that Kottke can make himself at home pretty much anywhere he pleases. (Available now)

Last time we checked in with Brooklyn’s John Linnell and John Flansburgh, they were touring behind Bed Bed Bed, a charming CD and book for kids, but we’re very happy to hear them putting on their grownup rock ’n’ roll shoes for The Spine (available July 13), their tenth album and first full-length rock record since 2001’s Mink Car. True to form, it’s pleasantly zany, especially “Bastard Wants to Hit Me” and “Wearing a Raincoat.” Part of Spine’s charm is the juxtaposition of crazy lyrics and bland, almost forgettable music—so soothing, yet so jarring, and definitely delightful. In other news, TMBG’s popular Dial-a-Song service has made a comeback: (718) 387-6962. We called twice and got busy signals, but the third time netted a cheery ditty about the atom bomb. 701 1st Ave. N., (612) 332-1775, www.first-avenue.com

Forego your usual downtown happy hour and stroll over to Mill City Museum’s dramatic open-air Ruin Courtyard for a change of pace. They’re setting up Thursday nights with series of local-music showcases, old-favorites and up-and-comers alike, plus food from D’Amico Catering and extended museum hours. The lineup includes Adam Levy of the Honeydogs, Kraig Johnson of the Jayhawks and Iffy, solo artist Mark Mallman, and the Owls, who sound like a local reincarnation of the New Bohemians. Come for the music, stay for the history lesson… it’ll be a hoot! 704 S. 2nd St., Minneapolis; (612) 341-7555; www.millcitymuseum.org

Seeing Sonic Youth play at a VFW hall was one of our formative teenage rock experiences. We’ve since grown up, and SY have, well, grown—wavering at points, perhaps, but never getting watered down. Nurse is the band’s nineteenth album, which means that a whole new generation of appreciative indie kids is out there. We suppose this makes them not just a band for all ages, but a band for the ages. Bully for them! And for us—Nurse is the perfect recording to reinvigorate old fans who long ago got distracted by other stuff. It’s good—even great—enough to remind us why they were so mesmerizing in the first place. 110 N. 5th St., Minneapolis; (612) 338-3383; www.thequestclub.com