Author: rakemag

David Cronenberg is infamous for his unique style of horror filmmaking. His films—among them The Fly, Naked Lunch, and Dead Ringers—gaze with icy formalism on worlds where biology has gone mad. They’re a catalogue of physical breakdowns, sexual dysfunctions, florid mutations and hallucinations. His latest, Spider, based on Patrick McGrath’s novel, stars Ralph Fiennes as a muttering, schizophrenic Londoner struggling to make sense out of his fractured relationship with his mother (Miranda Richardson, terrific in a triple role). Quieter and largely grue-free, it’s still a clearly Cronenbergian film, and his best in years.

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s marvelous trilogy provided a worthy capstone to his three-decade career as a leader in European cinema. He retired after finishing Red, and died two years later. Similar to his Decalogue series reinterpreting the Ten Commandments, Three Colors is nominally a loose exploration of the Revolutionary slogan of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Kieslowski himself downplayed this in later interviews, saying he merely wanted to tell stories about people, but that he could get financing from across all of Europe if investors were given the hard sell on the trilogy as noble ideological artifact. And it’s true that each movie can be seen separately, as three unconnected love stories, without becoming incomprehensible. (Juliette Binoche’s powerfully understated performance in Blue is surely worth singling out.) Still, the thematic connections are there, and trying to make them is a good part of the trilogy’s fun. Liberty intertwines with grief, equality with revenge, fraternity with loneliness, and all connect with Kieslowski’s overarching interest in how random caprice shapes our lives.

Wolfgang Petersen’s early 80s submarine actioner was a surprising hit in America, netting six Oscar nods and much bigger audiences than would normally have turned out for a brooding German drama with an unhappy ending. While sub thrillers had been around long enough for cliches to stick like unwanted barnacles, Petersen found something fresh by combining nailbiting battle sequences with a documentary-like depiction of what serving underseas was like. Namely, claustrophobic and often monotonous, punctuated by moments of exhilaration and terror during combat. Especially in the 3.5-hour director’s-cut version here, Boot remains unsinkable. No sub movie since has been able to top it, and all have quoted from it. Especially effective are the sound effects, ratcheting up tension and transforming the ship itself into a character, its pressure-battered hull creaking and moaning like an angry whale.

We know some of you wonder what it is with this little Swedish movie that makes it the quasi-official foreign film of the Blockbuster crowd. Our guess is somewhere along the lines of New York Times critic Luke Y. Thompson, who called it “a tad overrated, but still charming.” True enough. Director Lasse Hallstrom’s later work includes The Shipping News, Chocolat, The Cider House Rules, and the utterly brilliant What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and his first crossover hit touched on something that keeps people coming back. But more than that, My Life as A Dog is decidedly palatable, fresh in that foreign-film way, but not so unfamiliar as to be “difficult.” Set in the 1950s, the coming-of-age tale follows Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius), a 12-year-old whose mother is dying of tuberculosis and whose father has ditched. Ingemar must confront the stirrings of puberty, confusion, and affection—and loss, grieving, and release when his mother and beloved dog die.

Brainerd’s gift to Broadway, Linda Eder has come a long way since the 12-week winning run on Star Search that first put her in the national spotlight. A successful run in Jekyll and Hyde cemented her place on the stage and netted her a husband in its composer, Frank Wildhorn. Her albums have grown steadily stronger, especially after she shook off a creeping case of Streisand-worship and staked out a vocal mode of her own. Her strength is her unabashed emotionality; it’s also her weakness, as she can sometimes punch her way right through and over the top. Later this year she’ll star in Camille Claudel, a new musical about the life of the sculptor and lover of Rodin, written specifically for her by Wildhorn. Her Orpheum show will surely be an occasion to preview a few numbers from Camille, plus selections from her new collection of classic stage standards, Broadway My Way. Orpheum, 910 Hennepin Ave., (612) 339-7007, www.hennepintheatredistrict.com

There’s been no new Boiled in Lead record since 1998’s best-of Alloy, but nobody’s yet come along to take over the reins as Minnesota’s premier Irish band. Though even that title is ironic—or perhaps we should say Eire-onic—since the BiL crew’s penchant for rock and world rhythms makes clear that shamrocks are not the only things that make them shake. These days, the four principals are chiefly occupied with other projects. So Leadheads can fill up at a live show but twice a year—during Halloween if you’re down in Mexico, and the annual St. Paddy’s day bash at the Ave, which has been ongoing since 1985, and why stop a good tradition? First Avenue, 701 1st Ave. N., (612) 338-8388, www.first-avenue.com

Christian McBride made his name as a bright light among jazz bassists with five progressively more adventurous albums on the Verve label, culminating in 2000’s Sci Fi, which found him more sure-footed as a bandleader and skillfully interweaving the threads of his previous work. He moves over to Warner for his new fusion-friendly Vertical Vision, which wanders nicely between hard funk and mellow smoothness. His sidemen are strong players in their own right, especially saxman Ron Blake and keyboardist Keezer, each of whom provide splendid compositions of their own on Vision. Dakota, 1021 E. Bandana Blvd., St. Paul, (651) 642-1442, www.dakotacooks.com

In the classic arts, things remain decidedly nationalistic. Just as the Italians get most of the credit and attention for opera, the English seem to command center stage in dramatic theater. And bridging the two, though often dismissed, are the Germans, who not infrequently bettered their cultural neighbors in both categories. Wagner, no matter what you think of him, was a colossus of opera. And his poetic forebears, Goethe and Schiller, got as close as anyone will to equalling Shakespeare. Park Square offers here the world premiere of a “new adaptation” of Schiller’s classic play about Mary Queen of Scots’ sudden-death-overtime with Queen Elizabeth I. We’re not sure this classic needed a new treatment. But we’re all for a new staging of the play, widely believed to be the best treatment of one of the most popular dramatic subjects. Park Square, 20 W. 7th Place, St. Paul, (651) 291-7005, parksquaretheatre. org

Playwright Gavin Lawrence garnered good notices for Cut Flowers, a dark and often angry drama set among low-wage workers in Washington. His latest, warmhearted family comedy, Salt Fish, has a lighter touch. It’s based on the history of his own family, which emigrated here from the South American country of Guyana, and especially his grandmother, a nurturing matriarch who filled his head with stories and his stomach with the tasty piscine dish of the title. Lawrence directs and acts in this production, which also stars Karen Malina White of TV’s Malcolm & Eddie. Mixed Blood, 1501 S. 4th St., (612) 338-6131,mixedblood.com

Naked people have not yet become boring to the artists of the world. When Icebox owner Howard Christopherson put out a call for artworks based on the human nude, he was sent so many entries—500, from seven countries—that he doubled the size of the show. In total, 112 artworks made the cut, encompassing photography, body painting, watercolor and oil paintings, sculpture, and digital media. Naturally Christopherson has included a few items that frankly seem a bit, erm, erotic (“You have to. That’s part of the deal,” he notes dryly). But there’s an impressive range of mood on display, from Ken Weissblum’s Daliesque “Frames” to J.E. Jasen’s “Lover’s Brooch,” a wrought piece of jewelry with an eye in the middle to keep watch over straying sweethearts. Don’t miss the short but funny documentary on legally blind photographer Flo Fox and her (ahem) “Dicthology” series, a bawdy celebration of artfully costumed organs, and we don’t mean Wurlitzers. Icebox, 2401 Central Ave. N.E. (612) 788-1790, www.iceboxminnesota.com