Author: rakemag

They were the Mr. Show of their day—sarcastic, wildly inventive, and a hit with the college crowd, but sometimes almost a little too smart for their own good. And that’s why Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and sometimes Zeppo have stood the test of time, while Charlie Chaplin now seems mawkish and Laurel and Hardy seem quaint. (For purposes of this argument, pretend Harpo’s lo-o-o-ong musical interludes never happened.) When given free rein, they were zany and anarchistic, with no regard for dramatic structure, if there was a joke to be had. The Three Stooges had the attitude but were almost entirely slapstick, lacking the crazed insouciance of Harpo’s mime-from-Mars shtick and Groucho’s machine-gun genius for loopy punning riffs. (“You can leave in a taxi. If you can’t get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that’s too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.”) Though some of his dialogue was scripted, his wit was the real thing, and he delivered his daggers with dry, eyebrow-wagging, subtle hostility and the skill of a Charlie Parker. This series screens what’s generally agreed to be the four best films, but if you only see one, see Duck Soup , their gleefully scathing satire of dictatorship, war, and mirror impersonation. It was the zenith of their madcap style, but audiences weren’t ready for it in 1933. When it bombed, the Brothers changed strategies (and studios) for A Night at the Opera , their biggest popular success but the start of a slow slide into suffocating structure and tacked-on romantic subplots. Oak Street Cinema, (612) 331-3134, www.oakstreetcinema.org

A Harry Potter book is that rare children’s title we’ll read in public without shame, not even hiding the cover under a Thomas Pynchon dust jacket nor claiming loudly that we’re “just holding it for someone else.” Truth be told, we’re looking forward to Book Five more than Film Two. But while J.K. Rowling continues to struggle with Order of the Phoenix , now delayed until 2003, Chris Columbus’ film franchise zips forward. It has the advantage this time of lowered expectations—not to say that it won’t do huge box-office, but Pottermania has died down since its peak. Having met expectations with the first film, the main thing now is for Columbus not to screw this one up, and wreck the rest of the series. It helps that the story is less byzantine than subsequent installments, which all begin to feel like setup for whatever Rowling has planned for the seventh novel. In this episode, something is turning students at the Hogwarts wizardry school into stone, and when suspicion falls on Harry, he and his friends have to track down the real culprit. Kenneth Branagh comes on board as Gilderoy Lockhart, Harry’s insufferably vain new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Lockhart provided some of the books’ best laughs, and while we think Branagh’s a better Shakespearian than a comic actor, he can certainly pull off pomposity.

Just about the only thing these three films have in common, besides starring William Holden and beginning with the letter S, is director Billy Wilder. He was a director equally at home with chilling psychological breakdowns and sunny romantic comedies, and had a rare aptitude for coaxing just the right tone from his lead actors to color the mood of his films. Sunset Boulevard is the best of his career, a twisted, claustrophobic descent into the madness of obsolete movie queen Norma Desmond, superbly portrayed by Gloria Swanson, whose final close-up is one of the iconic images of screen dementia. Holden’s cynical screenwriter was a fine foil for Swanson’s shrill petulance and unnerving stare. But of his three performances here, we’ll take him in the prisoner-of-war thriller Stalag 17 . The actor won his only Oscar as the disillusioned sergeant whose facility at fleecing his fellow POWs backfires when someone in the camp is suspected of being a German spy—and he must find out who before his bunkmates happily string him up for the crime. Wilder had a nice touch for comic romance too, but we’d point you toward The Apartment , not Sabrina . No movie with Audrey Hepburn’s elfin innocence can be all bad, but she’s got zero chemistry with dour and much older Humphrey Bogart.

This Christmas season, is there any better way to say “I love you” than to make someone watch a 300-pound transvestite eat dog excrement? The only honest answer here is “yes.” We joke, because we love. But if you’ve got a strong stomach or need to buy a gift for someone who does, feast on this six-pack from John Waters. The self-proclaimed Pope of Trash, Waters was a no-budget Baltimore filmmaker with a taste for true weirdness and a group of likeminded deviants (like the gigantic Frankenstein-fabulous Divine) all willing to do anything to help get their movies noticed. We mean anything. His early films can’t be called good by any normal meaning of the word. But he knew how to pile on the shock value, presenting a warped and scatological vision of a suburbia populated by freaks and perverts (there are chickens involved sometimes, and that’s all we’ll say). The shocks were so appalling that you can’t help but admire his audacity—Waters was the Ionesco of the sewer, the original Johnny Knoxville of the big screen. Divine’s between-meal snack makes Pink Flamingos still his most infamous movie, but each of the pre-Hairspray bunch here go for broke in their own lurid way. True, the man mellowed with age. Hairspray is his cracked, nostalgic look back at the world of 1960s TV dance shows. It’s still utterly strange judged against mainstream teen-dance stuff like Footloose . But when you can only describe a John Waters comedy with words like “sweet” and “sentimental,” something very strange is going on. That’s an attitude completely at variance with the ironic vulgarity he’d embrace again for Cecil B. Demented , but he nails Hairspray’s abnormal innocence with surprising aplomb.

The Vikings thought the northern lights were the unearthly spirits of Valkyries pointing the way to the warrior’s afterlife in Valhalla. Eskimos thought they were evil spirits who decapitated the heads of children for sport. A former BBC documentarian tells a true story no less strange and tragic in The Northern Lights . Turn of the century Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland was obsessed with unlocking the mystery of what causes the aurora borealis, believing (correctly, as it turned out) that it was the interaction of solar wind with the Earth’s magnetic field. It was a gifted deduction, but after that his career was guided by an unlucky star. Other scientists refused to accept his unorthodox theories, forcing him to scrounge for money as an inventor. Despite some spectacular successes, that backfired when his business partner attempted to cheat him out of his profits, and even scuttled Birkeland’s Nobel Prize nomination out of jealousy. Meanwhile, Birkeland became so fixated on scientific pursuits that he absentmindedly double-booked his own wedding, and began to spiral into drug abuse. Strung out and paranoid, he died alone in a Japanese hotel room, armed with a pistol to protect himself from the British spies he thought were out to steal his ideas. (A fear that may not have been entirely unfounded.) As is so often the case, his ideas were accepted only years later, long after it was too late to halt his downward spiral. Jago’s clear prose, quoting extensively from the letters of Birkeland and contemporaries, is a worthy attempt at posthumous vindication. It’s also a compelling portrait of an archetypal unheralded genius, destroyed by forces both external and internal. Ruminator Books, (651) 699-0587, www.ruminator.com

For some reason Ebay has inspired more than its share of goofy pranks and not-quite-legit satirical auctions—we still get a chuckle over the guy who tried to sell his soul to the highest bidder. But a few people have crossed the line from prank to performance art, including John Freyer, an Iowa grad student, graphic designer, and snowboard instructor. Tired of the clutter and kitschy junk that was starting to overwhelm his life, Freyer decided to go one step beyond an everyday garage sale and sell off all his possessions on the online auction site—a Slinky, a canned ham, a beat-up green couch, and more. As each item sold, he recorded the details on his own web site, allmylifeforsale.com, capping off the project by selling off the domain name itself. The truly inspired part is what he did next: Using the proceeds from the sales, he took the project off the Internet and on the road, traveling around the country visiting his old possessions and the people who now owned them. Initially he wrote up these experiences as an online travelblog, and those writings have now been collected and expanded into a book, like his website titled All My Life For Sale . Designed by Freyer himself, it’s a quirky look at the American love of material goods, casting a clever eye on the way we define what is junk and what is treasure. If it’s true that the things you own end up owning you, Freyer is a free man. Ruminator Books, (651) 699-0587, www.ruminator.com

If you’re one of the many Lundgrens or Nelsons or Nordbergs living in these parts, some of your ancestors’ belongings might very well be on display here. This traveling Smithsonian exhibit showcasing Old Norse culture and heritage makes its final stop in St. Paul. Encompassing more than 300 artifacts, it’s so large that the Science Museum literally had to knock down walls to make room for it. Artifacts on display include some beautifully crafted Viking jewelry and weapons, including the 1,000-year-old, silver-inlaid Mammen Axe, and some historic Icelandic manuscripts so valuable that their Parliament had to OK their inclusion in the exhibit. In a kid-friendly Viking Village, the littlest Olafs and Sigrids can clamber around a model ship, dress up in the latest in 11th-century fashion, and even find out what Viking bathrooms looked like, which might be more information than we needed to know. The exhibit will also work to show that the Vikings were more than just barbarian raiders, but accomplished artisans and sailors of truly astounding skill who beat Columbus to the New World by half a millennium. (We can think of some other Vikings who could use some image rehabilitation too, but that’s another story.) Science Museum of Minnesota, (651) 221-9444, www.smm.org

This isn’t officially a family event—it features the world premiere of three new works by Bill Young, Mark Haim, and Wynn Fricke, undeniably Big People in the world of choreography. But we know from experience that kids love Zenon—not only because the 20-year-old local institution has always embraced the little folks in dozens of awesome dance and movement classes throughout the year, but also because, at its core, the company captures the spirit of youth. An essentially sunny disposition, extreme athleticism, and an easy intimacy—these are qualities children of all ages can vibe on, and what better opportunity than helping observe this landmark event in local dance? Book tickets now for this very limited run. You only turn 20 once! Zenon Dance, www.zenondance.org, (612) 338-1101

After long and dreary years in the comedy wilderness, inflicting duds like like Life Stinks and Robin Hood: Men in Tights on innocent moviegoers, Mel Brooks went back to square one. He took his 1968 cult classic (and still best) film and rewrote it as a Broadway musical; nicely ironic considering it’s about two schlemiel impresarios and a get-rich-quick scheme to stage a deliberately disastrous Broadway flop. Packed with gags, Borscht-Belt quippery, and a vastly expanded set of musical numbers, the result was a less acidulous, more loving send-up of old-time vaudeville, and proof that Brooks hasn’t lost his touch after all. In fact, The Producers was the surprise Broadway sensation of 2001, nabbing a record 12 Tony awards, near-unanimous critical raves, and more sellout crowds than even Springtime For Hitler ever got. Be warned that you won’t be seeing Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, stars of the original New York run; the traveling show features non-household names Lewis J. Stadlen and Don Stephenson. The reviews have been no less ecstatic, though. Orpheum Theatre, (612) 339-7007, www.hennepintheatredistrict.com

If Groucho Marx were a brooding existentialist French playwright, he’d be Eugene Ionesco, creator of the Theater of the Absurd. In fact, Ionesco was much influenced by Groucho’s anarchic spirit and irrepressible verbal dynamism, although Ionesco’s creations were far more surreal, not to mention darker and nihilistic. It’s surprising how much humor there is to be had in the theme that life is ultimately pointless, hopeless, and empty. (We know it’s always a hit when we bring the subject up at parties.) The Chairs follows an aging couple, unhappily married for 75 years and growing more decrepit by the day, who hire an orator to help them pass on their collected wisdom to younger generations, so they can die in peace. The audience they hope for never seems to arrive, but the room fills up with an ever-increasing amount of empty chairs. Echoing this total failure to communicate, the never-named man and woman are growing further apart from each other as senility makes him lose touch with the past and her with the present. This is heavy stuff, shot through with humor caustic enough to eat through sheet-metal. This production is directed by Daniel Aukin, on loan to the Guthrie Lab from New York experimental theater Soho Rep. Guthrie Lab, (612) 347-1100, www.guthrietheater.org