Author: rakemag

Worthington, Minnesota native O’Brien is best known as one of the more insightful writers to emerge out of the Vietnam War, chronicling the ongoing cost of the conflict in books like The Things They Carried , In the Lake of the Woods , and Going After Cacciato , which won the National Book Award in 1979. His new novel, July, July , moves beyond the war to take on a wider canvas, taking stock of the Baby Boom generation’s tortuous path through the decades. Starting out at a 30-year college reunion, July reunites a set of friends from the 1960s and explores how their lives changed between the 1960s and the new millennium, parsing how the idealistic innocence of their youth was transformed through the passing years. Think Big Chill II . This reading takes O’Brien back to his alma mater, where he got a degree in political science in 1968. Ruminator Books, (651) 699-0587, www.ruminator.com

Talented though he is, Dave Eggers was also the most overhyped author of 2000. For a while there you couldn’t go more than 10 minutes without hearing how the brilliant young memoirist of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was shaking up the staid world of publishing. That has toned down, thankfully, but Eggers is still that rare author with MTV prestige and the clout to go with it. Mostly Eggers has used his superpowers for good, reportedly giving away most of his profits from AHWOSG to charity and spearheading some very interesting cross-discipline literary art. This live show, a barrier-busting confluence of the book and pop-music worlds is a good example: a bridge between media that’s not undertaken often enough. On one side of the stage will be Eggers, showing slides and reading from his and others’ work from his celebrated journal McSweeney’s . On the other, geek-rock popsters They Might Be Giants, who’ll counterpoint each reading with a song, much as they did on the companion CD to McSweeney’s #6. The result will surely not be boring. You might hear something from Eggers’ new novel You Shall Know Our Velocity , which he is selling exclusively at 100 independent bookstores across the country—in a move that’s either commercial suicide, unparalleled hubris, or another of his sly PR-boosting enigmatic turns. Eggers is also signing at Ruminator earlier the same day. Fitzgerald Theater, (651) 290-1221, www.mcsweeneys.net

Talk about enlightened self-interest. This benefit, for 11-year-old Hendrix Johnson who suffers from a rare brain disease called Rasmussen’s Encephalitis, is a treasure trove of goodies. Paul Metsa and the Butanes, among others, provide the music. But dig the raffle and the silent auction—tickets to huge upcoming concerts like Cher’s farewell tour and Joe Cocker, seats at Timberwolves, Wild, and Vikings games, a DVD player, and gift certificates to dozens of the Twin Cities finest restaurants. Chalk it up to the deep community ties that Van and Katie Johnson—Hendrix’s parents—have developed, not just as owners of the Linden Hills Famous Dave’s, but as good neighbors in the finest Minneapolis tradition.

In the 19th century they called this a Chautauqua—a small group of professors or other assorted eggheads traveling the country to give lectures, spread wisdom, and just generally drop science. What this means to you is, grab the kids and get ready to fill your brain all the way to the top, because the Smithsonian Institution is sending three of its brightest our way for a series of performances and lectures. They include the cultural history curator at the National Museum of American History, Dwight Bowers, who’ll school us on the evolution of the American musical. Dr. Ed DeCarbo, former director of the national Museum of African Art, will talk about art and self-expression in African societies. And Dr. Michael Robinson, tropical biologist and former head of the national zoo, drops by the Minnesota Zoo for a kid-friendly arachnophile event ominously titled “Spiders!” 1-800-774-5020, www.culturefest.com

We’re not sure why Hollywood continues to be obsessed with Bret Easton Ellis, whose star rose and fell in the 80s, and we’re not convinced that his novels are the “scabrously hilarious” social commentaries we’re told they are. Seems to us that most of his books have an essentially voyeuristic appeal. American Psycho was less an allegory of the go-go 80s on Wall Street, and more an excuse to explore the deepest homicidal recesses of misogyny; Less than Zero was less a satire of the Cali culture that spawned the dark side of Beverly Hills 90210 than a front-row seat for a drug-induced teenage meltdown. And now we can expect The Rules of Attraction to be the big-screen literary equivalent of “College Girls Gone Wild.” Our point? Forget about the literary pretensions and excuses, don’t read the book, and just enjoy the show—directed by Roger Avary and starring Faye Dunaway, James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Jessica Biel, and—yes!—Fred Savage.

To answer the question “Is there anything more bizarre than a breezy sitcom set in a Nazi prison camp?” you need only look at the life and death of Bob Crane. When he wasn’t duping Klink and Schultz as Col. Hogan, he indulged in pornography—not just consuming it, but directing and starring in his own stag films. Whispers of his secret obsession began turning into career poison (remember: this was decades before the Vivid Girls and the Internet conspired to make porn safe for Middle America). What happened next is still one of Hollywood’s great unsolved mysteries: Around the time he apparently tried to clean up his act, somebody murdered him in an Arizona hotel room. The pedigree of the behind-the-scenes talent bodes well for the quality of Auto Focus . Producer Scott Alexander has made a niche for himself in off-kilter celeb biopics, scriptwriting The People Vs. Larry Flynt and Ed Wood . And Crane’s sordid story is perfectly suited for director Paul Schrader (the guy who wrote Taxi Driver and Hardcore ), a brand name you can trust for edgy films about fragmented neurotics hurtling toward their own destruction. As for the stars, Greg Kinnear matches Crane’s lightweight public persona, but rumors of his acting chops in darker material remain unconfirmed. On the other hand, Willem Dafoe can probably play Crane’s porn-partner (and likely killer) in his sleep.

Ah, the good old days (the 80s), when a throwaway, no-brainer sketch on SCTV or SNL could be stretched into a credible and hilarious full-length feature film. Of course, they’re still doing it—Adam Sandler, believe it or not, is one of the highest paid “actors” on the planet. But we have a special place in our hearts, not only for Canadians, but for this memorable portrayal of our northern neighbors by way of Bob and Doug MacKenzie, the Great White North’s most famous hosers. The truth of the matter is that Strange Brew was ahead of its time, and a whole raft of close-to-home comedies poking fun at people an awful lot like us followed thereafter—from Keillor’s Wobegon books to Fargo and the Red Green Show . Is it still funny 20 years later? Are you still drinking beer and wearing plaid? Extra Credit: Strange Brew is actually a radical reworking of Hamlet !

This is undoubtedly the film that put Jim Jarmusch into your consciousness in the late 80s, and it may have been your first introduction to the “art film” as a legitimate big-house screening. At the very least, it would have introduced you to Roberto Begnini, a formerly hilarious Italian comedian who imploded under the pressure of his own hubris after winning an Oscar for the highly problematic Life is Beautiful . (What, you didn’t notice you were in a concentration camp?!) Jarmusch here displayed an early view of his genius—writing the meanest of stories, and hanging it on the sparse performances (although not as mean or sparse as his earlier work, Stranger than Paradise ) of non-traditional actors—aside from Begnini, this film also stars uber-hipsters Tom Waits and John Lurie. Jarmusch is due for a major retrospective, and why not? Night on Earth, Mystery Train —his filmography includes some of our all-time favorites. Get a jump on the inevitable reissues.

Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune’s artistic partnership was one of cinema’s most rewarding. The dozen-plus movies they made together from 1948 to 1965 were some of the most influential of the period, and this quartet— The Seven Samurai , The Hidden Fortress , Yojimbo and its sequel Sanjuro —comprise the bulk of the two men’s samurai action films. They’re a highly entertaining showcase for Mifune’s rich physical expressiveness and Kurosawa’s masterful editing and deft cultural translation of American pulp-fiction forms into Eastern styles. Seven Samurai in particular has a resonant emotional depth, but even the breezy trifle Sanjuro shouldn’t be missed. Kurosawa was often criticized in Japan’s film community for being too Western in method, but we prefer to think he was able to distill a universal experience that cut across national boundaries. Maybe that’s also a reason why the English-language remakes of the first three—to wit, The Magnificent Seven , Star Wars , and A Fistful of Dollars —also stand out in their genres. The DVD extras here are rather thin: Seven Samurai has an erudite commentary track by film scholar Michael Jeck, Hidden Fortress a video interview with George Lucas. But a great film is a great film, and if these aren’t already in your collection, this box set is a good excuse to correct that error.

The weakness of most commercial photographers who try to do artistic work is that they simply don’t have the time to pull it off. Accustomed to working fast and clean, on assignment for big bucks, successful commercial photogs like Shawn Michienzi run the real risk of falling into auto-focus formulas. They have a hard time spending the emotional and mental capital it takes to make fully considered, intimately personal art for its own sake. This may seem like a weak or overly cute pretext for a show—beautiful, oversized color prints drawn together by the presence of a TV in each one, and it does suffer from a few vices of the commercial crossover (overwritten captions, rather like Zima ad copy, break the cardinal rule of visual art—never include text if you can help it; it’s too damn irresistable and doesn’t let your audience discover the nuances of the image itself). But if you can simply enjoy the eye candy that happens when a large format color camera and a skilled photographer meet, then all the rest is commentary. With a changing context, the traditional weaknesses become strengths: There is real visual relief in clean, clear, well-composed photos in a time that is otherwise marked by distressed, degraded, and accidental images. Icebox, (612) 788-1790