rakemag If you’ve never felt safe going to one of those imposing stand-alone sushi shops downtown, here’s a place to finally try it with the training wheels of a mall surrounding you. Despite its location on Calhoun Square’s second floor, the Bermuda Triangle of Hennepin & Lake, Sushi Tango is constantly full of the kind of … Read more
In our ongoing survey of bars that serve good food at odd hours, we’re pleased to report that Grumpy’s features an exhaustive—though occasionally sticky—menu of sandwiches, burgers, and delightful comfort foods, all of which we’d stand right up against the menus of any other bar anywhere in the city. We recently worked through a bad … Read more
While HBO continues to congratulate itself (deservedly so, we’ll admit) over the steamrolling successes of Sex and the City, The Sopranos, and Six Feet Under, it has neglected one of the most gifted and talented kids in the family. Showcasing the wonderfully reckless comedy of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, the network’s Mr. Show series … Read more
Those among us who spend too much time combing the shelves at video stores are all looking for the same score—the little movie we neglected to check out, or never heard of, that turns out to be a revelation. This one registered first as a curiosity: What, an Albert Brooks movie released straight to video? … Read more
It’s too bad that Akira Kurosawa’s last film isn’t one of his best; it feels slow and contrived and a bit too steeped in self-congratulation in the same way the later works of his hero John Ford did. But this story of a retired teacher and his devoted students is a fitting testament in other … Read more
The last time John Woo directed Nicolas Cage, it was in Face/Off, a hammy sci-fi shoot-em-up sandwiched between Cage’s throwaway turns in the clumsy flicks Con Air and City of Angels. Now the Hong Kong action specialist re-teams with his most vexing leading man for (of all things) a World War II flick—not the most … Read more
If you’re like us, you couldn’t help but wince at Gosford Park director Robert Altman’s loss to Richie Cunningham at this year’s Academy Awards, if only because Altman must have an all-time classic Oscar acceptance speech in him that’s just dying to get out. With any luck, he’ll get another shot before the decade is … Read more
“What, you thought this was another Pepsi commercial?” asks Wyclef Jean on his new single, “PJs”—not an ode to Mickey Mouse onesies, but rather a proud rally cry for anyone who grew up in public housing. Say what you will about this famously cocksure rapper-singer-guitarist-producer, but you can’t accuse him of selling out his own … Read more
It has become a bit of a cliché: Aging rocker rummages through decades of demos, acoustic tracks, original recordings, bootlegs, tablescraps, and cancelled checks to put on a sort of garage sale of wares for (with any luck) mass consumption. Most likely it’s only the die-hards and completists who take notice, but then that’s the … Read more
With Car Wheels on a Gravel Road in 1998, Lucinda Williams finally got the attention she so richly deserved. The Texan singer and songwriter had been toiling away to the beat of her own strummer for years, more content to drop out of the music biz than to compromise her own deceptively simple wheat-field lullabies … Read more