Author: rakemag

This saucy thriller has abundant pleasures, including an intelligent script that never once falters, a cast of strong supporting actors that includes Bill Nighy, and two of today’s best actresses unleashed in fury. Judi Dench, shedding her crown for a change, plays a British schoolmarm bent by her loneliness and a desire for younger women. She becomes friends with fellow teacher Cate Blanchett, then watches with glee as a spoiled housewife becomes sexually entwined with a fifteen-year-old student—that’s when Notes becomes at once a searing examination of relationships and gripping entertainment. Probably too brave for the Academy to recognize, Notes is also damn bleak, but somehow fun—a near masterpiece. 612-825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com

Nothing much happens in Old Joy, yet it has all the depths of a lonely walk in an unpeopled forest. Simply put, a young man on the verge of fatherhood takes a trip with a college friend who cannot find his place in the world. But with her camera low to the ground, director Kelly Reichardt shoots with a gravity reminiscent of the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. Her characters converse quietly, baffled by the routes their lives have taken, awed by Oregon’s forests and the embers of a fire flying into the night sky. Every gesture is fraught with meaning, every sentence a subtle revelation, and when the characters part with seeming casualness, we’re left reeling in our melancholy. 309 Oak Street S.E., Minneapolis; 612-331-3134; www.mnfilmarts.org/oakstreet

Peter O’Toole’s swan song. A pair of nearly forgotten, aging actors have shared their daily lives over pints and tea for decades, and find themselves intruded on by a teenage girl who arrives in town to look after her uncle. When she falls in with O’Toole, the spirits of both are boosted. In America, treatises on the elderly vary between the sour Grumpy Old Men and the saccharine Murder, She Wrote. But Venus comes from the salt-and-vinegar pen of Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid) and so becomes a sexually charged and at times brutally honest picture about being young and being old. The girl is confused and battered, as are all teenagers, and the elderly are men and women with desires, aching regrets, and, most importantly, a moving dignity. Check website for opening date: www.landmarktheatres.com

Already lauded with two best-picture awards, this second Iwo Jima picture from Clint Eastwood looks even more promising than the first (Flags of Our Fathers), which was no slouch. Looking much more brutal and unforgiving than Flags, not to mention creating a very forgiving portrait of a former enemy, Letters is certain to arouse controversy from the warmongers, still reeling from the last election and certain reports on our current conflict. 612-825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com

This story of Ofelia, a young girl trying to get by in post-World War II Spain, is billed as an adult fable. When her widowed mother marries and becomes impregnated by one of Franco’s most brutal captains, they are sent to a remote military academy under his tutelage. There, the girl retreats from the cruelty of her stepfather into a fantasy world that is both comforting and terrifying. In the tradition of great children’s literature, Pan’s Labyrinth invokes both fear and freedom; it has all the earmarks of a classic—one that may not be truly appreciated for years to come. 612-825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com

Some kids say that Garden State is the quintessential film for Generation Y. You’d think they could do better. But its marvelous soundtrack spirals around a couple of perfect songs by the Shins, a band that gives us abundant hope for the future of pop music. Their new album is the kind that reveals nuance and intelligence with every listen, but it only takes one listen to fall for these earnest, awkwardly tuneful, and exceptionally catchy songs. Singer James Mercer’s upper-register reveries, a wash of jangly guitars, and the smart-yet-goofy lyrics make us feel all over again the sweet heartbreak of standing on the edge of the rest of your life.

Cold winters in dark places have always inspired a rich interior life, and in Scandinavia, life indoors was traditionally warmed by music both hot and filled with light. Finland’s Varttina, a ten-piece outfit fronted by three stormy blondes, preserved some of its nation’s loveliest (and naughtiest) ancient folk songs early in its career. These days, though, the band is playing with electricity, blending traditional harmonies and vocal tricks into edgy, rock-influenced folk. They recently composed the music for the stage production of Lord of the Rings, and their latest album, Miero, comes from the same creative sessions, which means added drama and mysticism snakes through every song. 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-338-2874; www.thecedar.org www.thecedar.org

When someone was heard singing “Over the Rainbow” in a locker room recently, it inspired a roomful of clammy, half-naked people to comment. One rightly called it “a good song for when things aren’t so great”; another mistakenly described it as “a Judy Garland song.” Though Judy made it famous, it’s actually a Harold Arlen song. Arlen, the American songwriter who made many of the musicals of the 1930s and 40s so enduring, wrote for Garland, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong, among others. Here, singers Christine Rosholt, Bruce Henry, and Connie Olson, backed by the Rick Carlson Trio, pay homage. 1800 Old Shakopee Rd. W., Bloomington; 952-563-8575; www.bloomingtoncivictheatre.org

At forty, Kristin Hersh still sounds like the tormented teenager who founded Throwing Muses. These days, though, her rage has been tempered and sweetened by years of travel, parenting, music-making, and management of the bipolar disorder that ravaged her early life (and fueled some of the best punk rock ever committed to guitar by a woman). Raw, disorderly, and deeply beguiling, Hersh’s music is always an unfiltered expression of the world around her, which changes every few years as she picks up her family and moves around the country to try on another life. Her latest album, then, is like a collection of new pictures shot through a familiar lens.

The fact that Sibony’s father was a contractor has a lot to do with this thirty-two-year old New Yorker’s affinity for materials like foam insulation, hollow-core doors, cardboard, and the like. He assembles these humble goods into sculptures and installations that—as at last year’s Whitney Biennial—are curiously arresting if you don’t dismiss them outright as minimalist claptrap. In the face of dominant styles involving excess and bombast, the very simplicity of his work is refreshing, and has critics making comparisons to Richard Tuttle and Arte Povera. 527 Second Ave S.E., Minneapolis, 612-605-4504; www.midwaycontemporaryart.org