Author: rakemag

Could this be a subtle homage to wartime classics (read: Casablanca and The Third Man) that manages to stand on its own? Or is it a tired, nostalgic retread, the last refuge of an artistically fatigued director? Although it’s been six years since Soderbergh enjoyed a critical hit, word on the street is that he’s back in form with this one, a much-anticipated adaptation of Joseph Kanon’s acclaimed novel. When a magazine writer returns to Berlin to cover the Potsdam Conference—you know, that event that allowed the superpowers to carve up Germany like a Christmas turkey—he also stumbles on old loves and new murders. Along with moody, black-and-white cinematography and high-wattage stars (George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire), The Good German offers the possibility of some well-scripted, thoughtful holiday entertainment—the kind of movie the studios pumped out by the dozens in the golden age.

Almodóvar’s latest film is another feast of color and homage (this time to Frank Capra and Mildred Pierce) and also his first set in the backwater province of La Mancha, where the filmmaker grew up. Penélope Cruz stars as a woman who is—guess what?—pushed to the edge of insanity by her husband’s murder. Turns out the old bastard was trying to rape their daughter, who killed him in self-defense. Naturally, Cruz decides to bury the guy in a freezer and take the blame herself. Add to these female troubles the return of Cruz’s long-dead mother, a ghost who seeks forgiveness from her daughters. Oddly, critics here and in Britain have lashed out at this film (along with the recent Viva Pedro! retrospective), wondering why Pedro’s films are essentially manless, and, in the words of one detractor, do little more than rehash old themes and “flatter a [woman’s] self-esteem.” Like the best auteurs, Almodóvar will take his knocks … and keep on creating exactly what he wants.

In 1976, the Maysles brothers followed Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie around their dilapidated mansion, listening to these cousins of Jackie Kennedy Onassis ramble on about everything from fashion to philosophy to the vermin infesting their home. The resulting footage became Grey Gardens, a film whose status has ballooned from peripheral culthood into a Broadway musical and, soon, a major motion picture starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. The Beales of Grey Gardens is a sequel of sorts, cobbling together some of the footage edited out of the original—further odd and often funny gems of wisdom from the two sages.

Touchstone execs are hoping you’ll ignore Mel Gibson’s recent spate of troubles and concentrate instead on his newest fusion of religion and bloodletting. A heartwarming adventure timed to a holiday release, it’s the tale of a young warrior’s quest to save his family … all the while being tortured and mutilated (kind of like Christ). The Aussie madman’s on record as suggesting that his film is a parable about the decline of major civilizations, like one that “send[s] guys off to Iraq for no reason.” Of course, it’s now public knowledge that the people whom a drunken Gibson blames for said decline are not the gentiles in the White House.

Another holiday story comes loping in on its donkey—this one obviously hoping to reap a box-office triumph similar to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ but without that movie’s politics or gore (or big-name director). Shooting in many of the same locales as Passion, The Nativity Story seeks to tell the simple tale of Mary and Joseph come to Nazareth to deliver the baby Jesus—and show the world that you can praise the Lord without whips and nails. Director Catherine Hardwicke’s previous work has been limited to well-regarded explorations of the world of troubled teens (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown), a résumé that could make her the ideal choice for this story about a young woman impregnated (and no doubt tormented) by God.

Here’s one of those big, fat books that seem designed to either shame you or make you feel daunted, if not entirely stupid. The title is a scold, really, masquerading as a title—is that “Must” truly necessary? And an idiot can do the math: Are you realistically going to find the time to read 1,001 books before you die, let alone these 1,001 books? But book geeks are, of course, entirely helpless to resist such challenges—particularly when the list includes some doorstops (The Man Without Qualities), some dogs (American Psycho), and some books no sane person should have even heard of (The Albigenses). Still, that’s all part of the fun, and at the very least, the entries for each selection provide intellectual fake-book fodder for cocktail-party boors and dilettantes of every stripe.

It’s been a banner year for what highbrows call sequential art, what with a new volume of the splendid and absolutely sui generis Kramer’s Ergot and Ivan Brunetti’s An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories. The biggest revelation of all, though, might be Dan Nadel’s Art Out of Time, a beautifully designed collection of mind-blowing work by assorted whackos and obscurities. Most of the strips and panels Nadel has assembled have never been reprinted before, and some date from the earliest days of the twentieth century; in a few cases, he got his hands on the only surviving copies. While the majority of the artists in Art Out of Time will be unknown to casual and even hardcore fans, there’s a consistently freewheeling aesthetic at work here, and a formal daring that’s light-years ahead of its time.

Having won the Pulitzer Prize by focusing on the miniscule in his phenomenal book The Ants, Wilson turns to the macro with The Creation. Long interested in the intersection of humans and nature, Wilson made a name for himself in 1975 with Sociobiology, a foundational text on evolutionary psychology that got him branded by some as a Nazi and racist; however, he has since regained public acceptance as a champion of biodiversity. A respected scientist who is also an accomplished writer is a rare species, indeed, and with The Creation, Wilson tackles the survival of his chosen subject. Written as a series of letters to a Southern Baptist pastor, the book ardently celebrates nature’s complexity and calls humankind to fight for, rather than about, creation.

Who better to host a holiday show than a man who looks like Santa? The bearded and barrel-chested Bill Holm explores holiday phenomena with MPR’s Heather McElhatton and a collection of other guests, including musician Charlie Parr and writer R. D. Zimmerman. From the small town of Minneota, Minnesota, Holm is all homegrown wholesomeness, except for those stints in China, Africa, and Iceland, and that tenure at a historically black college. And then there are those radical leftist rants … but politics aside, Holm’s writings, such as The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth and Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays, explore the themes of place and heritage, telling his ancestors’ stories and reflecting on different cultures. His cosmopolitan bent and deep sense of tradition should make Holm’s commentary more than the usual tree-and-menorah nostalgia. 651-290-1200; www.fitzgeraldtheater.org

“I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a ferris wheel,” the incomparable E. B. White once wrote. This was the man who gave us the little girl named Fern, Wilbur the pig, Templeton the rat, and Charlotte, a spider who happens to be one of the most wondrous creations in all of fiction. No home should be without a copy of White’s Charlotte’s Web. There’s a new movie adaptation coming out, but skip it and read this beautiful new edition that’s tied to the movie release. Or buy it for someone you love. Read it and weep: “The Fair Grounds were soon deserted. The sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn. The infield was littered with bottles and trash. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all. No one was with her when she died.”