Author: rakemag

If New Orleans is a state of mind, this double bill should transport you straight to the land of beads and gumbo … or, if you want to be literal and up-to-date about things, bulldozers and grandstanding. Cajun and zydeco represent two distinctly different moods and sounds of the south, but share a common gift for putting the dance in your pants. Nathan Williams plays a furiously fast accordion, and his band’s R&B-flavored numbers are sexy, classy, and steamy hot. BeauSoleil, meanwhile, explores the folk roots of French-Cajun music in robustly tuneful songs that range from romantic to contemplative to absolutely ebullient. Together, the joyous noise these bands make helps explain why people feel so fiercely about living out their days in what is now a disaster area. 13000 Zoo Blvd., Apple Valley; 952-431-9200

In a dizzying five-year spell in the 1940s, Preston Sturges created seven classic madcap comedies, leaving his indelible mark on the history of American cinema. Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board bring two of his best to the big, temporary screen in Loring Park as part of their popular Summer Music and Movies series. After a globe-trotting childhood, Sturges went on to invent kiss-proof lipstick and write several plays; luckily for us, the Depression forced him into screenwriting to pay his exorbitant bills. He whipped together breakneck comedies that are not just hilarious, but beautiful and touching, as well. Sullivan’s Travels (pictured) does a crazy send-up of Hollywood’s never-ending hubris, while The Lady Eve is the ribald tale of a gold-digger trying to land a beer baron. Watch for the title of the film-within-a-film in Travels: The Coen brothers made it into a real movie, the folk-music showcase O Brother, Where Art Thou? Loring Park, 1382 Willow St., Minneapolis; www.walkerart.org

This film proves what many of us have long heard as apocryphal rumor: The “automobile of the future”—the one that could slow the destruction of the ozone layer and temper the tensions between oil-producing and -consuming nations—actually did exist, right in the U.S. In the 90s, General Motors created the EV-1, a fast, efficient electric vehicle that produced no emissions; the praise heaped on today’s hybrids is nothing compared with the rhapsodic passion the EV-1 inspired in the few hundred Californians who leased it. So why was the entire fleet recalled and destroyed in the Arizona desert? This fascinating documentary explores that question and raises others about the motives of the forces that are running our country.

What do you get when you pair director Richard Linklater with the work of writer Philip K. Dick? A paranoid sci-fi vehicle that could have been called Dazed and Confused 2. Using the much-heralded “interpolated rotoscoping” (which involves doing animation over live-action footage), A Scanner Darkly is the strange story of Fred, a drug dealer in an America that has decisively lost the war on drugs, and his alter ego Bob Arctor, a cop. Bob, who is ordered to begin spying on his friends, ingests “substance D” in an attempt to keep undercover, develops a split personality, and spies on Fred. Conspiracies abound in this film, which takes place “seven years into the future.” Keanu Reeves, whose career is incredible if only for its unexplainable longevity, stars; two of Hollywood’s best crackpots—Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr.—add levity by spacing out in diners and shooting guns, when they’re not loafing in trees, trying to decode the secret messages in the Beatles’ Abbey Road.

A couple of years ago, a man at the airport asked us if it would be possible to see the Frank Gehry-designed Weisman Museum during his ninety-minute layover. We cringed in shame; given the sorry state of our mass transit system, ninety minutes would never get him there and back, much less offer time to explore the museum. But he just wanted to see the building, he said; he’d heard it was wonderful. And it is. Lest we locals stop seeing this marvel, here’s a film to remind us how lucky we are to have it here. Director Sydney Pollack chases his good friend Gehry around several of the architect’s shining creations, and explores the mind that gave shape to so many weird yet marvelous buildings.

Temple Grandin’s unlikely route to celebrity followed the path of cows to the slaughterhouse. Grandin has an exceptionally visual form of autism; her mind allows her to review memories and observations in a detailed, cinematic mode. She also believes that she thinks the way animals do. Grandin used both these skills to design a chute system, widely adopted by slaughterhouses, by which cows are more humanely delivered to their doom. Literary neuroscientist Oliver Sacks wrote about Grandin in his book of case studies, An Anthropologist on Mars, and Grandin followed this burst of attention with two books of her own: Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation. If she’s right about the way animals think, these books will give you new insight into the life of your dog. 3022 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; www.magersandquinn.com

Charles Darwin’s two-hundredth birthday is coming up, and in celebration comes a flurry of books about his life and work. This biography is an absorbing exploration of the life of a man who never allowed himself to be blinded by that which consumed his life—science. Quammen, a nature and travel journalist, who wrote Outside magazine’s witty “Natural Acts” column for fifteen years, humanizes the infamous Darwin with details of his personality and anecdotes about the endless and odd experiments that helped to develop and prove science’s most scrutinized theory.

Gautam Malkani has been called a male Zadie Smith and a Muslim Irvine Welsh, but the six-figure advance this debut novel reportedly earned him should temper any pique these burdensome labels may raise for the Financial Times reporter-turned-novelist. His tale about London’s “Rude Boys,” a breed of young Muslim men jockeying for respect in their ethnically divided neighborhoods, is loaded with the colorful slang that helped name these chaps, making for an engrossing and enlightening glimpse into a cultural phenomenon that is part of Britain’s new face.

Judy Blume wrote books about teenagers who felt like freaks in their changing bodies; Francesca Lia Block writes about the kids who truly are freaks, and proud of it. Block writes for adults with the same hazy sense of unreality and suspension of propriety as she did in Weetzie Bat, her story of an adventurous girl and her gay sidekick in Los Angeles. In Ruby, the title character comes from an abusive home but has a sixth sense that allows her to be at one with nature and to know her own destiny (her namesake jewel is believed to ward off evil spirits). Ruby travels to England to meet the actor she knows will be her soul mate, but struggles with escaping her past and surviving life’s obstacles.

Whether it’s sunny or sleeting, any day is a nice day to drive to Hudson for a brick-oven-fired pizza. With thin, chewy, Neapolitan-style crust, fresh-pulled mozzarella, and San Marzano tomatoes, every Brick’s pie has the sassy personality of Pulcinella, the beak-nosed Commedia dell’arte character. Smartly grilled paninis and a round of satisfying salads fill out the menu at this sleek eatery. Even better, your indulgence in this fare is actually an act of altruism: One hundred percent of the profits from Bricks go to Compassion Now, a charitable organization that provides aid to children and communities in developing nations. 407 2nd St., Hudson, WI; 715-377-7670; www.eatbricks.com