rakemag

Anchee Min has been remarkably lucky at least three times in her life. As a reward for her loyalty to China’s Maoist regime, she was selected by Madame Mao to star in a government-produced film. Her good fortune wasn’t long lasting, though; Mao’s death and the end of his regime sent Min back into the … Read more

A literary follow-your-heart poster girl, Elizabeth Berg worked as a nurse for a decade, pulling bedpan duty while inventing imaginary worlds in her mind. Such mundane jobs are a boon to writers, of course; if nothing else, they liven up a resume. Berg surely witnessed a thousand dramas and characters in her job, some of … Read more

Portuguese Nobel Prize laureate Jose Saramago is a contemporary Kafka, spinning existential fantasies built around his obsessions with the nature of vision, insight, perception, and imagination. In his books he grounds these philosophical preoccupations through everyman characters and settings so vibrant, distinct, and outlandish they confound attempts to connect them to any specific time and … Read more

Sebastian Junger’s career resembles, at times, an Indiana Jones movie. As a journalist he’s traveled to war zones in Sarajevo, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan–in that last country, he tracked down Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Taliban resistance, shortly before he was killed. He’s also immersed himself in often-harrowing vocations like smoke jumping and commercial … Read more

It’s always been something of a feat for Minnesota Film Arts, a small but stalwart nonprofit, to pull off this annual, all-you-can-eat buffet for cinephiles. It’s been in large part a labor of love on the part of the legendary Al Milgrom, who only recently underwent bypass surgery. Considering that, along with the financial trials … Read more

Photographer Sharon Lockhart is better known for her still images, which she stages as meticulously as a filmmaker might set up a shoot. Rather than capturing the moment, her work creates the moment, igniting different stories for each viewer. Likewise, her films ride this tension between truth and fiction, even when she’s in documentary mode. … Read more

A feller employs a crack marketing team to dress him up as a modern-day cowboy, and the whole shebang works like a charm–gets him elected, even. But then those dang movie folks come along to cause trouble. First it was those gay shepherds, passed off as cowboys, and now this movie by some German guy, … Read more

Sophie Scholl was one of the few female members of The White Rose, a resistance group that waged its war against Hitler with leaflets and graffiti at the University of Munich. Marc Rothemund’s Oscar-nominated picture re-imagines the final six days of her life–from the mission that got her arrested to her execution just six days … Read more

The sweat dripping off the guitarist’s nose, the brand of beer the singer swigs between songs, the exact wording of the rude phrase on the drummer’s T-shirt: These are details you just won’t catch from your seat at the bar. Concert films are great for filling in those gaps, and for preserving the inspired mix … Read more

Jeff Feuerzeig appears to have plenty of years left, but he feels he’s already completed his life’s work: the film The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Since first encountering Johnston’s music more than twenty years ago, Feuerzeig has felt it was his divine duty and unique privilege to make a film about its creator. He began … Read more