Author: rakemag

The fact that folk music around here not only outgrew the paisley and leather-fringe years, but continues to thrive, evolve, and inspire young musicians, is due in no small part to the passion of Red House Records founder Bob Feldman, who died last month. Feldman’s spirit will no doubt be the toast of many a guitar-toting songwriter at this event, a fundraiser for the Minnesota Folk Festival, which boasts a lineup featuring numerous friends of Feldman, including Red House artist and blues legend Spider John Koerner, guitar king Cam Waters, Ceili band Barram, and local folk sextet the Eddies. 910 Montreal Circle, St. Paul; www.minnesotafolkfestival.org

Zorn is the anti-Kenny G, an inveterate risk taker whose prodigious technical talent on the sax is matched only by his willingness to use it in radical ways. In his music, which he’s dubbed “radical Jewish culture,” the cacophonous coexists with the sublime, and complexity isn’t an end in itself but rather a means to full-flowered ecstatic expression. This program, dubbed “Zorn x 3,” is a typically ambitious undertaking for the New York artist, encompassing a conversation with Zorn (6 p.m.), a concert with his Electric Masada ensemble (7 p.m.), and several short experimental films with live accompaniment by members of the group (9:30 p.m.). An itinerary like this would exhaust most artists, but for the relentlessly creative Zorn, who leads several bands and a record label, and has a discography the size of a phone book, it’s another night out. With all due props to the talk and the films, it’s the Electric Masada gig that really has us excited. The group’s concerts are often as intense as a lightning strike, thanks to an all-star lineup of New York players such as guitarist Marc Ribot and drummer Joey Barron. Expect Zorn’s tzitzit to be swinging and his horn stinging as he lays down the heavy Jewish skronk. 612-375-7622; www.walkerart.org

The religious right is not only destroying America, but eroding the positive powers of religion by linking spirituality to values that are pro-money, pro-war, and pro-business, as well as anti-environmental and anti-intellectual. So says Rabbi Michael Lerner in his new book, The Left Hand of God, in which he also contends that these values will ultimately alienate thoughtful and spiritually minded Americans. (Maybe that’s the good news, if it means eventual change.) Lerner’s writings and his work as editor of the Jewish political magazine Tikkun have made him a polarizing figure in the Jewish world, particularly where Israeli-Palestinian matters are involved, so his appearance here, thanks to Magers & Quinn Booksellers, is bound to be lively and thought-provoking. 4537 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis; www.magersandquinn.com

Most girls with wide noses, goofy grins, or hair that won’t behave (much less cascade) don’t dream of making it as an actress. But unconventional beauty Lili Taylor is exceptional in that regard, and in many other ways, too. Her gift for inhabiting the essence of her characters–who quite often turn out to be crazy–is consistently stunning. Who else could elicit sympathy for a psychotic would-be killer (I Shot Andy Warhol), or stand up to a cocky River Phoenix as his “ugly duckling” joke date and win his heart in the end (Dogfight)? And who else might a Japanese man driving through a blizzard in Iceland find hitchhiking (Cold Fever)? Well, it sure wouldn’t be Gwyneth Paltrow.

When we asked Ms. Taylor her necessities for a trip to The Rake’s totally deserted desert island, she stuck to the straight and narrow, in practical terms. Perhaps we should have asked what she’d bring to Gilligan’s Island instead. You could ask her yourself when she comes to the Walker this month for a retrospective of her work in nearly forty films, and a discussion of life in the indie lane. Meanwhile, on a desert island, Taylor would wish for these things:

1. A Leatherman multi-purpose tool. These things are way better than a Swiss Army knife. If I had the most souped-up Leatherman available, I could deal with many situations on my island.

2. Matches. Fire, for warmth and food.

3. Iodine tablets. Then I could drink the water, no matter how scary it was.

4. A pen with limitless ink. If I could write down my thoughts, I wouldn’t go insane.

5. In Search of Lost Time, Volumes I, II, and III by Marcel Proust. First of all, there is so much of it, chances are good that I might not even get to finish it. You can read the same passage over and over and still need to read it again. A lot of Proust’s stuff is about the actual moment, the reflection upon that moment, and the memory of it in the present that then transmogrifies the original moment. I imagine I would become very aware of present and past moments on this island, and with all that time to reflect, I think Proust is the one to help me do it artfully.

Lili Taylor appears at Walker Art Center on February 4 as part of its Regis Dialogue series. She’ll discuss her career with critic B. Ruby Rich; screenings of her films Short Cuts, Dogfight, Arizona Dream, Household Saints, I Shot Andy Warhol (with The Addiction), Girls Town, and Factotum run February 3 – 19. 612-375-7622; www.walkerart.org

French/Austrian director Michael Haneke forces the viewer to take the point of view of a stalker in this dazzlingly complex thriller, which topped many a critic’s list for 2005. Daniel Auteuil–and Juliette Binoche–star as a middle-class Parisian couple whose lives are disrupted by a series of increasingly personal surveillance tapes sent to them anonymously. Each tape contains clues, but it’s not always clear if what is onscreen is the film’s action, the stalker’s video surveillance, or footage from the tapes played by the victims on their television.As the story unfolds, a sordid event from the husband’s childhood surfaces, and the mystery culminates in one of the most shocking scenes of despair you’ll ever see. This film offers a challenge to one’s perception of reality, as well as a subtle parable on Western attitudes and bigotry. 612-825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com

Inspirational and occasionally outlandish, this Anthony Hopkins vehicle is a satisfying throwback to old-style, crowd-pleasing cinema. Reuniting with director Roger Donaldson, who took him to great heights in the underrated Bounty, Hopkins plays Burt Munro, the feisty New Zealander who came to America in the 1960s, intent on breaking the world’s land-speed record with his beat-up 1920 Indian motorcycle. 612-825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com

We would have given you decidedly long odds on the chances of us falling for a dandified, self-absorbed porcelain rabbit, yet the latest story from the Newbery Award-winning novelist Kate DiCamillo (whose "See How Far You Get" we published last June) has as much darkness and light, terror and love, and real human warmth and redemption as any book you’ll find in any section of the local Barnes and Noble. Go ahead and look all you want. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is nothing less than a classic fairy tale, and the gorgeous, frequently chilling color illustrations of Bagram Ibatoulline are a perfect complement to DiCamillo’s heartbreaking (and heart-mending) tale. This isn’t simply another kid’s book; this is a book for everybody who still believes it’s possible to be transformed by stories, by art, and by love. 651-290-1221; www.fitzgeraldtheater.org

We used to champion Steven Soderbergh for his versatility and, even more so, the utterly spastic subversion that he wrought with the little-seen Schizopolis. But then he kept inserting Julia Roberts into his films, and, by the time of Ocean’s Eleven and Twelve, seemed to have coasted off, down Easy Street. Now he appears to have reverted to his oddball ways with this tale; shot in a depressed Ohio town, it uses resident, nonprofessional actors who plod through a plot that is at times comically dull. Resolutely avoiding glamour and artfulness and escapism, Bubble calls to mind such disparate films as Dogville, Waiting for Guffman, and American Job. Whether it’s crucial or inconsequential or both, Soderbergh seems to be trying to say something about Americans and American film. www.landmarktheatres.com

Robinson’s Gilead is one of the truly great and revelatory novels of the last decade. This is a quiet and almost impossibly elegant meditation on life, faith, doubt, and death–issues Robinson tackles with graceful prose that never feels labored and is suffused with gentle yet devastating shocks of wonder. Gilead has the potential to change the way you look at the world, and to make you re-evaluate your place in it. Robinson, who lives and teaches in Iowa City, has also written two books of nonfiction that address everything from religion to the dilemmas facing contemporary society, which should make for a wide-ranging conversation for her appearance as part of the “Talking Volumes” program. It’s been a banner year for the series, what with Joan Didion, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Kaye Gibbons, but as far as we’re concerned, Robinson is the clear highlight. 651-290-1221, www.fitzgeraldtheater.org

If the wild West still exists anywhere in North America, it’s along the Rio Grande, the border between the U.S. and Mexico. This film, the second directed by Tommy Lee Jones, who also stars as rancher Pete Perkins, explores the emotional and geographical terrain along that great divide. A Mexican man, Melquiades Estrada, is shot by a border cop and unceremoniously abandoned in the Texas desert. The body is found, thanks to a hungry coyote, and buried in a town cemetery. Then Estrada’s friend Perkins insists that the body be disinterred, and accompanies the decaying corpse on an arduous journey through the gorgeous Mexican wilderness. 612-825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com