Category: Article

There is a large man in a small strip mall who knows a little something about eggs. Fat Nat’s is the kind of place that you pray will open in your neighborhood: There’s counter seating, glory be! When’s the last time you saw that in a strip mall? Posted signs will point out to you that Nat’s eggs Benedict is served with the traditional runny yolks, the way God intended them to be. The nontraditional could get Nat’s Benedict with chorizo; it’s a zippy little number. If it’s scrambles you crave, family and friends are represented on the menu with their favorite versions. If the 5 a.m. opening time isn’t your scene, Nat’s lunch burgers will hook you just the same. 3540 Winnetka Ave. N., New Hope; 763-540-0234

I’ll confess, I have never been a huge fan of Bob Dylan’s music; I don’t own a single record. But I am a huge fan of Bob Dylan. As historical music figures go, he’s someone who has always fascinated me and scared the crap out of me at the same time.

One theory I have about my fear of Zimmy is that as he aged, he seemed to take on the facial features of Margaret Hamilton, who played Almira Gulch in The Wizard of Oz. Tell me I’m wrong. Years ago I became obsessed with Don’t Look Back, the D.A. Pennebaker documentary on Dylan. I was riveted at his casual cruelty toward the hopelessly uncool reporters and was charmed by the gentility he exuded when coming face-to-face with a few of his adoring fans. His presence and talent were undeniable; there was an almost crazy religious vibe from the people who wanted to be near him, sitting at his feet all freaky-deaky disciple-like. Throw in the fact that he had the best hair ever captured on film, and you see the man and the legacy start to unfold.

The Dylan of today has just as much mystique. Even reinvented, he is still scary to me. Who else could rock that Vincent Price/House of Wax/cowboy look? It works. Surprisingly, I really wasn’t bothered by his somewhat creepy appearance in last year’s Victoria’s Secret commercials, in which he skulked around in the shadows of the giraffes in their matching bras and panties. I kind of took that as a sign that he has a sense of humor about himself and his image.

Now he’s written his memoir, Chronicles Volume I, and I can’t wait to read it. Fan of his music or not, I know how important a man he is and I want to know more. Then again, for all we know he’s probably slated to be on next season’s The Surreal Life, living in a house with Gary Coleman and Leif Garrett. I’ll get you, my pretty—and your little dog, too!

With Sideways, Alexander Payne and his writing partner Jim Taylor more than fulfill the promise of their brilliantly offbeat earlier films, Election and About Schmidt. In fact, we’re actually more partial to this one because it’s still very quirky yet at the same time eminently accessible. The refreshingly schlubby Paul Giamatti (fresh off American Splendor) plays an aspiring novelist traveling through through Northern California wine country on a weeklong bachelors trip with his libertine buddy Jack (Thomas Haden Church). This is basically a dude road movie, but one with Payne’s outstanding ability to make the American landscape, both natural and manmade, figure as deeply as any human character.

All right, all right, she may be America’s reigning movie queen, but whom can we petition for a moratorium on magazine covers featuring Ms. Kidman? Still, she and her child co-stars scared the bejesus out of us in The Others, and so we’re looking forward to this film, in which Kidman’s widowed character develops an intense rapport with a ten-year-old who claims to love her, and to be her dead husband reincarnated. Birth looks to be more of a psychological mystery (and a practical one—what’s this woman supposed to do with her new fiancé?), albeit one with a few supernatural shudders. Yes, it’s been branded “controversial,” and yes, it’s directed by Johnathan Glazer, who burst onto the scene with the acclaimed Sexy Beast a few years back.

One of the things we love about Italy is that its aristocrats see no problem in being communists. Take Luchino Visconti, probably the only filmmaker capable of adapting one of his country’s most cherished novels. The Leopard recounts the efforts of a Sicilian prince to preserve his family’s fortunes during the revolutions that would eventually
unify the Italian provinces. Casting Burt Lancaster as the prince was considered scandalous, but it was the price Visconti paid for Hollywood funding—and he ended up disowning the American version of the film. The happy ending to this saga is a new version by its cinematographer Guiseppe Rotunno, restored nearly to its original length, and no longer dubbed in English.

Frankly, if it’s well made we could watch a feature-length documentary on the invention of the toilet brush. Not to take anything away from Jonathan Caouette’s spellbinding debut, Tarnation, a Sundance honey that reimagines what a documentary can be. Using his Macintosh, Caouette wove snapshots, Super-8 home movies, and answering-machine messages into a portrait of an American family torn apart by mental illness and dysfunction. Beginning in 2003, when Caouette learns of his mother’s lithium overdose, the film follows him as he returns home to aid in her recovery. His raw display of self-destruction and rebirth announces the arrival of an exceptional new talent.

Director Marc Forster’s follow-up to Monsters Ball is a tale of magic and fantasy set in turn-of-the-century London, and based on the life of James Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Johnny Depp stars as J.M. Barrie, a kind of Toys ‘R’ Us man-child who befriends Kate Winslet’s four fatherless boys and relives his lost youth, imagining life as he wants it to be. Depp himself doesn’t cotton to the Peter Pan complex, having said in interviews that he enjoys growing old. Of course, though, he’s aging in a way that only the sexiest man alive can do. We’ll keep watching, that’s for sure. Also bumping this way up on our must-see list are roles featuring Julie Christie (unforgettable in Afterglow) and Dustin Hoffman, who’s going great guns lately.

Yarr, mateys. Here be a movie far more clever and entertaining than you’d expect from something based on a Disneyland theme park ride, produced by Armageddon’s Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by the guys who scripted Godzilla. A lot of the credit goes to Johnny Depp, who runs wild with his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, the buccaneer with a heart (and teeth) of gold, and mannerisms based on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. (Word is that Keef himself will make a cameo in the sequel, currently in production, as Sparrow’s father.) The good cast also includes alterna-heartthrob and erstwhile elf Orlando Bloom.

Mike Hodges, who made one of the best British crime films of the seventies in Get Carter, reteams with his Croupier star Clive Owen for another dip in the same dark, icy pond. Like Carter, Sleep involves a hard-as-nails gangster antihero who returns to his old haunts to exact vengeance on those who killed his brother. It’s a familiar trope of the genre, but, to his credit, Hodges seems more interested in approaching the material from odd angles than offering up the same old story once again, and he isn’t afraid to make the viewing audience (gasp) think a little bit.

American Music Club, a name chosen for its deliberately nondescript qualities, turned out to be perfect for a band that tied together so many strands of the American musical fabric—rock, folk, punk, country, even crappy lounge—into a remarkably distinctive sound that wove darkness into the shimmering light of pop choruses. The San Francisco band was led by the volatile gutter poet/singer Mark Eitzel, who often acted as his band’s worst enemy. AMC shows often disintegrated into uncomfortable backdrops for Eitzel’s onstage shot-glass rants and drunken showmanship. Ignored by MTV and radio, the band languished in relative obscurity in the U.S., while at the same time earning a sizable European cult following. Lavish critical praise finally made the major labels take notice. Cue vicious bidding war. With the unleashing of 1994’s San Francisco, college radio fell in love with songs like “Wish the World Away” and “Johnny Mathis’ Feet.” As with all things sad and beautiful, their ending was inevitable, and the band dissolved in the mid-nineties. And as with so many good (and not-so-good) things, now the band has reunited after nearly a decade. If you missed them on their first go-round, see them now or forever remain a dollar short in a two-dollar alternative rock world.