There was some surprise around town last week when the Minneapolis Fire Department said they’d already started selling advertising on city fire trucks. They’ll begin with hose covers promoting an unimpeachably responsible product: a smoking cessation program called Quit Plan. Still, thoughtful people were alarmed, and we were intrigued. When times are tough, our city … Read more
A five-year labor of love by French writer/director Sylvain Chomet, Triplets is a pure visual delight that ought to appeal both to young children and the snootiest of the arthouse crowd. Chomet’s warped sense of humor and sheer inventiveness keeps the film percolating with comic energy, reminding us that there’s more going on in the … Read more
Aki Kaurismäki comes from a land populated by emotionally reserved Nordic types and mosquito-breeding lakes, where it is cold and dark for six months out of the year. That would be Finland, though Fridley fits the bill. Specializing in low-budget movies that are smart, deadpan, and inspired equally by European art cinema and American rock … Read more
Remember the good old days of mom-and-pop bookstores? Back when Ruminator had healthy operations in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, we might have walked in the door, charged right up to the counter, and asked a real person: Can you tell which city readers are from by the books they buy? With the recent unpleasantness, … Read more
They don’t make them like Cary Grant any more. Sure, George Clooney’s got many of his good points—the good looks, the one-two combo of great comic timing and solid dramatic chops. But only the guy born Archibald Leach a century ago this month has so many classics to his credit that a three-week retrospective like … Read more
Language purists might think that the most alien thing about this nine-disc DVD set is the newly coined word in the title; we’re guessing Fox Home Video didn’t trust its audience to know that four related dramatic works are properly called a tetralogy. But whatever you call it, Sigourney Weaver’s sci-fi quartet (see, there’s another … Read more
Who’d have thought that a documentary about spelling would be one of the most tension-filled, broadly American films of the year? True, some of us here at The Rake find it fascinating to see a bunch of bright young folks on the fast track to careers in the glamorous field of magazine copyediting, but we … Read more
“You know, you’ve got beautiful nipples for piercing,” she said. “Yeah,” he replied. Zac was nervous—his voice unnecessarily loud and shaky. “You should do three to four piercings in these nipples,” she said. How old was he? Eighteen. Ever been to Saint Sabrina’s before? No. How long had he had the lip ring? About a … Read more
We’ve never cared for the term “blaxploitation,” but we do love the movies it describes—those early-seventies action flicks that explored the experiences of African-Americans in ass-kickingly cinematic terms. They’re very much of their time—funk and seventies fashion at its most outlandishly ghetto-fabulous—but also full of attitudes toward gays and women that wouldn’t fly today. And … Read more
Just six months after releasing The Man on the Burning Tightrope, acerbic New York combo Firewater returns with this collection of covers, a good showcase for their sense of the smartly sinister. We’ve got no argument with their song selection, a nice blend of the obvious (“Folsom Prison Blues”) and unexpected (“This Little Light of … Read more