Category: Blog Post

Movie musicals–I love ’em. This magical celluloid hybrid of dancing, singing, acting, and (very importantly) cinematography simply amazes me. If Broadway’s your bag, that’s wonderful, but I’ll take cinema’s version any day: on stage, it would impossible to track Gene Kelly as he splashes through the Hollywood streets in that iconic scene in Singin’ in the Rain. To make that scene perfect, you need the camera swooping around the hoofer as his umbrella swings around and around, and then you join him as he ascends the streetlight, the camera rising to meet him in the sky… simply awe-inspiring. Furthermore, if you want to experience the full force of these treasures, well, get thee to the big screen, my friend. This week, our pals at the Parkway Theater are presenting, for our viewing pleasure, two sassy little Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra MGM numbers, On the Town and Anchors Aweigh.

On the Town is a personal favorite, the first MGM musical to be filmed on location in New York City. The story, as usual in a movie musical, is nothing more than cotton candy: three sailors, Gabey, Chip and Ozzie, (Kelly, the Frank, and horse-faced Jules Munshin, respectively), have a one-day leave. So they decide to hit the town, visit all the sights, drink milkshakes and dance… you know, like sailors do on leave. Along the way, our heroes meet three girls–the saucy cabdriver Brunhilde Esterhazy (Betty Garrett–what a cutie) who lusts after Chip with singular determination; the anthropologist Claire Huddesen (Ann Miller, whose last role in this world would be the creepy landlady in David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr.), who sees in Ozzie the remnants of a sexy prehistoric man; and Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen), Miss Turnstiles, a dancer whom Gabey falls in love with.

By some insane coincidence, Miss Turnstiles is from the same milkshake-and-clover small town that Gabey also calls home, there’s a mean old Russian piano teacher who has Ivy in her clutches, and a horrible running gag about Lucy Shmeeler (Alice Pearce) being just about the ugliest woman in the world (it’s actually quite disturbing how they make fun of this poor lady). But the musical numbers are dynamite, with its book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who gave us the masterpiece Singin’ in the Rain). Despite the fact that it was filmed on the Brooklyn Bridge, in Rockefeller Center, and the Empire State Building, directors Stanley Donen and Kelly (again, the minds behind Singin’) gave On the Town the needed intimacy that one would usually associate with a movie shot in a studio soundstage. And being a Gene Kelly musical it has one of those crazy dance sequences toward the very end.

Anchors Aweigh is also highly regarded–it’s famous for the scene with Gene dancing with the cartoon mouse Jerry. Frank Sinatra’s also in tow, and the pair also play sailors on leave.

These are a pair of great movies for young and old–I imagine children especially taking to dancing like cavemen in the “Prehistoric Man” number from On the Town, or singing, as I did when I was a pup, that movie’s opening tune “I Feel Like I’m Not Out of Bed Yet”, and trying to hit those low, low notes. I still sing that song today–it just gets the morning started right.

EXPLORATION
A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City

Imagine your country is at war. No, not the way you know war. Not overseas. In your own country. Right here. On your own land. Perhaps you take up arms. Perhaps you don’t. It doesn’t matter. You’re losing. It’s stay and fight (and die), or flee. Imagine you have a family. Imagine you are now “among the 33 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes and seek refuge.” Do you have any idea what that’s like? Any idea at all? Hopefully not from personal experience. But look next door. It might do to understand the plight of others. Today, Doctors Without Borders opens its Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City exhibit in Loring Park. Get a guided tour of the camp exhibit and learn about the challenges of building shelter, finding food and clean water, handling waste disposal, controlling epidemics, and … surviving what may come. Educate yourself, and at the end of the day thank whatever god(s) you have for your well-being. Then have yourself a drink, and toast to the the well-being of those around you. But don’t stop at that…

9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Loring Park, 1382 Willow St., Minneapolis; 612-370-4929.

BOOKS
Per Petterson

It’s been a huge year for Norwegian writer Per Petterson. The acclaim for his latest novel ranged from Thomas McGuane’s front-page rave in the Times Book Review (“A gripping account of such originality as to expand the reader’s own experience of life”) to the $135,000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Award-winning author Richard Ford even chimed in with a ringing endorsement, and if you threw in a hosanna from Cormac McCarthy you’d have a pretty good idea of the sort of literary territory Petterson is exploring in Out Stealing Horses. It’s a quiet, spare, ruminative novel, in which the stoic protagonist wrestles with memory’s powerful undertow while enduring a sort of solitary confinement in a remote cabin. Petterson will spend a busy couple of days on the Minnesota leg of his tour, appearing as part of the Minneapolis Public Library’s Talk of the Stacks series tonight, and at the St. Olaf College Bookstore (4 p.m.) tomorrow. –Brad Zellar

7:30 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6000; free.

STYLE
Collage Fashion Show

Two of my favorite local boutiques are participating in this three-way of a runway event: the refined, and yet funky, Ivy and super-girly Stephanie’s. The third boutique, Bluebird, isn’t a fave, but I have found fabulous vintage jewelry there in the past. However, I’m quite excited about Bluebird’s contribution to this year’s (the third annual) Collage Fashion Show. They’re planning to show clothes by Loeffler Randall, the shoe designer – a favorite of the shop’s owners – who only recently introduced a line of apparel. –Christy DeSmith

7 p.m., Nicollet Island Pavilion, 40 Power St., Minneapolis; 612-253-3099; $25.

DANCE
Explorations in Flamenco

Time for a little Spanish flair tonight, with the opening of Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre’s Explorations in Flamenco: An Evening of New Choreography by Sachiko and Deborah Elias. And in keeping with the current trends, we’re not just talking dance here; we’re talking dance, live music, and multimedia work. Explorations in Flamenco features two works. Inspired by the stories of Japan’s Hibakusyas (atomic bomb victims), novels by Masuji Ibuse, and poems by Toge Sankichi, Hiroshima tells intimate stories of WWII destruction through flamenco, Japanese traditional dance, martial arts, and Butoh-inspired movements. Tía, on the other hand, celebrates the power and beauty of imagination — to transform, to empathize, and to envision a different future.

8 p.m., Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis,; 612-871-4444; $15 (students and seniors $13, members $10).

THEATER & PERFORMANCE
City Ceased

In this case, the play itself isn’t the thing, although they are certainly some clever, and even touching, vignettes about the afterlife–the best of which concerns pet foster care for dogs gone to heaven. The best reason to see City Ceased is to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Lakewood Cemetery at night, to stroll its winding roads and circle its tiny lake. By the end of the show, sadly, the material of this site-specific play will have devolved into sap, but not before the audience is treated to some lovely, flashlight-lit images of, for instance, a dramatic weeping willow, a tiny s&eacure;ance, and actors dancing in the moonlight. –Christy DeSmith

8 p.m., Lakewood Cemetery , 3600 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; $12.

Pillowman Review

Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman focuses on Katurian (Lichtseidl), a writer of grisly tales in which children are tortured and killed. When a number of child murders resembling his stories take place, Katurian is detained for questioning by the totalitarian state in which he lives. He is interrogated by detectives Ariel (Chris Carlson) and Tupolski (Seifert), who have also detained Katurian’s mentally disabled brother, Michal (Grant Richey), as a way of baiting Katurian into confessing. Lichtseidl gives Katurian what depth he can, and his big-brother relationship with Michal is sweet and sincere. But the plot itself gives Lichtseidl little to work with, and as a result he is underused. Seifert and Carlson are wonderful as the good-cop/bad-cop team of Ariel and Tupolski. Carlson’s Ariel is high-strung and constantly enraged; Seifert’s Tupolski is docile but menacing — together they are mean and unfair and completely engrossing. Seifert is so deliciously nasty that you can’t help but laugh. Grant Richey also succeeds in the role of Michal, uttering even the most disturbing of lines with innocence and vulnerability. Pillowman is heavy — it discusses child torture and highlight’s the importance of Art with a capital A. Sometimes it sounds more like a debate in a college literature course than a play. –excerpts from review by Danielle Kurtzleben

7:30 p.m., Dowling Studio, Guthrie Theater, 818 S. 2nd St., Minneapolis; 612-377-2224; $18-$34.

Well, first of all, I missed the first couple days. My boyfriend was sick, and contagious as all get out; so, I found myself nursing a sore throat and a serious case of fatigue, not to mention a general malaise. Then, I got stuck in a hail storm on my way back home last Thursday night–which doesn’t go over well when you’re suffering one of those onset headaches. When I finally made it home, I took a shot of Brandy and called it a night.

But I jumped right in on Friday at the Loves Labourers: Art as Fashion, Fashion as Art event. Three artists – Jennifer Davis, Adam Garcia, Eric Inkala – and three clothing designers – Annie Larson, Ra’Mon-Lawrence Coleman, Crystal Quinn – joined forces to make wearable art from ordinary American Apparel tees. It all unfolded right before mine very eyes, and in a party atmosphere (with gratis tuna-stuffed cherry tomatoes, no less). Slacker that I am, I failed to purchase my very own Art-as-Fashion tee before the actual date; I arrived only to find each of the tees had been spoken for, but of course. Pre-purchasers, however, we not allowed to pre-select a shirt that was, say, ANYTHING BUT CANARY YELLOW. And so, from what I hear, I might yet have the chance to procure one of these spiffs. Here are the outtakes, in any case. It was quite a happening scene, as I’m sure you can image:

Washability is a problem, dahlings … You must only spot clean.

On Saturday evening, I stopped by clecticoiffeur‘s invite-only fashion show, where the latest from Katherine Gerdes, George Moskal, Red Shoe Clothing Co., Laura Fulk, and Kjurek Couture was shown. I dug Gerdes’s new jersey dresses with satin details:

She was up until 3 a.m. that morning, slaving away on last-minute details. Therefore, she isn’t sure when – or how – these dresses will ever become available for purchase. I say you email her with inquiries.

But I ESPECIALLY admired this dress from George Moskal, who is probs my favorite designer in all the Minnie Apple. I adore his use of upholstery and vintage fabrics in creating striking, glamorous effects. Swoon!