"Once, not long ago, a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many people remember this. It wasn’t that important." So begins The Band’s Visit, an understated little film from Israeli director Eran Kolirin. When no one is at the airport to meet the eponymous band, the musicians, dressed in baby blue police uniforms … Read more
What better way to spend your Valentine’s Day than taking in La Bohème, a silent, melodramatic classic at the beautiful and, dare we say, sexy Heights Theater. This 1926 film, based on the Puccini standard, has all the usual suspects: the tragic Mimi, a consumptive, and her jealous lover, the Bohemian poet Rodolfo. Their love … Read more
Unavailable on DVD in the U.S., this 1959 British noir classic reunites director Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene, the sly duo who gave us The Third Man and The Fallen Idol, also classics. Here, Alec Guinness plays James Wormold, a British vacuum cleaner salesman stationed in Cuba who is enlisted as a spy for … Read more
What is it? Debuting for the first time in Minnesota and unavailable on DVD, What Is It? is Crispin Glover‘s 2005 directorial debut (lately he played Grendel in Beowulf). The movie is described by its director as "being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to … Read more
When IKEA opened here a couple of years ago, critic Glenn Gordon contributed a fine piece to this magazine that carefully and wittily assessed the design quality and craftsmanship of the Swedish behemoth’s furniture. Now Gordon has put together (with co-curator Laurel Bradley) his own showroom of sorts, with furniture makers, sculptors, and industrial designers … Read more
This show was organized by the National Museums in Berlin, and comes to Minneapolis via Boston. Weber, for his part, is a New Yorker-a doctor who’s no doubt made a splash among collectors of Japanese art, having assembled what we’re told is a world-class collection of objects-ranging from the twelfth century to the twentieth-in just … Read more
Shambroom, our fellow Minneapolitan, is not a trendy name in contemporary photography, but he’s revered by insiders: In one recent book surveying 121 heavy hitters in this medium, more space is devoted to him than to any other. One reason for that might be his dedication. Shambroom doesn’t just address a topic, be it nuclear … Read more
Just as the Ash Can School turned to burgeoning cities for subject matter in the early twentieth century, suburbia has proven captivating to artists over the past few decades. But while many of them have tended to look outside city limits with a skeptical, ironic, or even condemning eye, this exhibit, organized around homes, stores, … Read more
Don’t let the title fool you. This exhibit showcases innovative, contemporary takes on traditional American Indian art forms. It’s a chance to see work by Kevin Pourier and Dwayne Wilcox, whose horn carvings and ledger drawings garnered attention at two earlier, similarly themed exhibits, Impacted Nations and Changing Hands II: Art Without Reservation; included as … Read more
If you want to piss people off, claim that Dave Grohl has written and performed more great music than Kurt Cobain. It’s true: While his stuff may never be as transcendent as Cobain’s, the Foo frontman and ex-Nirvana drummer has soldiered on in superior fashion since Cobain’s ’94 suicide, delivering a remarkably consistent string of … Read more