As an Asian-American woman and African-American man trade insults, slurs, and outrage, you might think this play is vintage Penumbra, a socio-political episode wrought from American race relations. But when sexual tensions enter the fray–given the electric, Tony-and-Maria attraction between these two, they should be exchanging kisses, not insults–Slippery When Wet becomes something altogether sharper … Read more
The young Alfred Maurer was the Thomas Kinkade of his day, churning out proper and commercially appealing paintings that earned him lots of money and fans–until he started cavorting around Paris! It was only when he met up with those pesky French that he discovered modernism and threw away all his popular success. This exhibit … Read more
This month, The Gates, the saffron fabric extravaganza by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, goes on view in Central Park; but right here in Plymouth we’ve got a quintessentially Minnesotan take on destination art. For No Name Exhibition’s first wintertime show, a couple of dozen artists have braved the vast white expanses of a frozen Medicine Lake … Read more
Offering a seasonal counterpoint of sorts to its parade last summer, Intermedia Arts brings together an assortment of automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, and snowmobiles atop frozen Lake Minnetonka. Bedecked in feathers, cork, jewels, and various other flotsam, the hardiest artcars will putter along the lake’s two-lane ice highway, cranking the tunes and the heat. www.artcarparade.com
Cottman takes photographs to save things. That could be a Minneapolis street scene that looks for a moment, in a certain light, like Harlem in the nineteen-thirties. Or it could be a sweet second of his mother’s life, or a glimpse of women doing the secret things that women do. One of the Twin Cities’ … Read more
We’ve often passed the signs for the Hinckley Fire Museum while driving up north, but we’re embarrassed to admit we thought this institution involved a display of historical fire trucks. The museum is actually devoted to an 1894 catastrophe in which a wall of fire destroyed over four hundred square miles in and around Hinckley … Read more
Now that the Bush administration has set its eyes on Iran, it’s a good idea for us to learn something about the people it’s thinking about bombing. This film, a satire about a hapless cat burglar, gives us a few clues about our friends in the Middle East. For one thing, they have a wicked … Read more
We know how you feel about Godard. As one of our friends said, after a screening of his newest, Notre Musique, “Don’t ask me to discuss that.” Okay, then–but you still want to see Tout Va Bien, from 1972; along with 1967’s Weekend, it’s billed as one of Godard’s “most accessible” films. (Funny how these … Read more
Brainwashed victim or extremist sympathizer? Does it matter, now that she’s become part of John Waters’ ensemble? Well, there’s still plenty of the drama swirling around Patty Hearst’s two-year stint with the Symbionese Liberation Army. Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst examines the plight of the media mogul’s granddaughter following her kidnapping, apparent brainwashing, and … Read more
And she got a movie deal, too! Kate DiCamillo is the Cinderella of Twin Cities writers, having gone from toiling in the Bookman warehouse to offering people pennies for paperbacks at Half-Price Books to winning a prestigious Newbery Medal and National Book Award honors. Now her first book, Because of Winn-Dixie, has been fashioned into … Read more