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D-Day turns sixty next month, bringing a barrage of notable World War Two movies on the DVD release front. We’re especially fond of this one, a very different proposition from what you’ll usually find in the genre. Directed in 1968 by John Boorman (at his creative peak, after Point Blank and before Deliverance), Hell avoids cliché with a story set on the sidelines of the Pacific Front, as two enemy soldiers stranded on a remote island must decide whether to kill each other or cooperate to survive. Beautifully shot and intriguingly scripted—realistically, the language barrier never is resolved—the film is most interesting as an actor’s duel between tough-guy greats Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, a sort of cinematic Ali/Frazier matchup. Though its ending’s antiwar message is painful in its “shocking” obviousness (it was 1968, remember), this film’s a clear victory.

“You’ll feel like you’re in Mexico!” it says on EBM’s website, which may explain why Dick and Lynne Cheney kept their visit short last March. For our part, we always leave with more than we came for. El Burrito’s boggling array of dried peppers, from ancho to pasilla, can lure anyone into the Mercado, and our latest trip to the deli case netted a bag of burritos including chorizo, puerco en verde, pollo, and our favorite: shredded bistek in an oily red gravy unmatched anywhere in the metro. If you want to cool your heels, the cafeteria has a new seating area, and they say beer is coming soon.

Dyed-in-the-wool Marxists will note that this box set collecting seven of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico’s late-period movies is hardly definitive—their most anarchically funny work, Duck Soup and Animal Crackers, is missing. But we do have the two true classics they made with their most simpatico producer, Irving Thalberg, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races. The other five here are lesser-known for a reason—with a new studio calling the shots, the brothers were forced into restrictive, plot-oriented material that straitjacketed and tamed them. Carping aside, every Marx Brothers film has its moments—and even the lesser ones are better than many other comedians’ best, thanks to Groucho’s stiletto insults like At the Circus’ “I bet your father spent the first year of your life throwing rocks at the stork.” It’s funny because it’s true. The set also includes A Night in Casablanca, the source of one of the best real-life Groucho quips: After the Warner Brothers studio threatened to sue if the Marx Brothers didn’t change their title (which Warner claimed was too similar to their Humphrey Bogart thriller), Groucho threatened to countersue: “You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were.”

Everybody thinks modern life moves too fast these days, but for the little village of Quiquendone, it’s literally true. At first, the townspeople in Jules Verne’s allegorical short story (getting its first non-operatic dramatic adaptation at the hands of local troupe Hardcover Theater) live peaceably rustic lives at rustic speeds, as if Newtonian physics were merely something that happens to other people. But then Dr. Ox shows up, as one would expect in a play with his name in the title, and steps on the gas. By secretly pumping pure oxygen into Quiquendone—the idea was considered scientifically plausible in Verne’s time—he makes life in the village speed up, bringing art and enlightenment, but also passion, confusion, and war. The metaphorical implications are, if anything, even stronger today. 2301 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; (612) 822-0015; www.pangeaworldtheater.org

A new Jim Jarmusch movie is always cause for celebration around here. Sure, he’s open to charges of languid pacing and, especially in earlier films, an indifference to plot. But there’s a beyond-left-field outlook to his best work, like Ghost Dog and Dead Man, that you just can’t find in any other English-language director. (Liking his films also gets you monster hipster cred, which is always nice.) Coffee is really only half-new, to be technical, since it incorporates three shorter Jarmusch films dating back to 1986. A fractured, interweaving narrative centered on the classic combo of everyday café stimulants, Coffee is a typically skewed Jarmusch comedy, sort of a cross between his taxicab quintet Night on Earth and Wayne Wang’s improv-based indie Blue in the Face (which Jarmusch acted in). He’s assembled what might be his best cast yet—longtime buddies Roberto Benigni, Tom Waits, and Isaach De Bankolé are joined by Cate Blanchett in a dual role as two crazy sisters, Bill Murray, and Jack and Meg of the White Stripes. Did we mention hipster cred?

Even if you caught the original production of The Golem during its highly praised run in 1999, you may want to check back to see where the Jeune Lune folks will be taking their collaboratively produced fable: For the theater’s 25th season, they’ve created a more elaborate version that builds on the earlier one. The story is inspired by Jewish folklore about a clay creature conjured by magic in order to protect his people, but who is always in danger of running amok. Topical political parallels may be drawn at your leisure, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned about the fervent imaginations at Jeune Lune, it’s that they’d never settle for simple meanings. They are French, after all. Expect the unexpected, and prepare to revel in it. 105 N. 1st St., Minneapolis; (612) 332-3968; www.jeunelune.org

Would you like fries with that? After this film, probably not. Among the many public-relations bodyblows directed at the fast-food industry in the last few years, few have been so direct as this audience favorite at last year’s Sundance film festival. After he heard a McDonald’s spokesman claim that there was no link between obesity and his corporation’s products, documentarian Morgan Spurlock conducted a taste test for accuracy by dining exclusively under the golden arches for thirty days. He had constant checkups to chart the effects on his health, which were not pretty. Even before opening to a wide audience, Super Size Me may have already had its most significant cultural impact: McDonald’s eliminated supersized meals earlier this year. (612) 925-6006, landmarktheatres.com

If he accomplished nothing else, Irish playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan could say that he found a new and memorable way to mangle the English language. Among the eccentrics and outsized personalities of his gentle satire of sappy romances, you’ll find a character named Mrs. Malaprop, mother of the word malapropism, whose complete indifference to the right word in the right place leads her to deliciously loopy pronouncements like “if I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs.” Though his later A School For Scandal is often considered the better play, The Rivals is generally held to be the funniest. And what better reason to go to the theater? 245 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis; (612) 333-3010; www.theatreintheround.org

Larson is Minnesota’s answer to Matthew Barney. Both Yale art school alumni subject their not-unattractive physiques to certain trials; more importantly, each seems to operate from an alternate reality that makes full sense only to him. (We need more artists like this.) But where Barney is just plain out there, Larson’s world takes cues from the primitive, the rural, even the medieval. On view is a new video featuring one of his cringe-inducing machine-sculptures, as well as a new, untitled work that seems a bit of a departure. Built entirely from fragrant raw pine, it’s a spectacular sculptural tableau of a spaceship crashing into a one-room shack. It resonates with a host of dualities, not the least of which is admirable craftsmanship placed in the service of spontaneous destruction. Plus it also just looks really cool. 1021 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; (612) 872-7494

Maybe it’s true, as the saying goes, that heavy hangs the head that wears the crown—on the other hand, when you’re the emperor, you get all the best china. This exhibit of more than a hundred rare porcelains, drawn from a private collection in China, showcases the beautiful and highly detailed craftsmanship that graced the tables of seventeenth- to twentieth-century Qing dynasty rulers. You will never again be able to look at your Corningware without a sigh of wistful envy. Chinese art expert Julian Thompson, who wrote the catalog for this show, will share his expertise during a public talk May 2. (612) 870-3131; www.artsmia.org