Blog

Although the music on his Ziggy Stardust album is one of David Bowie’s career highs, it was the theatricality surrounding it that was truly revolutionary. His androgynous glam-spaceman persona was stunningly exotic in 1973, and the sense of drama created by the lavishly conceived live shows helped make the Ziggy period one of the most heavily mythologized in rock and roll. (Rocky Horror, Velvet Goldmine, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch would all have been impossible without Ziggy; you decide if that’s good or bad.) Part of the reason might be that it ended so abruptly and before the faithful were ready—attributable as much to Bowie’s exhaustion and boredom as his canny sense of showmanship (always leave ’em wanting more). D.A. Pennebaker’s concert film documents the precise moment of Ziggy’s official retirement, the London performance where Bowie announced that he was hanging up his microphone—ambiguously enough to further fuel his PR machine, since it was unclear whether Bowie or Ziggy was the one quitting. Pennebaker, apparently brought in at the last minute, may not have been the best choice—his unblinking-eye cinema verite style was at odds with the most deliberately artificial musician of his day. Still, though segments of Ziggy Stardust have aged poorly (there may be nothing so painful as hippie pantomime), it remains a vital snapshot of Bowie’s greatest contribution to rock, the notion that a musician’s identity could be artistically crafted just as much as his music. Oak Street Cinema, (612) 331-3134, oakstreetcinema.org

Plenty of Hollywood types lead secret lives, but nobody beats the tale spun by Chuck Barris in his 1982 autobiography: He claims that when he wasn’t goofing with Jaye P. Morgan as host of The Gong Show, he was jetting around the world for the CIA, using his cover as a TV producer to mask his real job: contract hit man. It’s Jerry Springer crossed with The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Frankly, we think Barris made it all up (he penned another memoir in 1993 that mentions nothing about it), but you have to admire any story told with such a straight face and so compellingly bizarre. Too bizarre, probably, to be more than a cult success as a film, but the prospects for Confessions are improved by the presence of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the wunderkind of weird who dreamed up Being John Malkovich. Advance word is that Kaufman’s script is one of his strongest, which ought to help shore up any stumbles from first-time director George Clooney, who co-stars as Barris’ menacing CIA handler. This could be a breakthrough role for Sam Rockwell, who stars as Barris, if he can manage to muscle past Clooney, Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore for that coveted face time on E.T.

This sixpack sarcophagus of cinema, screening in conjunction with the MIA’s “Eternal Egypt” exhibit (see our preview, p. 17), offers a half-dozen films showcasing Hollywood’s take on the time of the Pharaohs. While you wouldn’t want to confuse any of these with a history lesson, as sheer entertainment, they ain’t just Cheops liver. Three versions of The Mummy unravel before your eyes, the best of which is the iconic 1932 version starring Boris Karloff (December 20-21). The robust 1959 Hammer remake with Christopher Lee (January 10-11) is also a good way to (ahem) scarab some thrills, but you could skip the February screening of the slicker, but far dumber, 1999 version. The “Portraits of Egypt” trio deals more with the living than the undead, but historical accuracy is still downplayed in favor of grand spectacle—ancient Egypt being a favorite setting for Hollywood’s lavish, old-style period epics. One of the more notable is Cecil B. DeMille’s 1934 Cleopatra (January 3-4), starring seductive Claudette Colbert at the height of her fame as the devious and doomed Queen of the Nile. Howard Hawks’ campy Land of the Pharaohs (January 17-18), while not one of William Faulkner’s better moments slumming as a studio screenwriter, does have a young Joan Collins in full-on vamp mode as a queen scheming to get her husband interred in his pyramid tomb earlier than he planned. MIA, (612) 870-3131, artsmia.org

We can’t help but feel silly admitting our fondness for the music of Elton John. But dammit, we won’t let our admiration for his stellar 1970s work be overshadowed by the syrupy Lion King and the crap, Lady Di-inspired reworking of “Candle in the Wind.” (For crying out loud, lyricist Bernie Taupin did all the work! Couldn’t Elton be bothered to whip up something original?) Sure, he was shucking out the soft-rock even back in the day, but at their peak, he and Taupin perfectly nailed balladry that was sensitive without being squishy. Indeed, the first of this two-disc set is a rock-solid overview of that period, capturing the Taupin/John mastery of the plaintive ballad (“Your Song”), the uptempo rocker (“Saturday Night’s Alright [For Fighting]”) and the effervescent pop ditty (“Crocodile Rock”). If anything, it could be twice as long. The problem here is that even though he’s firmly back to popular prominence after his 1980s slump, Elton still hasn’t come up with as much decent material in the last 27 years as he did between 1970 and 1975, and any set that weights the two periods equally will be unbalanced. There’s a valid case for collecting all 22 top-10 hits in one place—but we’d rather listen to our favorite songs than a valid case. Leaving off the brilliant “Funeral For a Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)” in favor of unmemorable fare like “The One” is a letdown, and never mind which charted higher.

It’s a stretch to call this a best-of disc, considering that two songs are brand new and five others are remixes. But this was an uneven decade for U2. Except for the brilliant reinvention on 1991’s Achtung Baby that shattered their “poster boys of earnestness” pigeonhole, the 90s found Bono and the boys struggling to connect—stuck in a moment they couldn’t get out of. So think of this instead as a combo hits and rarities package, a way for Ireland’s finest to gather together singles from soundtracks, remixes and a few established unit-movers like “One.” In that sense it’s more curiosity than essential, but even the casual fan will find plenty to chew on. The two new songs are particularly good, especially the soaring ballad “The Hands That Built America,” from Martin Scorsese’s movie Gangs of New York. The tracks here are not presented chronologically, so you won’t get much of a sense of U2’s evolution over the last decade. But that’s just as well. If the two songs from the ill-starred Pop are presented without context and remixed to downplay the awkward disco, it can only help their rediscovery as pieces of songcraft. That approach doesn’t always work: the chanting drone of “Numb” was far better on Zooropa than the version here. The remix isn’t always better than the real thing.

Tori lost us with 1996’s bloated Boys For Pele, but we could sense a possible resurgence on last year’s underrated covers album Strange Little Girls. Her new disc, all originals this time, isn’t a total artistic comeback (and in fact a few songs are just plain dull), but it has plenty of strong moments, some on par with her best work. Scarlet’s Walk imagines a journey through America’s psychic landscape, trying to make sense out of chaos and turmoil. She’s never been afraid of a giant conceptual leap, an approach that’s sometimes backfired into purple preciousness, but here she largely keeps her theme from wandering too fuzzily afield. Laments for lost innocence make up some of Scarlet’s most incisive material, like “Virginia,” casting America in ambiguous metaphor as a woman falling slowly into moral decay, or “Amber Waves,” which sets a waiflike piano melody against bitter lyrics lamenting the willing exploitation of a Christina Aguilera-like singer. It’s a classic example of Amos’ ability to mask cold iron inside warm velvet. It’s also her most approachable songwriting since Under the Pink, which should please both rabid and casual fans alike.

We have been taught recently that the landscape can be a very sublime thing indeed, drippy with sentiment and aloof in its monumentality. But the landscape can also be ecstatic and alive; brimming with life and radiant in its myriad hues. This is the landscape vision of Thomas Paquette, a former Minnesotan turned peripatetic. His show of recent paintings at Flanders will include offerings from hither and yon: from the coast of Wales, to Italy, to Yosemite, and the Allegheny range. Make sure you give these paintings some time. They are rich and elegant, breathing with thoughtful juxtapositions of color. Flanders Gallery, (612) 344-1700, www.flanders-art.com

This is the best kind of pyramid scheme. Spanning 35 centuries, this massive traveling exhibition showcases nearly 150 items from the English national museum’s collection of Egyptiana, many of which haven’t left England since, well, arriving from Cairo. Although the MIA is complementing the show with a display of locally owned mummies, the exhibit proper focuses more on the history of Egyptian art. Among the treasures are the Soleb Lion—a massive granite statue inscribed by King Tut himself—and the beautiful golden funerary mask of a mummified noblewoman known as Satdjehuty. (Just the mask, unfortunately, since poor Satdjehuty’s body was, according to British Museum records, bought by “an enterprising beerhouse keeper in Uxbridge.”) Not one to let a good theme go to waste, the MIA is putting on several Egypt-themed shows of its own, including an exhibit of 19th-century Nile photography and another of Scottish painter David Roberts’ Middle Eastern landscapes. MIA, (612) 870-3131, artsmia.org

In recent years, wags of varying levels of hostility have suggested, with some drama, that Uncle Sam should require licenses of all parents and would-be parents. Well, we don’t know about that, but we do know that there are a handful of charitable organizations that work with sincerity and sympathy to improve the lot of ordinary families in extraordinary circumstances. The Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis has been offering classes and support to families of all faith traditions—and they’ve been doing it for 90 years. (Upcoming programs include classes on parenting children with special needs, living with chronic illness, and Jewish grief support.) In recent years, the JFCS has refilled the coffers with this highly popular comedy revue. Here’s a chance to see whether Martin Short still has the comedic goods, and a rare opportunity to see Second City set their tent up in the Twin Cities. Tickets range from $50 to $25,000(!). We’re told you have to drop at least two Benjamins and four Franklins to get the dinner plate. JFCS of Minneapolis, (952) 546-0616, jfcsmpls.org

Pinocchio apparently isn’t the only one who wants to be a real boy. At age 50, Roberto Benigni is perhaps more suited to play the grandfatherly Gepetto than the marionette whose nose grows when he lies. But to give him his due, Benigni’s best performances have always been touched with childlike wonder, and if anyone his age can pull this off, he can. This live-action version, also directed by Benigni, hews closer to Carlo Collodi’s original book than the Disney version more of us are familiar with. Kids might find it hard to get past the subtitles, but Benigni’s forte is physical comedy, and we’re guessing that most of Pinocchio’s action will transcend any language barrier. The film might be a harder sell with grownups. Judging by Benigni’s flower-patterned white clown outfit, anyone who found him insufferably cloying in Life Is Beautiful should make other plans.