Friday News and reviews
Art
A twist on the community food movement delivers fresh, locally grown art.
- Christy DeSmith, Vita.mn
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All of the artists presented in the upcoming show at Yeti Records have cred in both the art and music worlds.
- Sheila Regan, City Pages
The pleasures of apocalypse: Two artists at the Soo Visual Arts Center
There's a magnificent apocalypse taking place at Soo Visual Arts on Lyndale, which goes by the nickname SooVac, which sounds like a 1950s cleaning device. It's a series of painting by Michigan painter Robert McCann called "You Had Me At Goodbye." SooVac also has three pieces on display by an artist named Jessica Teckemeyer, collectively titled "We Are Animal."
- Max Sparber, MinnPost.com
Books/Writing
Goodbye, books. I won't miss you.
Now, when I occasionally pick up an IRL book, it feels like I'm holding a little papery corpse. I will continue to honor the dead, but now that I've seen the glorious light beyond, I won't mourn their passing.
- Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet
Read Alison Morse's 2010 entry in the miniStories/mnLIT competition, "My Sister," selected as a finalist in last year's cycle by our full panel of flash fiction jurors: Alexander Chee, Daniel Handler, Heather McElhatton, Kevin Larimer, and Dennis Cass.
- mnartists.org
Dance
An Encyclopedia of Dance Made Flesh
Dance critic Linda Shapiro offers her take on the first weekend performances of Zenon Dance Company's spring 2011 season, with particular kudos to the "homegrown, world-class artists" among the dancers.
- mnartists.org
Lightsey Darst reviews the recent performances of SCUBA Touring Dance Network at the Southern Theater, and in the process reflects on the bigger question: what do we go to performance for in the first place?
- mnartists.org
Northrop Dance moves ... and moves next year
The Northrop Dance season won't be at the Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota next year, but the series will still feature world-class ballet and modern dance.
- Pioneer Press
Funding
Southern Theater faces shutdown deadline
Officials at the theater are publicly optimistic as their self-imposed April 30 fund-raising cutoff approaches.
Article by: ROHAN PRESTON , Star Tribune
Movies
'Pom Wonderfu' tackles product placement
Morgan Spurlock's documentary examines stealth advertising.
Article by: Colin Covert , Star Tribune
Review: This time, Spurlock's argument is difficult to buy
It's tough for a documentary to make its case when it's part of the problem it criticizes.
- Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press
Review: Retro farce a delightful confection with just the right amount of frosting
You could think of "Potiche" as a more knowing version of the old-fashioned comedies they often do at the Old Log Theater in Excelsior.
- Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press
So many cliches, you wouldn't touch this movie with a 10-foot pole
If the goal of "White Irish Drinkers" is to see how many shopworn movie-plot points it can cram into one tedious melodrama, then it succeeds beautifully.
- Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press
Review: Looks like Hollywood has become the Grimm reaper
The dead-for-two-centuries brothers Grimm are Hollywood's hot screenwriters.
- Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press
Review: Still fast, still furious - but driven to distraction
"Quit talking! We've only got a two-minute window!" a character says early in "Fast Five." It's a message the movie should have heeded.
- Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press
'Fast Five' drives 90 mph in a 35 zone
The plot to "Fast Five" swerves to Brazil, where chases, crashes and explosions seem to tear up half of Rio de Janeiro.
Article by: Colin Covert, Star Tribune
At this 'Prom', Disney's our date
Article by: TOM HORGEN , Star Tribune Updated: April 28, 2011 - 3:36 PM
"Prom" might lack edge, but it's gooey fun.
Review: Young girls will want to dance all night
I think people who would go to a movie named "Prom" are going to like the movie named "Prom."
- Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press
Snap, crackle, pop: 'Taxi Driver' and 'Riki-Oh' -- different approaches to spectacle of violence
- Max Sparber, MinnPost.com
Music
Pachyderm Studios' Cannon Falls property for sale
Pachyderm Studios, best known as the recording site of Nirvana's final studio album, In Utero, as well as the place where dozens of local bands holed up in the early- to mid-'90s to record their work, has gone out of business once and for all and the property is now for sale.
- Andrea Swensson, City Pages
Review: Schubert Club offers a German ode to love
Few English speakers would call German the language of love. But it can be, if handled with care and compassion...and if accompanied by beautiful melodies from the pens of Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann, and sung by such splendid voices as poured out from the stage of St. Paul's Ordway Center on Thursday night.
- Rob Hubbard, Special to the Pioneer Press
The Pixies at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium: Good as new
Bring it down they did, and we went with them head over heels. I walked out whistling into the cool night air satisfied that one of my favorite bands hadn't changed a bit--and I liked it that way.
- Stacy Schwartz, TC Daily Planet
Dirty Knobs release 8-hour-long ambient album
Field Notes is something quite extraordinary. The tracks range from 20 minutes up to an hour in length, and stretch endlessly into a sprawling symphony of drones and waves.
- Andrea Swensson, City Pages
Article by: JAY BOLLER , Special to the Star Tribune Updated: April 28, 2011 - 2:50 PM
The hip-hop trio gets harder-edged on its angry, intellectual sophomore CD, "Theft of the Commons."
Jorma Kaukonen, still soulful and still on the road--including a stop at the Cedar Cultural Center
On the heels of Hot Tuna's Steady As She Goes (Red House Records), the indefatigable Jorma Kaukonen comes to Cedar Cultural Center on May 6 for a solo show on acoustic guitar and vocals. Barry Mitterhoff accompanies on mandolin.
- Dwight Hobbes, TC Daily Planet
Stage
Coming to a driveway near you ...Open Eye Theatre celebrates its 10th annual Driveway Tour this summer, bringing shows to Twin Cities neighborhoods June 1 through Aug. 7. "The Amazing Cow Boat!" makes it debut, and "The Adventures of Juan Bobo" returns for the first time in five years.
- Mary Ann Grossman, Pioneer Press
Further Fidgety Fairy Tales," a "mental health musical," comes to the Basilica
The twist in these fairy tales is that the main characters are depicted as trying to cope with a mental illness. Goldilocks has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Cinderedward has Bipolar Disorder.
- Jose Munoz, TC Daily Planet
Scrimshaw rocks out with 'Sexy Librarian'
Collaborating with composer Mike Hallenbeck, Scrimshaw has created Sexy Librarian: File Under Rock Musical. The piece, opening this weekend at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage via Scrimshaw's Joking Envelope company, wraps up a Jekyll and Hyde story in a fight to save the town's library, all fueled by a rocking power trio (featuring the playwright on drums).
- Ed Huyck, City Pages