Sundance Film Festival 2015: Top 10 of 27 films viewed

By |

PARK CITY, UTAH—With my bags packed and ready to head to the airport at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning the day before the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, there was a feeling of uncertainty heading to Park City, Utah for my eighth year in a row. Maybe I was a bit unprepared this go round compared to years past. The chatter and reports were everywhere on the most vital film industry websites (Indiewire, Deadline, Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, etc.) on all the most anticipated films—who will be the breakout stars, what films will be bought, etc. I took very little notice until I arrived at the Salt Lake City airport and made my way into Park City. It was harder than ever to chart a list or map or films to see at Sundance, not to mention Slamdance too, as they had a nice slate of independent/foreign films screening concurrently over Sundance dates. Getting bombarded with emails, interview requests daily, even hourly from publicists and PR companies on coverage for seeing this film, and interviewing this star or director, became nonsensical and frankly, draining, yet I managed to see 27 films. Continue Reading

MUSIC REVIEW | Minnesota Orchestra’s “West Side Story” in Shakespeare Winterfest: Unexpectedly cool

By |

The Minnesota Orchestra’s Shakespeare Winterfest is a wonderful piece of season programming. Using material connected to the works of William Shakespeare provides an often-missing focus to a stylistically disparate body of music, and lets listeners hear first-hand how different composers interpreted the same plays. The varying proportion of Shakespeare-related material in a given concert is a strength, as a whole month of nothing but this music might have grown tiresome – but sprinkled here and there and sometimes concentrated, it works quite well. Larsson’s A Winter’s Tale, for example, contrasts excellently with Dvořák’s more familiar New World Symphony, even though the latter having nothing whatsoever to do with the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. The New World Symphony would have been even better paired against Dvořák’s Romeo and Juliet overture, but since the latter work has been lost, it remains an impossible match. Continue Reading

MUSIC PHOTOS | Sleeping With Sirens and Pierce the Veil at Myth

By |

Although February 4th was a school night, several thousand young music fans braved the Minnesota cold, enduring a lengthy wait in line that stretched out beyond the parking lot at Myth Live Event Center in an effort to get the best spot possible to rock out with some of their favorite post-hardcore bands. Sleeping With Sirens and Pierce The Veil – The World Tour proved to be well worth the sacrifice with top-notch performances by both bands including supporting acts PVRIS and UK band Mallory Knox making their first U.S. appearance. 
Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | Frank Theatre keeps us on our toes with “Love and Information”

By |

God bless Caryl Churchill and Frank Theatre. They just keep screwing with the art form and serving up something interesting. Frank’s latest production of Churchill’s latest play, Love and Information, is one of the more peculiar, intriguing, mind-bending pieces of theater I’ve seen in a while. Churchill’s script doesn’t trouble the theater company with things like stage directions or characters. There’s just text lined up as if it were almost an epic poem. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | Mu Performing Arts’ “F.O.B.”: Haunted by ghosts of the past

By |

I’m conflicted.  F.O.B. is an Obie Award-winning play. It’s David Henry Hwang’s first significant play. It launched his career and laid the groundwork for everything he wrote that followed, from The Dance and the Railroad to M. Butterfly to Yellow Face and many others. It also deals head-on with the poisonous and self-defeating issue of racism within ethnic minority groups in a way that’s so honest it’s sometimes hard to listen to (in a good way, because it should be uncomfortable). “They’re yellow ghosts.”One of the problems with being a pioneer and leading voice like Hwang, though, is that all the plays that come after yours—build on and copy and riff off of yours, including plays you write yourself—sometimes make revisiting that very first play an awkward exercise. F.O.B. won the Obie in 1980. Hwang was a good writer then but he’s become an even better writer in the 35 years since. Continue Reading

Celebrating local and indigenous foods: Dinner on the Farm and the Sioux Chef

By |

It’s a good time to be a foodie. There are lots of food happenings around town, you just need to know where to look. Dinner on the Farm is a good place to start.During the summer, Dinner on the Farm hosts chef-planned and prepared dinners on farms. They are fun family-friendly events that also often include good, local beer or wine. There’s special pricing for kids so please don’t tell the organizers, but I have seen my kid eat her weight in beef then wash is down with a gallon of strawberries and cream as she chases cows in the field at these events. The dinners are summer highlights. Continue Reading

Bob Mould: New Day rising since 1978

By |

Reader’s Digest review: Bob Mould. Nailed it. If I closed my eyes it could have been 1985.Never mind ageless, Bob Mould actually gets better with age. His set on Saturday night at First Avenue was at least as energetic and inspiring as any show on the same stage 30 years ago – which is saying an awful lot. He looks amazing and sounds the same, despite the fact that this was round two of a two-gig weekend.He started strong with Flip Your Wig and Hate Paper Doll. Continue Reading

MUSIC REVIEW | Drone not Drones: 28 hours and 28 tones of drone

By |

Over the weekend the Cedar Cultural Center gave itself over to 28 hours of drone for the annual Drone not Drones concert. The event is a fundraiser for Doctors without Border and according to the website they raised thousands of dollars. Thanks to KFAI there was a livesteamof the event – for whose who’d rather cozy up in the comfort of their own home. The archive is available on Bandcampwith proceeds going to Doctors without Borders.I was not able to give myself over for 28 hours (you know, having kids that require managing and all) but I was there for longer than originally intended. At times there may have been a couple hundred of people in the room and in the wee hours of the month that slipped to a dozen or two. Continue Reading

MUSIC PHOTOS | Extreme at Mill City Nights

By |

Any mention of the hard rock band Extreme and most people immediately identify them by their early 90s Billboard #1 hit “More Than Words.” Ask any of the true fans of this band who joined forces January 29th at Mill City Nights for the Pornograffitti Live – 25th Anniversary Tour and they’ll be sure to let you know there’s so much more to their catalog of material.It’s a real treat when a band celebrates a significant recording project by performing the whole album live front to back. Not only do you get a chance to hear some tracks that never make the typical set-list, but you also get to hear them in the actual intended order and flow of the album. This is one of those albums that fans listen to enough that they are anticipating the next song, which doesn’t normally happen live.A special show like this required no opening act, so the set started out as expected with the album’s first song “Decadence Dance.” This track is such a rocker and really brought the crowd to life. Front man Gary Cherone worked the stage like a man possessed and seemed genuinely enthusiastic about performing the material. The full metal assault continued for the next three tunes “Li’l Jack Horny,” “When I’m President” and hit single “Get the Funk Out.” The songs all seemed to run long giving their MVP, guitarist extraordinaire Nuno Bettoncourt plenty of room to shred. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | Minneapolis Musical Theatre’s “Calvin Berger” a modernized classic at New Century Theatre

By |

Calvin Berger is a musical update of the story of Cyrano de Bergerac. That’s a big nose to fill, but the production now playing at the New Century Theatre is smartly done. The music and script are fun, funny, and enough of their own animal so as to not invite too many comparisons with the wonderful poetry of Edmond Rostand’s classic play. As Minneapolis Musical Theatre & Hennepin Theatre Trust collaborations go, it’s also a story that fits particularly well with the space of the New Century Theatre.This version of Cyrano strips down the essentials to just four characters: Calvin (the Cyrano analog), Rosanna (Roxanne by another name; Calvin’s object of affection, but distinctly not his cousin), Matt (the Christian analog), and Bret (Calvin’s sort-of-maybe-not-platonic-it’s-complicated female best friend, a character without a straight analog in the source play). Instead of 17th-century France, this story unfolds in the setting of a present-day high school, with cell phone use, text messaging, and Bluetooth headsets factoring in. Continue Reading