Hamline senior Becky Culp already has three All-American honors on her resume, but wants two more — and could possible add an NCAA title to it, too.
(credit: Hamline University)

Disclaimer: Male readers especially, unless you are eager for a self-conscious day at the gym tomorrow, I’d advise you to stop read right … about … now.

When Hamline’s three-time All-American thrower Becky Culp hits the weights, she’s been known to bench 200 and squat 335.

Yep, you read those numbers right.

Thanks to that natural strength, dedicating herself to the sport beginning in seventh grade, and the guidance of throwing coach Drew Jones, Culp has an honest shot of coming home with a crown at the NCAA Division III Track and Field championships next weekend, as her distances currently as some of the nation’s best.

“Without him (Drew Jones), I wouldn’t be where I am,” she said. “He was Regional Coach of the Year, and has sat me down and watched numerous videos with me to make me better.”

(credit: Hamline University)

As her collegiate career nears its bookend, she’s has certainly left her mark on Hamline and the MIAC.

The Youngstown, Ohio, native broke legendary Piper Misty Bahr’s discus mark this season when she tossed a 153-10. Then Culp’s shot put of 47-10 topped Bahr’s previous mark, a MIAC meet record.

Oh, and the Centennial High School product is also a brainy physics major, smoothly plays the saxophone, and has been weight training since middle school.

Moving to Lino Lakes, Minn., her during her high school years was a blessing
Within a year I loved Minnesota, and the people here. They offered better schooling, the chance to play in an All-Conference band, and then there’s the National Sports Center, too. They were a lot of opportunities that weren’t available in Ohio.

She (thankfully) ditched the 800 and hurdles back in seventh grade
I was really bad at them. My coach was my next door neighbor, and he had seen me throw a football and baseball and figured I would be a natural at shot put and discus.
I then started weight lifting on my own right away because I wanted to be the best I could be.

(credit: Hamline University)

Her love of track derives from the simplistic ideal of “you get out what you put in”
Your numbers are pretty self-explanatory in this sport. I love how my hard work away from competition would make those numbers better.

She’s demolishing her personal goals, so far
My goal in the discus this year was to break the school record and to throw over 150 (check and check). I also wanted to throw 45 feet (check).

She’s a virtual lock to compete in the discus and shot put at the NCAAs
My goal is to throw the best I can, and to PR in both my events. If I do my best, I can’t complain. I would like to come home with two more All-American titles. I want to be a five-time All-American.

The Culp family. (credit: Becky Culp)

Her physics major is even more impressive considering her 3.75 GPA
I really like learning. I’ll go to grad school for engineering at the U of M after this.
I did do a two-year internship at Toro, and I really liked working on lawnmowers.

She represents Hamline not just in athletics
I play alto saxophone for the Hamline wind ensemble. I’ve been playing saxophone for about 10 years, and I’m pretty competitive about it. Obviously things have changed, but in high school I would practice a half-hour a day.

Tunes most likely pumping through her earbuds?
I’m a huge 90s alternative person. My all-time favorite band is Smashing Pumpkins — saw them in concert a couple months ago. I also love Nirvana and Third Eye Blind.

She still laughs about being stronger than the boys she went to high school with
A lot of the boys I was interested in … I could lift more than them. It was always sort of funny.
That’s what made it so nice when I met my boyfriend Blake on the Hamline track team. He could lift more than me, and is one of those guys who always pushed himself to the max. He’s one of my biggest inspirations.

Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois said, “On the one hand you’re arguing today that the IRS is not corrupt, but the subtext of what you’re saying is, ‘Look, we’re just incompetent.’”

There is already evidence that by searching for groups that included the names “Tea Party” or “Patriot” for special review, the IRS was, in fact, targeting conservatives.

The larger debate over whether 501C(c)(4) groups should be engaged in direct political activity at all is an important one, but at the same time is irrelevant because of the targeting that is clearly discriminatory and possibly illegal. All of that raises the issue of what else this agency, with its vast power and access to the most private information of millions of Americans, may be doing.

The fact that treasury officials were briefed about the inquiry back in June of 2012 raises more doubts about what those in the administration knew, and when they knew it. Whether the IRS probe, in fact, reveals corruption or mere widespread incompetence or both remains to be seen.

This scandal is one that seems unlikely to fade and suggests that at minimum reform of basic IRS procedures are needed.

Yes, ‘Rock Of Ages: The Musical” is a different kind of show. Not many musicals can encourage fans to dress up in 80s garb just to rock out in the audience. It’s that kind of show. You have to expect that, however, when you feature the classic larger-than-life themes, big-haired bands and mega-hits from the 80s.

Quick side note: For those of you who might be reluctant to see a musical in general, Rock Of Ages is unique in the fact that it has the ability to reach a wider audience — blending a classic musical with a fist-pumping rock concert atmosphere. I love rock concerts, and, at times, I felt like I was at one.

Anyways, I’m fairly ignorant when it comes to what constitutes a spoiler, so I’ll be subtle in my description of the overall show, and try to keep hidden what might be revealing.

First off, you might not want to bring your kids to this show. Among other mature themes, the show includes strippers, foul language and plenty of poop jokes.

But that’s what makes it fun for the rest of us.

The story features a music venue/bar, The Bourbon Room, and all the drama that occurs around it, including the classic love between two characters, Drew and Sherrie, who are struggling to make it in the big, wide, over-sparkled world.

Drew, a bar back/bathroom cleaner at the Bourbon Room, dreams of making it big as a rock musician, but can’t find the right inspiration to connect with listeners. That is, until Sherrie comes into the scene, providing exactly just what Drew needs — whether he realizes or not.

Then, there’s a major rift between the two … that being (cough) Stacy Jaxx, the front man of the fictional rock powerhouse, Arsenal.

While not giving away anything major, Drew receives some advice (by the amazing narrator) and is urged to “screw the writer” and write his own destiny. Whether or not that ends with him melting faces on the stage – or reconnecting with his beloved Sherrie – is for you to see.

Rock of Ages will be in Minneapolis until May 19 for five shows. Tickets ($34-$94) are still available. For ticket info. or more information, click here.

Twenty years ago, we were introduced to characters like Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez, Smalls, Squints, Ham and Yeah-Yeah. They were far from a pack of superheroes; just neighborhood kids trying to stay out of trouble while playing baseball.

“The Sandlot” remains one of my favorite baseball movies. I remember seeing it in theaters. I can’t say “forever” without saying it in super-slow motion.

“For-ev-er!”

In celebration of its big anniversary, the Minnesota Twins are showing “The Sandlot” on Target Field’s giant outfield screen. Fans can catch the film following the May 19 game against Boston.

Before the screening, writer/director David Mickey Evans and two of the movie’s stars – Chauncey Leopardi (Squints) and Patrick Renna (Ham) – stopped by WCCO for an interview.

Watch the video above to get the inside scoop about why the movie is so popular, what Darth Vader (aka James Earl Jones) really thinks about baseball and if Squints still talks to lifeguard Wendy.

The namesake burger on a Patisserie 46 brioche bun topped with an over easy egg. (credit: CBS)

–By Rosa Smith

Do yourself a favor.

Take a drive down westbound Franklin Avenue, past Lake of the Isles and turn left. Nestled between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles, you’ll find Chef Don Saunders’ newest concept, The Kenwood.

With seasonal ingredients and rapt attention to detail in both the kitchen and dining room, Saunders and his staff have created a stimulating zig amongst zags in the Minneapolis restaurant scene.

Made with red wine and garnished with cornichons and prosciutto, the Bloody Mary’s perfectly seasoned. (credit: CBS)

Designed by Jim Smart (Smart and Associates) the addition to the Kenwood neighborhood has all the romantic charm of an East Coast bed and breakfast (minus the fireplace). The décor features walls covered in plaid fabric, hardwood floors, reclaimed wood tables, and button tufted banquettes.

Paned windows offer a view of the Kenwood Elementary School playground. While not a particularly picturesque view, the windows do allow natural light to bathe the cozy room. In the evening, overhead lighting is dim and accentuated by candlelight, making the space even more intimate.

If you’re looking for a full bar, you won’t find it here. However, the venue does offer beer, Dogwood coffee, and Tea Source tea, as well as a wine list that would make any sommelier proud.

My group walked in to a bustling dining room at the height of brunch. The lounge area is in the dining room, but not intrusive. You can order beverages while you wait for your table. We were quoted a 20-minute wait, but ultimately waited less than 10 minutes.

Mussels with a perfectly light and buttery broth are a definite must. (credit: CBS)

With an assist from Pip Hanson (Marvel Bar) the Bloody Mary is re-imagined. Made with red wine and garnished with cornichons and prosciutto, it’s perfectly seasoned. The red wine complements the tomato juice and other spices, giving it a unique floral note.

The namesake burger on a Patisserie 46 brioche bun topped with an over easy egg was a favorite at the table, as was the huevos rancheros, (which my friend wolfed down in — seemingly — one felled swoop after reluctantly giving me a bite). The salmon benedict on ryebatta was a bit of a disappointment. The amount of dill in the salty hollandaise could have been considered felonious assault on the senses.

The pork tenderloin was cooked to perfection. (credit: CBS)

We moved on to the cheese plate, garnished with mixed greens, cranberries, strawberries, and marcona almonds. It features a truffled pecorino, a Camembert-style triple cream, an aged goat cheese and delightfully strong bleu cheese.

Dinner was out of this world. Duck confit cigars wrapped in a crisped shell accompanied by figs and a light demi glace made for a perfect appetizer.

The savory pain perdu is a collaborative effort between Saunders and his Chef de Cuisine, Matthew Hughes. It is, by and large, one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. The pork tenderloin was cooked to perfection, accompanied by a bean ragout, serrano peppers and ham hock was also extraordinarily delicious.

Indulge in the double chocolate stout bread pudding. (credit: CBS)

If you have a sweet tooth, I recommend you indulge in the double chocolate stout bread pudding topped with coffee ice cream.

Food and service this outstanding does come at a price, but it won’t break your bank.

Now, please. Stop reading this, get out and take that drive down westbound Franklin Avenue. You’ll be glad you did.

–Rosa Smith is a WCCO-TV intern writing for the Curiocity blog. She is a senior at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. You can follow her on Twitter @missikat

—

Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children came out in 1981, and today the epic has a reputation that could be described as Himalayan. I haven’t read it (full disclosure) but I imagine the work would fit nicely next to my mental fondness for Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude.

Both books fall into the genre of magic realism, which mixes the fantastic, the supernatural with the ordinariness of everyday life. The effects of such writing, if done well, are as pleasing as a paradox. If done poorly…then, well, I’m not quite sure what it’s like. I haven’t read a book in that style which I didn’t enjoy.

But I can’t say the same about movies adapted from such books. Midnight’s Children, the film that comes out this Friday, falters precisely where it needed to succeed — in its magic-making.  The switch from the page to the screen harms its multi-generational, twist-laden story, because (a) the performances are lackluster and (b) every utterance of abracadabra is followed by a lukewarm display of movie magic.

This tepid result could be because Deepa Mehta, the director, didn’t originally want to tackle this beast when she and Rushdie decided to collaborate. Mehta initially wanted to make, reports say, a film out of Shalimar the Clown, but the duo decided on Midnight’s Children instead.

Rushdie, who trimmed his massive novel into a relatively slim screenplay, is responsible for much of what makes the film work. For instance, he’s the perfect narrator. His voice and diction ease you lyrically into scenes as well as the historical context. Considering the movie clocks in at nearly three hours — with twist after twist after twist — Rushdie’s authorial guidance is a big plus. And how often do non-audiobook fiends get to hear a great author tell one of his greatest stories?

The story, in a nutshell, is about a group of children who are born  just after midnight on the day of India’s independence and partition (Aug. 15, 1947). Each of these children has a different magic power. One can fly, one can make things invisible, and one (our main man) can bring all of Midnight’s Children together via telepathy. His name is Saleem.

Saleem’s life runs parallel to that of India’s independence. The movie focuses on him, starting with events before Saleem’s birth – showing how his parents met, how he came to be their son (which is a subplot all its own) — and continues through his childhood and into his adult life, where things get real crazy and sad and so on….Pushed by fate into many of India’s early wars and political struggles, he tries to bring together his magical compatriots in an effort to unite the diverse subcontinent as it forges its way into history.

All sorts of trouble and tragedy occurs, and some Saleems handle it better than others. Let me explain: the child Saleem (Darsheel Safary) is solid. He carries the movie’s magic and the struggles of a difficult childhood, well. We feel for him, enjoy watching him, believe his astonishment over his new-found telepathy. The same can’t be said for the adult Saleem (Satya Sorab Bhabha), with whom we spend much more of the movie. I’m not sure what the issue is — Is he introduced too late? Is his acting just off? — but he’s much harder to connect with, to believe. His off-ness combined with the tired finale leave you with a flat taste, like Indian food without any real, sweat-inducing spice.

The best books don’t make the best films. We’ve seen that recently with The Great Gatsby, depending on who you walk to. One wonders if it’s not too bad an idea to leave the great novels to the bookshelves and stick to incarnating heroes from comic books…

They may not be as ‘twisted’ in name as they used to be but one thing’s certainly for sure — this truck will put an end to your hunger.

The House of Hunger food truck has been around for a couple of years now but what they’re able to do with a tiny kitchen and a hefty menu continues to impress.

Whether it’s elevating Philly sandwiches with their special sauce or giving a twist to your typical hot dog, the staff inside this food truck will ensure you’re both fully fed and fully entertained.

Let’s find out more about this week’s feature.

(credit: CBS)

House Of Hunger
Find them at @houseofhunger and at houseofhunger.com

Owner: Wesley Kaake and Cody Allen

Date the food truck opened: Roughly July 4, 2011.

What kind of food do you serve? Urban comfort food.

Price range of menu: Anywhere from $5 to $12 per meal, depending on what you get.

Hours of operation: Usually on the streets from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., plus various special events.

What was your job before opening the food truck? I did tech support for Apple, for iPhones, iPhone Touch and iPads. The owner of the truck (Wesley) was an administrative assistant for Globe University, until he finished his business degree and then started looking into, originally, a doughnut shop. It evolved and now we have a food truck, not a doughnut shop.

What made you change paths from doughnuts to a food truck? The money. Quite honestly, it was the money. When we first went in for a loan for the doughnut shop, they told us 15 percent down, no problem, we could get the loan. And then we went back a couple months later all ready to go, with all the signatures and they wanted 50 percent, which, if we had that we wouldn’t have needed the loan in the first place. So we started talking about the food truck because the idea had been brought up in meetings with the city, just as an idea to keep in mind, and we did it. We worked on the doughnut shop for about five, five-and-a-half months and then within two weeks after that fell through, we were driving out to Ohio to pick up the truck. So, it went quick. (Laughs)

So from tech support to food trucks, what made you want to get into the culinary business? I’ve always enjoyed cooking and I loved people. I had actually just finished my IT degree the first year, a couple months into our season, so I was, and am still, managing the website, facebook, twitter, all the digital stuff. All the logo work that we’ve done, all of that stuff. So I still get the IT part of it, just not the “have you tried turning it off and back on yet?” We’ve gotten past that stage.

(credit: CBS)

How did you come up with the name? We actually bought it. It came with the truck, we found it. It was originally the Twisted Sister House of Hunger. Come the end of last year or beginning of this year, we’re no longer using the first half — it got censored by the 80s.

And the logo, too? Yep, she came with it. Her name was different. We have changed the name to Kathy, in honor of Wesley’s mom who passed away two weeks before we opened the truck. It was definitely a struggle to get going. He lost his mom and it was a six-month decline so it was very, very difficult but he kept it together. In our very first event, there was a live band playing and they actually sang a song dedicated to Wesley and his mom, in honor of our first day opening when she couldn’t be there. So that was awesome. We’ve had a couple special events where they’ve acknowledged us on stage and we’re like, “Wait, did they just say our name?” We always try to take care of the bands, as well as our customers. They can’t play good music unless they’re well fed.

How is the food prepared? We make it all fresh. If you order a Philly, it will be five minutes because we will be cooking the vegetables fresh. We’ll be toasting the bun as soon as you order it. The fries are obviously cooked to order, because we don’t have a warmer. Everything’s made fresh. We do have a little bit higher of ticket times than other trucks just because we’re pulling it right off the grill to give it to you. There’s only so much you can do with a 24-inch grill. So sometimes that can have a little bit of an effect but we pride ourselves with having a lot of fun with the customers, not only to distract them but to make sure they’re having fun since they’re standing out here with us for 15 minutes or so. We just want everybody to have fun, enjoy the food and kind of make it a thing, instead of “oh hey, let’s go get lunch.” It’s kind of a thing — we’ll walk out of the truck and give people hugs. We have our regulars. We definitely have fun with it.

(credit: CBS)

How did you decide on the menu? It actually has evolved. Our first year, we were doing beef brisket and pulled pork and we were doing it very differently. It was a big, long process. It was a headache. We were, on average, pulling 16-hour days every day, just to be out for lunch. Then early last season, we found a so-much-easier way to do everything and made the decision to eliminate the beef brisket and switch to Phillies, just because steak, cheese on a bun, you can do so many different things. And a lot of the stuff for the Phillies, we already had, so we just changed meat. So it has evolved a little bit.

We just wanted comfortable, urban food that everyone can find something on our menu they like. The hot dogs have been fun, because they’re just deep-fried hot dogs, simple as that. Our first year, people were like, ‘Wait, what? No cornbread, just a hot dog?’ and the second year, they moved on to ‘I don’t get it but it sounds good so I have to try.’ And now this year, we’ve already noticed we’re running out of hot dogs every other day. It’s awesome. I love it. They’re called Rippers, back east, which is where they started. It’s just a sliced up hot dog, we throw it in the deep frier for about a minute and a half and it gets very crispy on the outside and very juicy on the inside. So it’s definitely a bit distinctive. We don’t boil the dogs; they’re made fresh. But people are starting to catch on to them, which is great.

Another thing we’ve added on this year is chicken. We’ve never had chicken before. We brought that in, which we’re loving and our customers are loving. I don’t know why we didn’t do it earlier. It’s one of those, as soon as we tasted that first chicken taco, we thought, ‘Why didn’t we do this two years ago?’

What’s your favorite dish that you serve? I would have to say the Dirrty D, which is a deep-fried hot dog on a bun with pepperjack and cheddar cheese and then you’ve got spiced up pulled pork, bacon and rib-eye steak on top of the hot dog, with our signature polygamy sauce and blue cheese crumbles. It’s intense. It is spicy. It is good. It’s a $9 hot dog but you do get your $9 worth, for sure. Every time I try to eat it, I cannot do that last little bite. So it is a mouthful, especially if you get fries.

(credit: CBS)

Describe your truck in one word: Characteristic.

What’s your craziest story from working at a food truck? Do you have like a week? Because I have a lot of stories. (Laughs) Let’s see, Zombie Pub Crawl last year, my order taker got punched in the face. Just drunk people being stupid outside. We ran out of propane and had to run to Bobby and Steve’s and get their little temporary tanks. Because I wasn’t about to stop serving — there were too many zombies that day.

We did an incredible event our very first year with the Courage Center, which was hosted at the BMW Minnetonka. They actually had — I can’t remember the exact number — but it was 10-12 food trucks actually pulled into the service bay and parked indoors. It was a five-star cuisine event in recognition of Courage Center’s donations that year, all the benefactors, donors and all that. It was just a beautiful, beautiful event — you never would’ve thought it was a car dealership. It was gorgeous. It was incredible. We had so much fun. We still get approached about it. … That was just an incredible night that I will never forget.

We vended a three-day music festival last year. It was the first event that we had where we didn’t take the truck back to restock, to clean, all of that. We packed three days worth of food and could barely move around the truck. But it was incredible. We got to see Nas perform. It was an incredible event and I would totally do it again in a heartbeat.

We catered for an independent movie shoot earlier this year for nine days. Got to meet an Academy Award-winning actress through that, which I can’t say names. (Look for details on their Facebook page in the coming months.) Every day is something. Every day something happens and if it doesn’t, we start to worry. If our generator doesn’t die, if we don’t run out of propane, if something doesn’t work, you know, every day we have to adapt to something new. But that’s fun. I love a challenge. And what better challenge than “oh no, it’s not going to work like that today. You’re going to have to find a different way to do it.” We have fixed things with duct tape and a twist tie. But pretty much we make do with what we have and then have a good story to tell afterwards.

What’s one thing you want people to know about your food truck? If you come to us, have fun. If you come to our truck, have fun. We sing. We dance. … We like to have fun. We like to know our customers have fun and we like to have fun together. So when you come to us, expect to have a little fun and some good food.

Catch the Food Truck Feature every week, in the Curiocity column. Know of a food truck you think should be featured? Let us know by leaving a comment below or tweeting your suggestion to @SaraPelissero!

Abrams’ neo-franchise, now two films deep, should have any fan of the classic Gene Roddenberry series feeling (or, if you’re a Vulcan, thinking) conflicted. On the one hand, the signposts of the beloved cult favorite are all in place — T. Kirk’s swashbuckling arrogance, Spock’s unalloyed constitutional pragmatism, Bones’ overreaching astonishment, Scotty’s accent, Chekov’s accent, Uhura’s Klingon accent — and bolstered by top-notch Hollywood F/X wizardry. On the other hand, so many reference points are only surface deep, like the trappings of a state of the art theme park ride for superfans.

Star Trek: Into Darkness kicks off with a disorienting surge of 3-D action, joining a risky mission in progress, Kirk running through a field as the inhabitants of a primitive alien planet chuck spears at him (looking like nothing so much as the Mayans in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto) while Spock sets off a device to freeze an impending volcano eruption that threatens the planet’s life. The effect of the cold open resembles nothing like Wagon Train, which Roddenberry cited as a primary influence on his creation, and something more on the order of Flash Gordon serials.

The Federation’s prime directive takes a beating from their botched mission, and Kirk gets handed a demotion that lasts a demoralizing 90 seconds, when former Starfleet officer turned terrorist John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) guns down a conclave of the highest-ranking members of the Federation, including Kirk’s mentor and ersatz father figure Christopher Pike.

Starfleet Admiral Alexander Marcus green lights retaliatory action, reinstating a newly vengeful Kirk as captain of the USS Enterprise and directing him to take his crew to Kronos, the Klingon planet to where Harrison has secretly beamed to take refuge. The biggest problem with the mission, as Spock notes, isn’t that their presence near Klingon territory will serve as the tipping point for intergalactic war to break out, but that detonating missiles at a man who has not been taken to stand trial for his actions runs counter to everything the Federation stands for. It’s not an exploratory mission; it’s a military operation.

This kind of ethical revisionism is what fuels the warp core at the center of Abrams’ Star Trek movies. It wasn’t nearly so obvious the first time around, but In Darkness is tactical enough in nature to close out with a tribute message to soldiers who fought after 9/11 and have it not seem like a huge non sequitur. (The sight of a rogue Starfleet super-ship hurtling toward the San Francisco skyline toward the film’s climax also seems calculated to trigger sense-memories of repressed trauma.) Since the Reagan era, Roddeberry’s Trek has always been the humanist, neo-liberal counterbalance to the combat-centric Star Wars universe. Both feature an array of extra-terrestrial figures, often working side-by-side in pursuit of peace. But Trek often attempted to live up to its own mantra “Live long and prosper.”

Abrams’ Star Trek films, for all the undeniably fun kinetic thrills and creamy lens flares they provide, are strictly “Live fast, die young,” and it’s becoming increasingly clear the Trek franchise is boldly going where basically every other action movie circa 2013 has already gone before. This is what it sounds like when Spocks cry.

(credit: Crystal Grobe)

However, if you’re looking for a salad dressing with more complexity, I have you covered on that end too. This is one of my favorite vinaigrettes and my go-to for dressing salads and lightly steamed vegetables.

Simple Vinaigrette
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 tsp shallot, minced
½ tsp sugar or honey
½ tsp salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup flax seed oil

In a Mason jar, combine all ingredients and shake vigorously until combined. Alternatively you can use a food processor and slowly add olive and flax oil until incorporated.

If there’s one person that’s critical about the work that Chef Isaac Becker has done over the years, it’s probably Isaac Becker.

The James Beard Award-winning owner of 112 Eatery, Bar La Grassa and Burch seems like he’d have plenty to gloat about but he said he’s a bit more “glass half empty” about his success.

And perhaps that’s what keeps the chef so focused. He’s not going to pull out every trick in the book to knock your socks off and he won’t take any time to pat himself on the back, but what he will do is one of the reasons he’s accomplished so much in this industry.

His focus has been and will continue to be on the customer — ensuring those that choose to dine with him and his staff have an experience they’ll enjoy.

It’s what made somewhat simple choices — late night dining, fun and comforting food — award-winning and highly desirable to Twin Cities diners.

As we learned in Part 1 of our chef’s profile, Becker started in this business at a young age and never really intended to make a lifelong career out of it. Three restaurants later, he and his wife (and co-owner) are enjoying the ride of a lifetime.

In Part 2, Chef Becker chats about that momentous moment when he won his James Beard Award and we find out about his love of ramen noodles, among other guilty pleasures.

——-

You’ve talked about staying inspired and getting ideas through an array of cookbooks and reading. Do you have any go-to cookbooks? What kinds of cookbooks do you gravitate towards?
A lot of times the book I dig through depends on what I’m looking for, like if I’m looking for vegetables. I’ve been pouring over “Vegetable Literacy” by Deborah Madison. It’s great. I don’t really have any books that I go to every time anymore. The ones I did have I’ve gone back to so many times I’ve worn them out.

What else motivates you as a chef?
What’s interesting is that, we’re opening Burch so I have to be here a lot. Being in the restaurant all the time in a way is an inspiration because you’re just here so much that your world has become the food and what you’re doing. Whereas, when things get easier at your restaurant and you can move away from them, it becomes hard to create and inspire because you’re not there as much. I think that’s part of the reason I wanted to do this restaurant (Burch) because I kind of started feeling like, well, it’s getting too easy for me to not spend a lot of time at the restaurants. The guys that are running them are doing such a good job and are very talented and it’s tempting not to go home early if you can, or come in later if you can and no one’s going to tell you otherwise. So for here, being in this again, I mean the intensity of this is inspiring in and of itself.

(credit: CBS)

You met your wife at D’Amico Cucina when you were on the line and she was waiting tables. Do your kids have any interest in the restaurant business?
I don’t know. My oldest now, he’s 16, he’s like me. He loves music; he plays four different instruments and I think he’s kind of getting more curious to what’s going on. You know, we never made him work here or anything like that. So I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe when he gets into college or gets a job. I’m not sure I want him to be in the restaurant business, you know. Late nights.

When you opened La Grassa, after successfully opening 112, were you more confident going into that venture that it’d be a success?
No, I never feel like I’ve got it figured out. I don’t ever think, “meh, check it off the list.” There’s always something that I’m freaking out about. It’s funny because I’m kind of a negative person by nature so I can dwell on negatives. If something good happens, it’s like “yay” but then I go right back to … I wish I could be as happy when something good happens that I am mad when something bad happens. But I never feel like “mission accomplished” ever. Never.

But what about the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest.
That was good. That was a happy day. That was great. That was a lot of fun.

What was that experience like?
It was great. It was one of the best things that’s ever happened in my life. I’ve never won anything. To win something like that, it was incredible. It’s like, it’s hard to describe the stress, I mean, I sound like I’m whining but I was nominated four years in a row. By the third year, I kind of wanted to win. I didn’t win the third year – Alex (Roberts) won and I love Alex but I didn’t win. The fourth year, there’s nothing that tells you “you’re the guy, you’re the winner,” there’s no reason why you’d think it’s yours.

They say, “OK, Midwest” and then they list off the names of the chefs and restaurants and there’s five or six of them. But you know, the one guy – I can’t remember his name – but they said his name and there’s this big roar in the crowd. Then they said my name and it was dead silence. No one knows who I am, you know. And I was like, “Uhhh, he’s going to win. Listen to that crowd.” And then they called my name and it was just like, I swear I thought I was in a dream. I grabbed Nancy and we walked across the stage and I remember thinking, “What if they change their mind?” (Laughs) Besides the joy of winning, it was like the biggest relief for me to just get that out of my system.

And to be recognized for a restaurant that you put so much hard work into and that’s flourishing …
Yeah, it’s great. I can’t pretend that it’s not. It’s been great for the restaurant. I feel like it legitimized me a little more in some people’s eyes. It’s for sure a highlight.

(credit: CBS)

So moving on to a lighter side. What would you say is your biggest guilty pleasure food?
Ooh, I got a couple. I really like ramen noodles. I like those. They’re really cheap. Also Kowalski’s has this chicken cashew wrap that I get every once in a while because I can eat it in my car. I can’t resist a couple of hot pizza rolls when my son and his friends are having them.

When you and your wife are at home, what do you like to cook for your family or friends?
I cook for my kids and my wife, we cook, but we don’t entertain very much. My wife is actually the better cook in the house. She makes great lasagna, great meatballs, tacos – she makes things the kids really love. Mine are so … I have a hard time because there’s only a few things that I make that they like and they barely like them at all.

When you’re out of the kitchen, what’s your favorite pastime?
Nothing. I used to like golfing but I don’t golf anymore.

I think I read this already but are sardines the one ingredient that you would prefer never to work with again? Or something else?
Well I haven’t had a fresh sardine that I’ve liked yet. I know that they’re … chefs like them and foodies like them but I haven’t had a good one. Maybe the ones I’ve had aren’t fresh but I don’t like them. I would try them again if I knew exactly when they got out of the water and got to me but I just haven’t had one that I’ve liked. I’d never say that I refuse to work with it but I’d want to know some specifics.

On the flip side, is there an ingredient you find yourself constantly drawn to?
I’ve really been focusing on vegetables lately. I really like the process of curing them with salts and eating them kind of raw but salted.

If you had to choose a “Last Meal,” what would it be?
Probably steak. Red wine and steak.

Where are some of your favorite places to dine?
We go to Quang probably once a week. It’s kind of embarrassing how much we go there. We have lunch at Lucia’s. I like Bachelor Farmer. We don’t go out a ton, we go to lunch a lot. That’s probably about it.

What are your thoughts on the Twin Cities restaurant scene? How have you seen it evolve?
I think more than anything, there’s just a lot more choices. There’s a larger quantity because the choices in the early 90s when I started working, there was maybe three or four restaurants that were big.

When you look back on your career, what do you hope to be known for, in the culinary world?
I guess an honest chef. Someone that’s cooking for the right reasons, cooking to make food that tastes good that customers will enjoy. Not trying to impress … I guess just honesty. Being an honest chef. I feel like there’s a tendency with some cooks who make things that aren’t concerned with the enjoyment of the customers. They’re just concerned with “look what I can do,” they’re thinking about them, not the customer. I think it should always be, the eating and dining experience should always be about the customer. This new thing with who’s the chef, what’s he doing, all that is … when I started cooking, no one could give a rip who the chef was. Within the industry, people knew who certain people were, who the chefs were but the diners and customers didn’t care what the guy cooking’s name was or where in New York he worked. I’m tired of that. I think that we should go back to that. We should care what the customer’s experience is. When I go out to dinner, I don’t care who the chef is. I’m not there for that. That’s not why I got into this. I guess I’d like to be known as someone who got into this because I wanted to be, because I wanted to cook and make good food and not because I wanted to be a famous chef.

Click here for Part 1 of our chef chat with Isaac Becker. For more information on his restaurants, click on the following links: 112 Eatery | Bar La Grassa | Burch

Here are my choices for the best Twin Cities screenings for cinephiles this week:

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Wednesday, May 15: Stories We Tell (Walker Art Center)

For one night only, the Walker presents Sarah Polley’s documentary inquisition into her own tangled family history. Polley talks with her father and four siblings to get the full story of what Polley’s mother was like. (She died when the actress was 11 years old.)

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Thursday, May 16: A Star Is Born (Heights Theater)

Her most famous role remains Dorothy Gale in the 1939 MGM musical The Wizard of Oz, but if you ask most Judy Garland fans for their pick as her movie peak, they’ll likely opt for her powerhouse performance from the 1954 version of A Star is Born. The movie was a remake of a Janet Gaynor-Frederic March vehicle from the ’30s. In the remake, Garland stars as Esther Blodgett, an up-and-coming singing sensation whose career takes off just as her superstar husband’s career nosedives into failure and alcoholism. Garland attacked the role of Blodgett with the force of the tornado that leveled the Gale farmstead. Whether the onslaught of acting came as a result of prescriptions or the fact that she was working simpatico with her then-husband Sid Luft (who was producing the film) and director George Cukor (who directed at least some portion of her performance in Oz), or because she was finally given material with some juicy dramatic gravitas, the fact remains that this performance represents Ground Zero for Garland’s legion of fans, one which retroactively resonates with faint allusions to Garland’s own life experience. The performance remains one of the most disappointing Oscar losses in history.

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Friday, May 17 through Sunday, May 19: Bigger Than Life (Trylon Microcinema)

James Mason’s bustin’ out all over. From A Star Is Born to this, Nicholas Ray’s excoriating examination of a family man giving himself over to prescription drugs. The script suggests the pills take control of Mason’s Ed Avery, but Ray’s direction and Mason’s typically austere performance indicate Bigger Than Life is tackling bigger demons than Big Pharma. Equal parts Father Knows Best and Requiem for a Dream, the blunt shock of the film boils down to three immortal words: “God was wrong.”

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Friday, May 17 & Saturday, May 18: Post Tenebras Lux (Walker Art Center)

Carlos Reygadas continues to stake out his place among the most discussed — and, in some cases, loathed — auteurs currently at the nexus of world cinema. His latest, 2012′s Post Tenebras Lux, was reportedly given the Cannes shoulder last spring. Of course, that puts it in extremely good company. More on this one a little later this week.

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Friday, May 17 through Thursday, May 23: Bert Stern: Original Madman & The Reluctant Fundamentalist (St. Anthony Main Theater)

A pair of extended plays for movies that have screened in the Twin Cities recently. OK, maybe not so recently in the case of Bert Stern, which ran at the 2012 MSPIFF. Here’s what I wrote back then: “Stern was one of the foremost image-makers of the jet-setting early 1960s, changed the direction of photography, and inched the two discrete worlds of art and commerce ever closer together. His campaign for Smirnoff turned Cold War America onto Russia’s dominant tippler of choice. His photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe — the star’s last, as it turned out, as she died mere weeks later — is the stuff of legend. His lollipop-sucking one-sheet for Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 masterpiece Lolita is as indelible an image as any Kubrick himself managed.” And Jonathon Sharp just reviewed The Reluctant Fundamentalist, saying “One theme that springs forth from the movie is that fundamentalism (of any religion or creed or business practice) leads to tragedy. Another, which goes hand-in-hand to the one just mentioned, is that people are more than what they seem. Every individual is a confluence of various forces and ideas, mashed-up, perhaps with parts in contradiction to others. Without understanding this, the movie shows, all sorts of inhuman stuff goes down in the name of businesses, nations and gods.”

To say that Aaron Hicks’ first month-plus in the big leagues has been a trial is more than a tepid understatement.

Coming into Monday night the rookie had a slash-line of .137/.239/.216. As bad as those numbers look, considering that they were numbers on the rise, they look even worse.

He’d struck out 35 times in 102 at-bats, and had only 14 hits – though five of those were for extra bases. He’d managed to up his on-base percentage by virtue of drawing 14 walks, but was still struggling mightily to put the ball in play.

But for as long of a haul as a baseball season can be, it’s funny how often one night can change the course of a player’s season.

Hicks may very well have had one of those nights on Monday.

It started out innocently enough with a routine fly ball out to right in the second inning.

But after the Twins had grabbed the lead from the White Sox in the third, Hicks came to the plate to lead off the fourth. He worked himself into a 1-2 count, and then hammered a Hector Santiago pitch to center for only the second home run of his young career.

It’s impressive enough to hit a ball 416 feet into a spot at Target Field where Twins fly balls usually go to die. It turned out to be all the more impressive given what happened in the sixth inning.

The White Sox had just closed to within two runs of the Twins when Adam Dunn – he of 412 career home runs – hit one to nearly the same spot that Hicks had hit his home run.

The difference? Aaron Hicks got a better jump than Alejandro De Aza – the Chicago center fielder – did. Hicks raced to the wall and made a leaping grab reminiscent of the kind of catch that earned Torii Hunter the nickname of “Spiderman”.

“When a ball’s struck like that, you don’t kind of know, you just have to break back and do the best you can,” Hicks said, “It hung up for me and I made the catch.”

A home run and the highway-robbery of a long-ball would be enough to earn the hearty cheers of any fan base, and Twins fans greeted Hicks loudly as he returned to the dugout.

But he wasn’t done.

After Oswaldo Arcia struck out to lead off the bottom half of the sixth, Hicks took Santiago deep again, this time 412 feet to left-center. The two no-doubters not only constituted the first multi-hit and multi-homer game of Hicks’ career, but also the first multi-home-run game by any Twin in 2013.

“I think the second one was more fun,” said Hicks, “Right after the catch I just felt amazing, I felt loose, and for that one to come right after, just capped it off.”

This time the cheers from the Twins faithful were so loud and sustained, they prompted another first for the first-year center fielder … his first curtain call.

Hicks had one more at-bat in the 8th. This time after a bloop-double by Arcia and with first base open, Chicago reliever Deunte Heath decided that discretion was the better part of valor and issued Aaron a 5-pitch walk.

As the old Metrodome scoreboard saying goes, “Walks Will Haunt”, and haunt Heath they did as Hicks came around to score on a bases-loaded walk.

Of course, one game does not a career make. Heck, it doesn’t even make a season.

Manager Ron Gardenhire just hopes a night like tonight helps build Hicks confidence, “That’s kind of what we’re all waiting for. You know, you get a couple of big hits like that, you have a moment out there and hopefully that can maybe get him past some of these things.”

If Hicks begins to establish himself as a legit starter in the Major Leagues, he’ll be able to point to May 13th as the night were things started to click.

In his words, “I’ve just been battling, you know, every day and that’s the thing you gotta do in this league. I just made some plays today and had fun.”

Minneapolis native Danny McHugh will be among the rock concert cast otherwise known as “Rock of Ages,” which kicks off Friday at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis.

McHugh is no stranger to the Minnesota theater scene — he’s been in everything from CATS to Jesus Christ Superstar at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre.

Now, he’s living in the 80s, covered in acid wash and ready to rock the Minneapolis stage.

McHugh chatted with us about the tour, coming home and what it’s like starring in a show — and touring — with his sister.

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Tell us a little about Rock of Ages – and the character you play.

Its a jukebox musical featuring the best rock songs of the 1980s. These are the songs that everyone knows all the words to when they come on at a bar or at karaoke. I play a character named Joey Primo, who becomes the lead singer of a made-up monster rock band called Arsenal. He’s an exaggerated amalgamation of the lead singers of all the best 80s rock bands.

You’re originally from Minneapolis, what’s the best part of coming home to perform?

Being on tour can be tough because you’re away from your friends and family for months at a time. On our time off from the show, I’ll come home and tell people about what I’m doing and what show I’m in. This will be the first time that the people I care about will get to actually experience it for themselves and I’m very excited to share it with them.

You had experiences on local stages before making it big, what were some of your favorite memories from working in the local theater community?

When I was 19, I took a year off from college when I booked my first professional gig at Chanhassen Dinner Theater. The show was “Cats” and it was a huge eight-month contract. I took the gig because I wanted to know if I really wanted/could be a performer for a living. I was so happy to find that the Twin Cities theater community is full of talented, hard working and dedicated actors that really inspired me. With a lot of great real world experience, I was very excited to go back to school for more training and get back out in the professional world as soon as possible.

(credit: Scott Suchman)

With a show like this, which is basically a big rock concert, how difficult is it to approach each night, each city with the same level of energy?

Our on-stage band is so incredible, all I need is to hear the opening guitar riff and my energy level is all set for the show. It really helps pump me up. Also, the energy from the audience is a major help on those two-show days at the end of the week.

You star alongside your sister in this show. What’s it like to tour together? Do you enjoy having a sibling along for the ride?

It’s been really great! Fortunately, both of us have been working since we each graduated college, but our jobs have taken us all over the world and away from each other. This is a rare opportunity to be able to be employed and be in the same place.

Since the “Rock of Ages” movie came out, have the audiences changed or grown at all? Have you noticed a larger interest?

I think the movie and the stage show are two separate entities. The tie that binds is the great music, but for me, you can’t quite beat the energy of a live show where audience interaction is paramount. Our audiences have remained pretty much the same throughout because I think if you’d be a fan of the movie, (and at its heart, the music), then you’d love the stage show.

What is the best part of being in this cast?

Getting paid to see the country while doing something I love, and sharing the stage with my little sister!

You’ll have a short run when you’’re home in Minneapolis, what pitch would you give to get audiences to come see the show?

It’s rock concert with comedy, dancing and a big heart.

Rock of Ages will be in Minneapolis from May 17-19 for five shows. Tickets ($34-$94) are still available. For ticket info. or more information, click here.

Burnsville senior captain Tyler Hanson aims to win the Blaze a second title in three years before he heads off to play for the Gophers next year. (credit: Becky Hanson)

When Burnsville’s Tyler Hanson lined up at wide receiver this fall for the Blaze – playing pigskin for the first time, ever – one of the state’s standout baseball players had a revelation.

First off, it confirmed his preferred style of play: “I’m not a physical dude. I’m not a mean dude. And it was a really physical game out there.”

Secondly, it reinforced a teamwork mentality: “It showed me everything you do plays a huge role in each play. You don’t have to touch the ball on every play to make someone else better.”

And it reminded the senior how much he wants the ball (a baseball, that is) in his hands at all times: “That’s what I love about pitching – you have complete control,” he said. “You control the pace, control the outcome of the game, and it’s in your hands.”

(credit: Becky Hanson)

The third baseman/pitcher has Burnsville at 7-2 on the year. And after a stellar sophomore season helping the Blaze secure a state title, Hanson likes his team’s chances to get back to Target Field and hoist the trophy once again, perfectly bookending his prep career.

Here’s nine things you need to know about the homegrown talent who’ll play at the University of Minnesota next year on scholarship.

Reason No. 1 why the U wants him
Hanson’s 6-2, 210-pounds and throws as high as 89 mph. Oh, and starting three years in a row for a powerhouse like Burnsville isn’t too shabby, either.

Reason No. 2 — he embraces leadership roles
“I’m a senior captain. I know teammates look up to me. I like to lead by example, talk with the underclassmen, and get to know everyone I’m playing with.”

As a Gopher, it’ll be a Burnsville reunion
“On the very first day they could call me, my old teammates Dan (Motl) and Matt (Stemper) called and really started persuading me to come to the U. I was born in Minnesota and that makes you a Gophers fan right away.
And the brand new field is awesome.”

Little brother Eric (left) and Tyler. (credit: Becky Hanson)

He’s cautiously optimistic of taking the field next year for the U
“They want me to play the field and pitch right away. We’ll see if it goes one way or the other.”

His favorite person to follow on Twitter isn’t a male athlete
“Shawn Johnson, of course. She’s a good looking lady, and she’s funny.”

His brother (Eric) and father shaped him into a boy of summer
“My parents (Ed and Becky) pushed me and spent the long, endless hours playing catch in the street, and going to the batting cages.
My dad was a baseball player – so he says – in high school. When we were younger, when dad got home he would say ‘lemme change first’ and we would play catch outside all the time.”

He still can’t believe his Blaze didn’t win a second-straight championship last year
“We had three infiedlers going Division I, outfielders going Division I and Division I, and we had Division I pitchers.”

He’s debating two athletically oriented majors at the U
“It’s between sports management or kinesiology. I want to be helping people with whatever I do.”

What does he say when his coach calls him one of the best he’s ever seen?
“I try to be humble, but having him say that gives me a bit of a big head. But I’m only in high school, I’ll just try to keep getting better.”

(credit: Becky Hanson)

The amendment, of course, was defeated, and the Minnesota Senate is expected to vote to legalize gay marriage this week.

The vote in the Minnesota House wasn’t even close — 75-59 with four Republicans voting in favor.

So what happened? It all began when a backlash against the Marriage and Voter ID amendments were widely credited with helping sweep Democrats into controlling both legislative chambers in the November election.

The high-powered Minnesota United For All Families that guided the “Vote No” campaign fell seamlessly behind the push for legalization. At the same time, legislators in other states, from Maine to Washington, approved legalization.

Polls continue to show younger voters overwhelming support for gay rights. While even a few months ago Minnesota legislators expressed skepticism a legalization effort would succeed, the measure seemed to acquire an organic momentum of its own.

Somehow this issue has taken center stage, and an air of inevitability has changed places with uncertainty, as Minnesota appears poised to legalize gay unions.

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Years and years ago, the novelist Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita, Pale Fire)  published bits of his autobiography Speak, Memory as fiction in the New Yorker. By thus messing with the magazine’s editors and audience, the beloved butterfly expert likely had more than a little fun passing off his childhood memories as the stuff of fantasy.

In the House, the latest movie written and directed by François Ozon, plays with this same idea: that of obscuring the line between what’s fiction and what’s real.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a “docudrama” like Caesar Must Die (which is incredible and, by the way, playing at St. Anthony Main). Ozon’s movie is, on the other hand, a fiction about fictions, a story about stories, which also touches on the issues of family life, class, control and voyeurism. It’s playful in its telling,  and the constant twists (re-writes on the film’s reality) lend the film something of a thriller quality. It’s also kind of funny.

So here’s the story. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is a high school composition teacher generally underwhelmed with his school and his students. But one boy, Claude (Ernst Umhauer), gets his attention when he hands in his first homework assignment. In it, the blonde, cat-faced boy writes about befriending a popular kid so as to gain entry into his big, mysterious, middle-class house.

Germain and his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) become entranced by the story. Immediately, they start analyzing it, questioning whether parts  – like Claude sneaking through the house, admiring his friend’s mother — are true or made up; and they also discuss if it’s moral of him to write  about his “friend” in a such a chastising, discreet way.

And Claude’s next assignment (on adjectives) picks up where the first left off. Germain, unable to resist the writing, which has become spicier, gobbles it up and becomes something of a writing coach to the kid. He helps him shape his work — create drama, build tension, make characters believable, real, human. What the teacher doesn’t control is the story’s direction — that’s all under Claude’s command.

This is where Claude comes to resemble Humbert Humbert, the narrator of Lolita whom the reader can’t trust. The teen becomes aware of the grip his talent has on his teacher, and he uses that to somewhat sinister, self-indulgent and weirdly creative means. I won’t spoil any twists, but I will say that they hit story beats with a pleasing, unusual timing. The result is mesmerizing.

Problems one might find with the movie is that its premise is unbelievable. No kid, no total rookie could write like that. Moreover, no teacher would go so crazy about it. There were times when I thought such things while watching In the House, but the actors’ performances combined with Ozon’s smart pacing dissolved such thoughts almost as soon as they bubbled up.

And thus Ozon pulls off the movie’s most admirable feat: that of artfully telling on screen a story about telling stories. He shows that composition is key as he confuses you one moment and then fills you in the next…and then does it all over again. He’s such a master that when I recently saw a list of the films at Cannes, I couldn’t help feeling enthusiasm when I saw — and tried to pronounce — the loud, blunt vowels of his short surname. In other words: This guy knows how to tell a story, see his movies.

In the House is playing at the Edina Cinema.

Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! was a potent but artistically irresponsible shot of absinthe. For every person that couldn’t stand the too-eager mess, there was another who fell into deep intoxication at every Looney Tunes, theater geek flourish.

Luhrmann’s entire “red curtain” aesthetic — silent-film mugging juxtaposed flagrantly against sonically hyperactive pop music tapestries, po-faced disposal of irony even as every 20th century signpost gets chucked into the blender, densely layered production design rendered into nothing more than abstract textures from hyperactive editing, like a Sam Peckinpah adaptation of Hello, Dolly! — offers viewers no other option but to presume they’re either being slapped or tickled. Those who have an affection for both find themselves thrown into a deep purple ambivalence, respecting the affront but relatively certain everyone exhibiting more enthusiasm is submitting to an unhealthful life plan.

In short, Moulin Rouge‘s fans were an annoying lot, but the movie itself was at least 160 proof Luhrmann, the real stuff. His long overdue follow-up (which, as the world seems ready to do with regard to Daft Punk’s Human After All in anticipation of Random Access Memories, presumes everyone is just going to pretend Australia didn’t happen) is burned gin, literature from the rail.

Nearly everyone has read The Great Gatsby, Minnesota-native F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most obvious candidate for The Great American Novel, and most of them who have likely read it too early, odds being that most students who made it to high school without flunking or dropping out have only a limited grasp on the novel’s theme of retrospective failure and the inability to turn back the clock. (In contrast, rage against the machine classics One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Catcher in the Rye always play particularly well among teens.)

Luhrmann’s $120 million adaptation of the story of a self-made mogul who amassed, adjusted for inflation, approximately $120 billion can’t make up its mind whether to revere the novel or to desecrate it, so it half-heartedly tries to do both. Fan of barnstorming, unfaithful literary adaptations that I am (two words: The Shining), I wish Luhrmann had given it up and just admitted that he was drawn to the material’s potential for candy corny flapper frippery. Yes, there’s a lot of screen time devoted to gold lame, pearls to twirl, CGI shots of an obsessively low-rise Manhattan skyline, exactingly choreographed servants, lumpy flappers jutting their gams out in all sorts of passé angles. And true, Luhrmann still hasn’t met a grotesque reaction shot he didn’t feel like slamming into the fold.

But Luhrmann doesn’t seem to comprehend that the entire novel was filtered through the first-person descriptions of an observer who, on page one, claims to haven’t a judgmental bone in his body … and then spends the next 180 pages or so bringing prodigious superficiality to vivid life. The tension between new and old money is crucial, and instead Luhrmann turns the tale of Nick Carraway into one big flashback about a mopey wallflower battling depression and, on the advice of his psychologist, turning it into typewriter art.

Would that Luhrmann have given into his own indulgences with greater abandon. I’ve already seen a few reviewers compare The Great Gatsby to the great Gatsby, the man who had all the ambition in the world, so long as it served his own image of himself. The only thing preventing that assessment from being devastatingly accurate is that at least Jay Gatsby had a Daisy to chase. Luhrmann’s green light in making Gatsby is nothing more than the reflection in a shallow mirror. And with now a dozen years separating his last signature film from this hollow mess, he indeed knows that time waits for no one.

Glenn Caruso was downright giddy when talking about his 2013 recruiting class that will arrive on the St. Thomas campus this fall. In five-plus seasons as Tommies head coach, that’s not an easy task when you’ve had as much success as St. Thomas and expect as much as the program does. Caruso has led the program to three straight MIAC titles, four straight NCAA Playoff appearances and a run to the national championship game last year.

The Tommies have had three straight 10-0 regular seasons, and Caruso is now 57-8 in five seasons. That mark includes a current 27-game MIAC win streak and 34-game regular season win streak.

Numbers are nice for the record books, but none of that really matters when the regular season starts in September. Caruso announced late last week the addition of 42 in-state players and 16 out-of-state players to the St. Thomas program, including 55 incoming freshman.

Caruso said the program has stockpiled offensive and defensive linemen. He said the group coming in on the front line on both sides of the ball is the best he’s had since he became the St. Thomas head coach. It’s something St. Thomas alumni and fans won’t take lightly as last year’s team had one of the top offenses in the country and one of the top rushing defenses.

“It was a huge class for us in terms of linemen, offensive and defensive,” Caruso said. “It’s where the attitude of your team emanates from, and it’s the best class we’ve ever had.”

Caruso said it’s difficult at this time to comment on specific players, but that it’s certainly possible for a few of the incoming freshman to make an immediate impact.

The Tommies will also have plenty of players back from last year’s run to Salem, Va. Of the 60 players St. Thomas had on that roster, 36 were freshman and sophomores. St. Thomas will return its starting quarterback, which will be junior Matt O’Connell, who was one of the top quarterbacks in the MIAC when he was healthy.

Recruiting might be most difficult for football coaches, especially at the Division III level where there are no athletic scholarships. There are plenty of positions to fill every year, and a lot of times players receive what turn out to be empty promises.

That’s where Caruso said it’s key not to guarantee any incoming player anything. Everyone is equal going into the season, and almost every spot is up for grabs.

“The most important thing in recruiting is not overpromising. They understand they’ll be given an opportunity,” Caruso said. “It’s refreshing to know the players we got and how they’re recruited. They don’t get caught up in the salesmanship that other schools imply. It’s irrational to guarantee anything.”

Caruso has brought in plenty of what he terms “athletes,” meaning players who could play at multiple positions in college on either side of the ball.

One of the most impressive names coming in is Nick Waldvogel of St. Thomas Academy. His older brother, Fritz, left St. Thomas as one of the most prolific wide receivers and kick returners in St. Thomas football history. Look for Nick to have a similar type of roll with the Tommies, although to expect as much as Fritz accomplished would at this point be unrealistic.

“He’s a really dynamic athlete. You want to draw comparisons to Fritz, but he’s got a different body style that’s a little thicker. He is certainly is as elusive, which makes me smile,” Caruso said. We’ve had a lot of success recruiting the brothers of kids we’ve had. It makes me feel great because we’re associated with some ridiculously blessed families.”

One of the more talented all-around players in the class is Holy Family’s Derek Ogren. He finished his senior season there with more than 400 yards receiving and four touchdowns on offense, while collecting 78 tackles at linebacker. Wide receiver Michael Alada of Hill-Murray is another athlete in Caruso’s class. He averaged about 46 rushing yards per game as a senior for the Pioneers while also catching 41 passes for 630 yards and seven touchdowns.

St. Thomas will also have some top talent from outside Minnesota coming in. Jordan Millis of Black River Falls, Wis., was the Most Outstanding Receiver in Wisconsin last year. He comes to St. Paul after a senior season of 47 catches for 1,132 yards and 18 touchdowns. They also have a top quarterback coming in from Illinois in Darby Goodwin.

The future appears to be bright for the Tommies. Caruso said he’s already recruiting Minnesota’s junior class. Listed below is the entire 2013 St. Thomas recruiting class, including their potential position.

Incoming Freshman
Jesse Addo – Wayzata (Secondary)
Michael Alada – Hill-Murray (Athlete)
Ryan Anderson – Champlin Park (K)
Dylan Andrew – Neuqua Valley, Ill. (QB)
Michael Backus – Eastview (OL)
Michael Blume – Big Lake (FB)
Sebastian Borges – Stillwater (DL)
Josh Botten – Shakopee (DB, Athlete)
Steven Braschayko – Coon Rapids (OL) 10 tackles
Alex Burback – Stillwater (WR/TE)
Stuart Burns – Hudson, Wis. (LB)
Bennett Celichowski – Minnetonka (DB)
Alex Chadwick – Farmington (DB)
Mike Coldagelli – New Prague (FB)
Alexander Daniel – Andover (WR/TE)
Nick Eliason – Belle Plaine (WR, Athlete)
Tyler Fish – Warroad (OL)
Darby Goodwin (DL) – Loyola Academy (Ill.)
Micah Hausman – Eagan (DL)
Luke Hermann – Cretin-Derham Hall (LB)
Will Hilbert – Marquette University High (Wis.) (OL)
Sam Hodnefield – Stillwater (LB)
Joel Hylton – North Shore School (ILL.) (OL/DL)
Moise Igeno – Centennial (LB) 41 tackles
Jonah Koski – Bend, Ore. (QB)
Brady Kurtz – Becker (OL)
Matt Lally – Marmion Academy (Ill.) (TE/LB)
Chandler Lamke – Gale-Ettrick-Trempeleau (Wis.)
Noah Larson – Bloomington Jefferson (DL)
Makael Lunning – Albert Lea (RB, Athlete)
Zach Merie – Hopkins (FS, athlete)
Jordan Millis – Black River Falls, Wis. (WR)
Brendan Murphy – Loyola Academy (Ill.)
Jack Newell – Minnetonka (DL)
Derek Ogren – Holy Family (MLB/TE)
Ayo Okesanya – North Shore School (Ill.)
Chris Pierson – Wayzata (DB)
Joey Puk – Eden Prairie (DL)
Mike Redmond – Minnetonka (LB)
Joe Reed – Cretin-Derham Hall (DB, Athlete)
Chris Rozek – Hopkins (LB)
Turner Sagat – New Berlin Eisenhower (Wis.)
Sean Scharlau – St. Michael-Albertville (DL/OL)
Kyle Schmidt – Woodbury (DL)
Adam Schnobrich – New Ulm Cathderal (RB)
Derek Soderberg – Eden Prairie (DB)
Joe Southern – Ashwaubenon (Wis.)
Alexander Stevson – St. Thomas Academy (DB)
Jarrod Thill – Green Bay Southwest (Wis.)
Josh Vedane – Dowling Catholic (Iowa)
Nick Waldvogel – St. Thomas Academy (WR)
Steven Wilson – Apple Valley (WR)
Ryan Winter – Woodbury (DL)
Michael Witschen – Monticello (LB)
Evan Zeller – DePere, Ws.

Transfers
Zach Burrington (MSU-Mankato, Maple Grove)
Nathan Howard (U of M, Jefferson)
Zach Martens (Missouri S&T/Apple Valley)

Cory Svihla, a Bethel graduate from Foley, Minn., enjoyed every minute of Vikings Rookie Mini-Camp last weekend. (credit: Vikings.com)

For Cory Svihla, donning horns on his helmet and hustling through drills at Winter Park last week alongside the Vikings’ coveted draft picks made the last two years of grinding it out completely worth it.

The Foley, Minn., native’s last two years have consisted of endless workouts at Lifetime Fitness, doing everything he could to keep in football shape after the three-time All-MIAC linebacker graduated from Bethel in 2011, with a die-hard hope of continuing to play the game somewhere, somehow.

Svhila, 25, had been to multiple pro days, numerous combines and even an All-Star game between then and now.

(credit: Carl Schmuland)

Yes, he’d gotten some calls from the Arena Football League and the Canadian Football League, but no contract offers. That made the opportunity to attend the Vikings Rookie Mini-Camp for the first time last weekend all the sweeter.

“Even just getting invited to Vikings camp was a dream for me,” he said. “It was quite an experience the last two years, but I’d do it all over again. There have been ups and downs, and someone in my situation could have easily given up after not getting a whole lot of attention.”

The 25-year-old runs the 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds and has a 31-inch vertical, according to his 2012 promo video. Working as a fitness professional at Lifetime Fitness for 18 months after school kept him ready for a return to the gridiron.

How does one go from Division III football — and being away from the game for two years –  to snagging the Minnesota Vikings’ eye?

Sometimes it’s who you know.

“I trained with a couple Vikings guys here and there,” said Svhila, who now works in business development for Steffen Thomas LLC. “They recommended me, said I had a valid shot, and I got a call.”

(credit: Carl Schmuland)

The Vikings already signed several linebackers before camp, so Svihla isn’t expecting the Vikings’ number to flash up on his phone again. But that doesn’t mean he can’t dream.

“It’s the hope (to hear from the Vikings), but they have an unbelievable player in (linebacker) Gerald Hodges, who they drafted in the fourth round,” Svihla said. “He’s an unbelievable player and it was fun to play next to him.”

Svihla, who has been an assistant coach at both The Blake School and Mounds View, made a point to thank his own coaches for their role in his development.

“My position coach Mike Fregeau, along with other coaches, brought me to where I am today and made me the person I am,” Svihla said. “Them and Jesus Christ — that’s where my thanks go to.”

(Note: My review of the film, which opens this weekend in Minneapolis, can be found here.)

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Henderson: You have a longstanding working relationship with director Ken Loach. A lot of your earlier films are of a more serious nature than this film and maybe Looking for Eric. Is there a conscious turn toward a more humorous approach to making films?

Laverty: The last film we did before this one was a very tough one, and uncompromising tragedy with mercenaries returning from Iraq. That was a very dark, difficult story. So we wanted to try a different tone. We did a couple of films in Glasgow — My Name is Joe and Sweet Sixteen — that had comic moments in them but were also tragic. And this one has a lot of comic moments in it but could easily have been tragic, if you know what I mean.

Henderson: How do you find yourself balancing the comic aspects of the film with what’s still a pretty serious social situation?

Laverty: It’s always a question of judgement and trying to be true to the premise. We started the story off with a bunch of young lads who were petty criminals. Robbie, the main character, has been involved in a series of assault and escaped prison by the skin of his teeth. We spent time with these kids, who come from tough backgrounds, and they’re actually full of mischief and fun. They’re angry and frustrated, but it’s pretty fun to be with them. I wanted to try and capture that in a script, and then also mix in a little bit of whiskey. In many ways, (whiskey) is one of Scotland’s biggest exports, apart from oil. It’s the so-called drink of the sophisticated business class. I was just reading in the Los Angeles Times a bottle recently sold for $465,000. It’s just absolutely bonkers. Many of these kids from Scotland have never tasted their own “national drink.” They’ve never been to the places where it’s distilled. I love the contradiction in that. And then Harry teaches Robbie some of the finer things in life; he develops (Robbie’s) palate. From a screenwriter’s point of view, there were a lot of levels there.

Henderson: There’s definitely an interesting dichotomy within the whiskey itself.

Laverty: Many of the kids have never tried whiskey in their lives. It’s always cheap vodka or cheap wines. They get pissed really quickly.

Henderson: So, what gets your vote for the finest whiskey?

Laverty: (Laughing) Oh, it was a great sacrifice to go into these distilleries, Eric. Somebody’s got to make the sacrifice. There’s lots of terrific whiskeys, really. One which is very, very nice is from the island of Islay, which is peaty but not lumpy. There’s one called Bowmore, which is very, very nice. On the other side of the coast, there’s a little one called Glenmorangie. In the south of Scotland there’s only one distillery, but I’d like to mention it: Bladnoch. It’s a little-known one, but it’s a lovely distillery. Half the fun of this was seeing these little distilleries in the countryside.

Jake Dilley – The Color Pharmacy

With music, most people have a differing and constantly evolving mindset on what makes a certain artist/band interesting. That part’s pretty obvious, I know. For me, besides a gripping melody, what interests me is an overarching message that stands out among the crowd. I like a “hook,” so to speak, but one that shares an honest, profound message — or experience — with the listener.

The Color Pharmacy’s hook, described by front man Jake Dilley, is to “create a different environment for the listener and viewer where they are momentarily taken out of their element” and create a “loss of control without feeling out of control.”

That’s quite … rad.

The trio accomplishes that hook in their newly released self-title album, The Color Pharmacy, by weaving a rich variety of sounds/colors utilizing energetic vocals, rich (and near-perfect) harmonies, dreamy guitar parts and a driving, solid rhythm section.

Where the road leads now for the emerging band is anyone’s guess. Dilley believes the band has “turned a corner” and just the fact that people are coming out and enjoying their music, well, “that’s about as good as we can hope for,” Dilley said.

So, take a few minutes and check out the our very first “Local Music Tap” video feature, as well as the “4 Questions, 4 Answers” segment with Dilley, below!

Video Feature

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4 Questions, 4 Answers

Q: Howdy dudes! Let’s get right into it. What do you like most about the Minneapolis music scene?

A: Honestly, we’ve been all over the Midwest and certain other parts of the country and I have yet to find one that’s this great. We also really like Austin, Texas as well. It’s a great music scene. Here, there’s healthy competition but it’s not, for the most part, bad blood. There’s a lot of really great bands here and seems that every bill we get to play on, at least one or all of the bands are really solid. That’s more than we can say for a lot of other places in the country – you’re lucky to find really great acts.

We’ve watched certain bands get really good here and there are other really new bands springing up, these brand new bands with really young people – it’s really scary.

Q: I see that you guys apparently tracked your new album at The Pearl Studios in only four days. That’s pretty impressive … what kind of preparation goes into that condensed work?

A: There was extensive pre-production for that. We worked with our producer Mark Schwandt, who used to play in White Light Riot with Dan (Larsen – the bassist). We got together a number of months before we started recording. We did a lot of demos going into it so we could go into the Pearl and give it to Zach Hollander and show them what we’re trying to do and show them that these are the songs the way we like them, you know, expand on them … from there, it was really just a calibration thing, because we all knew what it should sound like, so getting it to sound like that was something that we just had to work together on.

It was a really fun process … it was really hot, too! It was last August and they didn’t have air conditioning up there (laughs).

Q: Your new “Aperture” video, featuring a woman w/ a blue umbrella walking/interactive with Minneapolis landmark, is pretty great … How did that all come together? Where’d the idea come from?

A: We had seen some “tilt/shift” footage before and we were all big fans of that miniature world it creates. So, our good friend, Jimmy Morrison, and I got together to try to figure out how to actually do it. As soon as we figured out the logistics of it, it was just a matter of, “OK, now how do we create a loose narrative without being too overt. A lot of music videos that made in Minneapolis really exploit it and I didn’t want to exploit Minneapolis. There were a lot of places that we were able to find that people didn’t even know were here. We tried to stay away from the major places, even though we definitely went to the Mall of America (laughs), but that was because it was just too good to pass up. Seeing that roller coaster looking like it’s miniature was pretty cool.

But the idea of the girl with the red coat and blue umbrella, we wanted something that was going to be colorful and visually striking that could kind of be like a “Where’s Waldo?” for somebody that’s watching it. We wanted that to occur in every shot and we didn’t realize until later that there was a way to string it together to make it actually make sense for people that live here and see that, wow, that actually could have been the day in the life of someone in Minneapolis.

Q: You describe your band’s music as representing “synesthesia,” which is when the brain mixes senses, i.e. hearing sounds elicits a color response. Could you describe that further and also describe what your lyrics represent?

A:Our newest album is a lot more positive, lyrically, than things we’ve done in the past. I think that is due, in large part, to me being in a more positive head space than ever before and writing from that standpoint. A good portion of the lyrics of our latest record center around the theme of hope and what it is to anticipate something exciting and new around the corner, even if the only proof you have is instinctual.

Specifically, songs like Cast of Characters, Airplane Song, May, and Phosphorescent are about sensing a certain kind of energy in the air. Sometimes, this energy comes from other people or outside forces, but for the most part it is the recognition of an energy inside ourselves that emits through everything we do.

This is a somewhat synesthetic experience as well, in that non-physical phenomena are being received and understood by a sort of “sixth sense” and that a great deal of information is being communicated and exchanged between separate entities in nontraditional ways.

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Check out their website, Facebook, Bandcamp and YouTube.

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Local Music Tap is a new blog aimed at promoting Minnesota-based musicians, bands and shows. If you have music blog ideas, please email cepremo@wcco.com or leave a comment below. Also, follow the Local Music Tap on Twitter and on YouTube.

Teams had finally started to hit their playing fields on a somewhat regular basis, and then the May blizzard hit Owatonna, Faribault, Rochester and other parts of southeastern Minnesota. With temperatures Tuesday expected to get near 80, playing fields all over Minnesota will be bustling with tennis rackets, aluminum bats, golfers and track stars.

It appears the threat of snow is finally in the rear-view mirror, so it begs the question of what to expect the rest of the spring season in high school sports.

The best educated guess I can give you is to expect the unexpected. We’re just a few weeks away from section tournaments starting, and most teams have barely had a regular season to this point. This is the type of year where virtually anybody can make a postseason run. No team has had a chance to establish their talent and consistency on any playing field, at least not for any length of time.

In tennis, Edina is the perennial big school favorite until somebody else beats them. Although right now, state rankings have Wayzata at No. 1, Edina at No. 2 and Maple Grove third in Class AA. In Class A, it will be a three-horse race between Blake, Breck and Rochester Lourdes. Those are currently the top three-ranked teams.

On the baseball diamond, it’s anyone’s guess who will end the year with a state championship. Last year’s AAA state champion, Eastview, is 4-2 through six games and just behind first place Lakeville North (6-0) in the South Suburban Conference. I would also keep my eye on Hill-Murray (4-0), Red Wing and Edina and Eden Prairie out of the Lake Conference.

With many teams playing doubleheaders to fill out their conference schedules, the teams that have the most pitching depth have the greatest chance at success.

On the softball diamond, Eastview (6-0) and Lakeville North (9-1) appear poised to battle for the South Suburban Conference title. Last year’s state champion, Stillwater, is off to a 4-1 start in the Suburban East Conference. Forest Lake (5-0) and Hastings (9-1) are also strong in that league. Also keep an eye on Anoka (5-0) and Maple Grove (4-0) in the Northwest Suburban Conference.

Everyone is off to a late start this year with the miserable spring weather, so now that it’s nice out, we’re right in the thick of things for every team. Buckle up, because the next month should be a busy and fun ride.

Howard Pulley Wins Host Tournament

The Howard Pulley 17-and-under AAU basketball team won its own tournament last weekend, hosted at the High Performance Academy in Eagan. The Panthers are led by junior standouts Tyus Jones of Apple Valley and Reid Travis of DeLaSalle. In their championship game, a 20-point victory, Jones had 12 points and nine assists. Travis had 17 points and 12 rebounds, and DeLaSalle teammate Jarvis Johnson had 17 points.

The Howard Pulley Classic is the premier AAU tournament in Minnesota for boys basketball. It brought in 17 teams from all over the country featuring some of the nation’s top talent.

Recruiting continues to be a hot topic among the 2014 recruiting class as Travis, Jones and Rashad Vaughn all hope to have their college decisions made by the time their senior seasons start. Jones recently told several media outlets he fully intends to play in college with one of his best friends in basketball, Chicago standout center Jahlil Okafor. Both are ranked in the top five nationally for the 2014 recruiting class.

For now, get out and enjoy the spring action while you can. If you blink, state champions will be crowned in a season that will likely be as unpredictable as our weather.

The campy and delightful Tony Award-winning musical, “Anything Goes” opened Tuesday night at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in its first visit to the Twin Cities.

Sprinkled with the iconic music and comedy of Mr. Cole Porter, this upbeat production shows when it comes to love, there’s nothing better than a little mistaken identity and good ol’ fashioned blackmail.

Edward Staudenmayer, who plays Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, is a veteran of the stage. Having performed on Broadway (in Wonderland and Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me) before hitting the road for a number of touring productions, Staudenmayer said this is the best tour he’s been a part of in his entire career.

We spoke with Staudenmayer before the big opening night about the show and his visit to the Twin Cities.

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For those not familiar, tell us a little about the show.

It takes place on an ocean liner heading from New York to London in 1934 and it’s really a comedy of errors of sorts, a big farce. There’s a young man and he’s fallen in love with a debutant and he’s a stock broker working for a rich tycoon, and he sees this woman that he’s fallen in love with — she’s about to get married to a British lord — so he smuggles himself aboard the ship and pursues her and tries to win her. In the process, there’s all these different love triangles. Also on board is one of his dear friends, Reno Sweeney, who’s a night club singer/evangelist. And there’s also a gangster, public enemy no. 13 is on board. So there’s a big farce and lot of love interests that happen and people pretending to be things they’re not. It’s a silly little romp on the high seas.

You play Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. What’s he like?

I’m a British lord and it’s set in 1934. I’m a guy who is trying to get married. It’s something I need to do for my family, it’s a bribe. I love everything about the United States and I have met this young debutant who is a great choice for me and seems like she’d be a great lady of the house. So our plan is to take the boat back to England and get married. Unfortunately, she has fallen in love with somebody else but the situation has her mother involved and her father has passed, they lost money in the stock market — in the big crash — so they’re trying to maintain their family’s wealth, so they’re hitching her up to this rich, wealthy British lord, which is me. So it’s a matter of society and it’s kind of a little “Downton Abbey” with the arrangements and marriages that are made to keep the wealthy, wealthy. But she’s in love with this up-and-coming stock broker.

But it’s all campy and funny, right?

Oh yes, it’s told through this really funny farce. This great book has been revamped and rewritten but it’s also amazing how this old piece from 1934 and how much it’s maintained in the show. And the writers often try to write it with that 1934 mentality. So one of the major things we have going for us is the incredible score by Cole Porter — the most fantastic lyrics that were ever written. It’s just so bubbly and fresh and funny and witty. And some of the things that he rhymes, there’s no finer songs than when Cole Porter’s writing the songs and the music. Just a bubbly glass of champagne, that’s the whole show. It’s got that kind of uplifting, fun, frothy feel the whole night.

And a lot of the tunes will be familiar to the audience, like “I Get a Kick out of You,” “You’re the Top,” and of course, “Anything Goes.” But there’s also a bit of an introduction to some of his lesser-known songs, as well?

Yeah, my song for instance is not a really famous Cole Porter song but it’s so delightful and fun and there’s a great dance involved with it. It’s a big surprise. I don’t want to give away too much but my character makes a big change and it’s one of the big show-stoppers of the evening.

Speaking of dancing, there’s quite a bit of tap dancing in this production. How long did it take to learn the choreography?

Well, we rehearsed for four weeks in the city. I believe the ensemble cast members came in earlier so I think I rehearsed for three weeks, they rehearsed four weeks. They came in to learn the really lengthy long tap numbers and other dances too, so they had an extra week of rehearsals before I came in as one of the principal actors. So yeah, it took a while. It was a process. You learn a little bit day-by-day and then you work on something else and you go back to it and add something else. The choreography is just so inventive and fun and such a joy to do.

(credit: Submitted)

What about the cast in this show? What’s it like working with everyone?

Well, we’re led by Broadway veteran Rachel York, who I’ve been a fan of, just forever. She’s truly a star — beautiful, sings like an angel, funny as can be. And as far as our cast, we are so fortunate — and it’s funny because one of the Chicago papers mentioned this in their review — that you’re not going to see a touring production that has a line-up like the characters we have in our bullpen. We have some of the finest character actors working in the business. So it’s so fun to do the play because everyone is such a pro and at the top of their game. Even people in the understudy roles, they have major careers of their own … we’re so lucky. I think the show was so good in New York and then when auditions came around for the tour and to work with our director Kathy Marshall and to be a part of this production, we all jumped at the chance. So we have really terrific pros in this production.

How familiar were you with the show before auditioning?

You know, I had done a production of it when I was still in college. I was in the ensemble. I played a sailor. So I knew it and I liked the show but I didn’t know that it could be as good and as funny and fresh as this production. I think it’s because of our wonderful director/choreographer Kathy Marshall.

I know you’ve done work on Broadway as well as other touring shows. What are some of the major differences or the pros and cons for you?

Well it’s really nice to be able to be home and not have to move around every few weeks with a show so it’s nice to have that. And Broadway means a lot, it’s like the top of our game — it’s the top place to be. But I’ve never had so much fun on a tour as I am on this production. I have a wonderful part, I have a wonderful leading lady that I get to fall in love with every night, I get to be a part of this wonderful production that I’ve been talking about.

I drive myself and I’m traveling with my little dog and we are driving across the country, and I’m really getting to see our country, which is really a neat way to experience it. So most of my days off aren’t really off. I spent all day yesterday getting here from Chicago but it was gorgeous. I don’t think I’d ever really visit the Wisconsin Dells, you know, it’s just not a place I would ever really think of going but it was absolutely gorgeous. And I got to experience it and see it and it was lovely. I feel really blessed about this tour. It’s nice to be home and cozy at home but I have a little piece of home, my dog, so every morning when I get to snuggle with him, it makes it fun. I’m looking out at my gorgeous view of St. Paul and I’ve never really spent time in St. Paul, so it’s great. We went to the river today, we went to the ballpark — we go to just about every ballpark in the country now. We should write a book. So I’m having a very positive experience with this because you know, touring can be hard — you’re away from your friends and family but this has been the best tour I’ve ever done.

I really hope that people spread the word about this show and they sell tickets and come. Because everybody who comes to see the show, they’re really blown away. I don’t think they realizes how much fun they were going to have. You know, this old revival, this old, classic show that everybody kind of knows, but they really haven’t seen a production of this caliber in a very long time. There was a big revival in 1987 but then the tour didn’t really happen and fizzled out. So the places we go, the people are so pleasantly surprised. We hear all the time from house managers at theaters, the audience members go up to them and say, ‘Thank you so much, this is the best show that we’ve seen here in years.’ Of all the touring shows they’ve seen, this is the one they love the most. It’s exciting to be a part of that.

“Anything Goes” runs through May 12 at the Ordway. For tickets or more information, click here.

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“I am a lover of America.”

That’s what a Pakistani professor starts with as he tells an American journalist why he’s involved with Islamic fundamentalists after nearly mollywhopping the money-stuffed pinata that is the American dream.

This talk takes place in a tea house in Lahore. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, we soon realize, is one of those movies that have two parallel plots: one is the simmering conversation between the professor and the journalist; the other is the story of the professor’s past.

And the past starts at Princeton University, where the Pakistani professor, named Changez (Riz Ahmed), just kills it. Winning, he says, is what he does, and he went to America to compete on its level playing field. After school, he’s instantly picked up by a fancy NYC financial firm, where he easily makes his boss (played by the 24-intense Kiefer Sutherland) smile. He also meets a girl…

Meanwhile, in the present, things are getting tense. The journalist (Liev Schreiber) starts to seem sketchier and sketchier. Tensions also rise as the discussion veers off to a kidnapping that Changez may or may not know something about. But back to the past…

The event that changed everything for Changez was 9/11. After the attack,  he finds himself on the receiving end of a body-cavity search and discovers that the New York he sought to conquer is now full of people who can’t see past the color of his skin (and the beard he’s bent on growing). Even his girlfriend (Kate Hudson) fails to offer the support he so desperately needs.

Forgive me if this is hard to follow. The movie’s story — which was taken from a novel by the same name — is  a bit complex. Director Mira Nair, however, twists it impressively into a coherent and engaging thriller. Just a few things — like the performances of Ahmed and Hudson — broke the tension that’s so important to keep in this kind of movie.

Hudson, for instance, doesn’t quite jive with Ahmed on screen. Ahmed looks a boy in Hudson’s presence, making it difficult to buy that they’d become a couple. Then again, their relationship is so full of deep-seated problems that the visual awkwardness might make some thematic sense.

One theme that springs forth from the movie is that fundamentalism (of any religion or creed or business practice) leads to tragedy. Another, which goes hand-in-hand to the one just mentioned, is that people are more than what they seem. Every individual is a confluence of various forces and ideas, mashed-up, perhaps with parts in contradiction to others. Without understanding this, the movie shows, all sorts of inhuman stuff goes down in the name of businesses, nations and gods.

A note on news: I couldn’t imagine anyone watching this movie without thinking of the recent Boston bombings. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is quite critical as to how Americans treated people following the other major act of terror on our soil. Twitter, one writer said on April 15, does its best work 5 minutes after a tragedy and its worst work in the 12 hours after that. Perhaps, in a way, Americans aren’t too different: they behave their best in the immediate aftermath of terror, but our long-term reaction leaves things to be questioned. But through questioning our responses, our prejudices, our ways or seeing others, we could avoid being fundamentalists, so to speak.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is playing at the Lagoon Theater. 

(credit: Crystal Grobe)

It’s easy enough to swing by the grocery store and pick up a couple bags of salad, especially those salad kits that come with dressing and toppings, but they hardly count as something homemade. Instead, consider making your own salad mix. I tried this recipe recently and loved how flavorful it was even with a very light dressing. Bring it to your next gathering for a simple and healthy option.

Tri-Color Salad

1 bag baby arugula
1 head radicchio, chopped
2-3 endive, core discarded and leaves chopped
Red wine vinegar, to taste
Extra-virgin olive oil, to taste
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

In a large bowl combine arugula, radicchio, and endive. Just before serving, drizzle equal parts of red wine vinegar and olive oil over salad, toss, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Double or triple recipe depending on party size.

These days, Isaac Becker may be the proud owner to three outstanding Twin Cities restaurants, but there was a time, years ago, when his culinary career took a backseat to his dreams of becoming — wait for it — a rockstar.

Chef Becker admits, when he initially got into the restaurant biz, it was merely just a job he could get and as soon as he left one kitchen, he swore he’d never enter another.

Back then, he was busy playing gigs as the drummer of his up-and-coming band and never gave cooking much thought. After the band changed direction, and admittedly, lost some of its appeal, Chef Becker focused on the job that already built up the majority of his résumé and tried a new approach — working for restaurants where he really liked the food.

What started as just a “day job” quickly turned into a passion with inspiration to do more — and that motivation hasn’t slowed down since.

This James Beard award-winning chef now owns 112 Eatery, Bar La Grassa and Burch Steak and Pizza Bar, with his wife, Nancy St. Pierre.

I met up with the chef at his latest creation, Burch, to talk about his early beginnings and what’s coming next.

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How old were you when you began cooking?
I guess I was 18.

Where did that interest in cooking come from?
It was just a job. A job I could get. At that time, I wasn’t really thinking about my future as a chef or anything like that. It was just the only job I could get, so I took it.

Did you come from a family of cooks?
No. I think I do have a little bit of foundation from my mom and my dad. We went to New York and we went out to eat a lot. My mom, when she was in college and I was a kid, she was a server downtown, at one of the fine dining restaurants downtown in the 70s. She would tell me about things and a couple of times I ate there but no one’s really a cook in my family.

You started in this business at a very young age. When did you know you wanted to go into the culinary world?
For a while, I had a string of kitchen cook jobs and every time I got out of one, I’d swear I’d never get another job in a kitchen again. But after about three years, that was a job I could get because I had experience. So I kind of stuck to it. There was a place called Lowry’s, which is now Rye. It had just opened up and my girlfriend and I were eating there and I thought, “you know, I should get a job working at a restaurant that I like to eat at, where I like the food.” So I applied there and they really took a chance on me and gave me a job because I didn’t really have any experience. And I worked there for five years. While I was there, I was in a band and my goal was to succeed in music. But I also enjoyed the work and the craft of cooking. After being at Lowry’s for about five years, I realized I liked it. So I quit and got a job at D’Amico Cucina. That’s where I really felt like I was inspired. That’s when I knew I wanted to stick with it.

What was your band called?
Uncle Big Dad. (laughs)

So, were you lead vocalist or?
No, I was the drummer.

At what point did you move away from the band and focus more on cooking?
Well the band, we were pretty popular for a while but then we kind of changed our style and we got less popular and it became a lot less fun and we weren’t making any money and I just, I got kind of sick of it.

(credit: CBS)

Do you still dabble in music at all?
I play my drums a little bit but not really.

When you first started with the D’Amico family, what was it that made you inspired?
In those days, D’Amico Cucina was – at least to the people I knew in the business – the premiere fine dining restaurant in town. I was pretty young, I was in my early, early 20s but it was the kind of restaurant that you were even intimidated to go eat at. I just felt like, it was a challenge for me to even try to get a job there. And actually, the only reason I got a job was because I had a connection.

Is that when you first met Jay Sparks? I hear you two had an interesting first meeting.
Yeah. I had two interviews – one at a steak house in town, maybe Ruth’s Chris? And I had an interview at Cucina. Well I got the names of the chefs mixed up. So I went to Ruth’s Chris and they weren’t interested in hiring me and it didn’t seem like a good fit for me. The same afternoon I went to Cucina and rang the back door. Jay answered the door and I didn’t know who he was and I said, “Is the chef here?” And he said, “I’m the chef.” And I said, “Well, I’m looking for Steve Smith.” And he said, “Well, I’m the chef.” And I said, “Well, I’m looking for Chef Steve Smith.” And he got kind of mad and was like, “No, I’m the chef.” And finally, I was like, “OK, OK.” And that was how that interview started.

And then he took me to his office. And Jay’s a great guy, I love him but his interview style is kind of odd. He was like, “Well, do you like tomatoes?” And I said, “Kinda.” And then he said, “Do you like anchovies?” And I said, “No, not really.” So he said, “Well, we don’t really need anybody.”

I was friends with the Schutte family, who used to own The 510, and I was telling my friend Brad Schutte about this terrible interview I just had with Jay and he was like, “Oh, I’ll have my mom call him” or he said he’d do something. The next day I got a call back from the sous chef, who happened to be Tim McKee and he said, “We’ve got a job for you.” And Jay’s never said, I don’t know, he acts like he doesn’t remember. He’s never really said if the Schutte’s called him or not. But I think it’s a pretty strange coincidence.

You worked at a number of well-respected restaurants before opening your own. What did your experiences working within the D’Amico family or working at Lowry’s teach you about owning a restaurant?
I was the head chef at the Campiello on Lake Street and I was the head chef at the Campiello in Eden Prairie and then I was the head chef, opening chef at Café/Bar Lurcat and I helped open the Café Lurcat in Naples, Florida … they’re pretty big operations and they were busy when I worked at them. I learned and I really got practice on how to be proactive, how to react to things, how to make decisions fast, get better at making decisions that are best for your restaurant. And they seem like simple things, but not always. Plus, they’re really demanding across the board – they’re demanding with the food, they’re demanding with the service, they’re demanding with the business, the numbers. So a lot of experience with having to meet every month with the owners and having to explain what your numbers were, why they were the way they were – whether they were good or bad, you had to tell them why. So you had to know what was going on.

So by the time when I got to the 112, that was, in a lot of ways, really easy because it was tiny compared to any restaurants I’d worked at before. Everything was on a much smaller scale. I had to physically work hard and put in a lot of hours, but the management part and the business, financial side was pretty simple.

(credit: CBS)

What was your inspiration with 112? What did you want it to be?
Back then – well, now I have two restaurants that are concepts – but back then, I was really tired of concepts. In fact, the name of the restaurant was going to be “Concept Eatery,” to kind of flip my nose at all the concepts in town. My wife said that’s stupid. But the “Concept Eatery” is our LLC name. I just really wanted a restaurant – I mean, I’ve said this a million times but – just a place where I would want to go. And there wasn’t anything – one of my best experiences was going to the Blue Ribbon (in New York).

When I worked for the D’Amico’s, we did a James Beard out there and when we were done, you know, it was late. It was 10:30 p.m. or 11 p.m. The people who actually lived in New York and worked the event with us said, “Let’s go to the Blue Ribbon.” All the chefs go to the Blue Ribbon. This was in 1996 or 97. We went there and it was the funnest, coolest thing that I’ve ever done. We were there until almost 4 a.m., eating oysters and having a great time. There was nothing in Minneapolis that was open past 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. So I really wanted to have a full menu of what I think is interesting food until 12 or 1 o’clock in the morning. That’s what inspired me to do what I did at 112.

With 112, you went from making food that you found interesting and would want to eat and to owning one of the most popular and highly acclaimed restaurants in the Twin Cities – and beyond. Did you know it would be as successful as it is?
No. I didn’t think anything I was doing was that special. To me, it’s like, being able to get foie gras, sweetbreads, lobster sometimes, the things on my menu were things that you can only get at fine dining restaurants so I guess one of my things was that I wanted to give that to everybody, at a reasonable price and in a more casual, relaxed atmosphere. Not a place where you’re scared, intimidated or go broke at. But no, I never thought that it was going to be that big of a deal. I wanted people to like it and I wanted to be able to survive, make a living, but that was my only goals – have it be a working business and stay afloat.

After a few years, you opened Bar La Grassa. What was behind that decision – and what was your inspiration?
The pasta bar and actually the name La Grassa was actually something that Nancy and I had talked about for years. But 112 was too small. The kitchen was too small, the menu at La Grassa couldn’t be done at the kitchen we had at 112. Pasta’s probably my favorite food – I have a ton of experience with it between all my years at D’Amico’s. When I was approached to do the project, one of our partners said, “we need a concept, do you have one?” and I rattled it off, the whole La Grassa thing I pitched in about 10 minutes because it was something that was already built in my mind for years. So then when we pitched it to investors, it was the same thing. I had this complete plan – down to what the dishes were going to be, the menu layout, everything was already done in my head. That was kind of easy in that way because I already knew exactly what I wanted. There were other challenges in terms of executing a menu that big, big restaurant, lot of customers, but the concept was done. That was cool. I was happy about that. But then all of a sudden I’m doing a concept when all I’ve done is poo-pooing concepts. Now I’ve got a giant one.

When you have a menu that big like the menu at Bar La Grassa, was there anything you left off the list?
Yeah, there were. But there were other things that made it that I didn’t know about. Eric Sather, who’s the head chef over there – actually, I had Daniel del Prado, who’s the head chef (at Burch) was the sous chef there when we opened and those two guys are very talented. So I had my ideas and my menu items and the outline of what I wanted to make, those guys, when I’d show up to work and they’d have something else to show me. It was great. It all worked out really well. Since then, once I left 112, I really had to rely on the chefs that are operating the restaurants to … it was more of a collaboration than it used to be. I used to be very controlling as far as 112 went for a long time, but then when I left I couldn’t really keep that control because I wasn’t there enough.

At one point, you mentioned you and Nancy talked about opening a restaurant in another state. What made you want to open all of your restaurants in Minnesota?
To me, you know, everyone thinks about trying to get richer once in a while and La Grassa, to me, could be a kind of place that you could franchise. It’s accessible, it’s affordable, we have a working system … so we thought let’s try one in state and see how it goes. I don’t know how you do that (franchise). So we went to California and luckily the place we wanted – we would’ve signed on that first trip to California had the place that we wanted, had that deal worked. That deal didn’t work when we were out there so we came back. Meanwhile our youngest son was having problems at school, he was only in second grade so not big problems, but you know, we got terrified. Because I’m not Jean-Georges. I can’t just show up a couple weeks out of the year, look around and go back to my home. I would have to basically move out there. And then we did the cost analysis of what that means for all of us, flying back and forth. All of that. We got scared. So that’s why we stayed. And then this space (Burch) became available.

(credit: CBS)

Didn’t Nancy say after La Grassa that she didn’t want to do another one?
Yeah and you know, they’re hard on us. They’re hard on our family. They’re really hard. Opening restaurants is really hard. We’re still in the process (with Burch). And we have kids and they need to be cared for but while this location was here, none of us could resist it – including Nancy. This place is what started the “why we did the restaurant.”

What was the thought process for Burch? What did you want to do with it?
Well, I didn’t know. We walked through here with Ryan (Burnet, a partner in Bar La Grassa and Burch) and Nancy and the realtor, the broker and then we walked across the street to the ice cream store and we started to talk about ideas for a restaurant. I didn’t really have one but Ryan said, “Well, you know, when my friends eat at La Grassa one of the things they always talk about is how much they like the steak. So would you consider doing a steak restaurant?” And it was like, yeah, perfect – that’s a great idea. So that’s how that happened.

Nancy and I, Ryan and his wife Amber did some traveling in the last couple of years – we looked at the space in 2011, so we’ve it a long time and kind of worked through what we wanted it to be. The basement was part of the lease and that was kind of a scary thing for me for a couple things – I don’t love craft drinks, I mean, I like a good cocktail but I don’t have experience with it, I’m a pretty narrow, I like a certain kind of drinks and I didn’t want to get into a whole business with drinks that might take too long, I don’t know. But I also didn’t know how we were going to have a bar, and what was going to attract you to go to it if we didn’t have something, you know, there’s no windows on it. So we were in California and we ate at Laconda and those people own four or five restaurants in San Francisco and while we were eating at Laconda, right next door was Laconda Pizza. So we were sitting there watching people going in and out of their pizza place and they were the same owners and once again, Ryan said, ‘Why can’t we do that? Why can’t we do something else?’ And that’s how that came about.

So is this it or do you think there’s another restaurant in your future?
I don’t know. I think this is it. I mean, this is still, there’s a lot of work to be done. Restaurants don’t really mature for at least two years I feel like so I don’t know how I’m going to feel in two years. I keep saying I’d like to do something smaller but that’s complicated for other reasons.

Check back next week for Part 2 of our chef chat with Isaac Becker. For more information on his restaurants, click on the following links: 112 Eatery | Bar La Grassa | Burch

Some smell May blooms. I opt for a whiff of the corpse flower. So onward and downward with my choices for this week:

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Monday, May 6 & Friday, May 10 through Sunday, May 12: The Birds & The Lodger (Riverview Theater; Trylon Microcinema)

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” shudders Tippi Hedren at the climax of the characteristically conversational trailer for The Birds, perhaps the most divisive of all Hitchcock’s masterpieces. For every person who considers it an awkward, simplistic waste of Hitchcock’s talents, there’s another person calling it one of his most incisive social comedies, albeit in animal horror drag. I’m in the latter camp. There’s nothing quite so hysterical as Hedren’s impenetrable ice queen being cut down to size by, on the one hand, a cadre of vengeful wing soldiers extracting nature’s revenge on Hedren’s avatar for cosmopolitanism and, on the other hand, an entire village doing basically the same. Live by the purse of haute couture, die by the cutting beak of provincialism. The Birds is screening at the Riverview as part of the Cities’ fifth annual Hitchcock festival, and The Lodger — which for a long time held a reputation as Hitchcock’s earliest surviving film before a few earlier ones were rediscovered — will screen over the weekend at the Trylon as part of the same fest.

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Monday, May 6 through Thursday, May 9: Room 237 (St. Anthony Main Theater)

You don’t have to even be a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s take on Stephen King’s bestseller to recognize Rodney Ascher’s buzzy new documentary as ground zero for cinephilia this season. In fact, I’m informed by some of The Shining‘s strident non-fans that Room 237 “only works” if you accept it as a given that Kubrick’s movie is (and I’m paraphrasing the complaints of the haters) an empty, scare-devoid exercise in bogus formalism. With an attention to detail that is downright unsettling, a series of theorists espouse their theories on Kubrick’s film throughout Room 237, insisting that the film is (depending on who you ask) about Kubrick faking the 1969 moon landing, about the Holocaust, about the genocide of Native Americans during westward expansion, that it only makes sense if you overlay the entire movie in reverse atop the original movie to turn it into a symmetrical work of art. To Shining haters’ credit, the point of Room 237 does appear to be that none of these theories is necessarily “right.” To their debit, there are few more convincing cases for Kubrick’s compelling artistry than can be found among these hypnotic zealots. Enter the labyrinth and you’ll find The Shining itself is the minotaur of all modern horror cinema.

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Thursday, May 9: Show Girl in Hollywood (Heights Theater)

Self-reflexivity reigns supreme at the old-timey Heights Theater’s old-timey Hollywood series, which continues with director Mervyn LeRoy’s Show Girl in Hollywood, which straddles the line between depicting and embodying the growing pains of Tinseltown’s transition to talkies. LeRoy was, of course, one of the underheralded geniuses of the studio system (his Gold Diggers of 1933 is one of the Depression-era’s nuttiest entertainments), and if that’s not enough to pique your interest, note that the roster of original tunes includes “Merrily We Roll Along.”

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Thursday, May 9:  Trailer Trash (Theaters at Mall of America)

For anyone who went to Grindhouse and found themselves wishing they’d just skipped the double feature and focused on the faux trailers, this program is for you. The actual table of contents for the Mall of America’s slate of grimy-goofy previews for movies that time didn’t even bother to remember forgetting is something of a secret, but they’re teasing “cult classics, karate masters, little lost dogs and laser blasts.” Show up for the best sizzle reel of the season, and try to resist any urge to sample the steak.

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Friday, May 10 & Saturday, May 11: Upstream Color (Walker Art Center)

Shane Carruth is bending brains once again. The director of Primer apparently hasn’t met any narrative ellipses he didn’t like or any pieces of exposition he did, but there’s no denying that his vision commands your attention. Upstream Color is, at the heart of it, either a defense of monogamy, a horror story told from behind glass, or a sci-fi tinged tone poem about invasive species, hostage taking and pig farming. It won’t be for everyone, and I noted more than a few blank stares at the screening I attended a few weeks back, but let it sink in and you’ll likely find your theories and opinions mutating just underneath your skin. (Or just ask Carruth what’s up point blank. He’ll be present this weekend at the Walker screenings.)

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Sunday, May 11: Rosemary’s Baby (Theaters at Mall of America)

“I was brought up a Catholic … now, I don’t know.” Rosemary’s Baby, the headlining middle child of Roman Polanski’s trilogy of apartment-centric horror films, shows this Mother’s Day at the Mall of America in a particularly sly stroke of programming savvy. Like, if you take your mother to see this, what exactly are you saying about her? Or about you? This faithful adaptation of Ira Levin’s “what if?” novel kicked off a string of horror movies that presumed the existence of both God and the Devil, but Polanski’s take is hardly definitive on theological suppositions. It instead seems to pinch its overall tone from the hyperbolic Time Magazine cover question: “Is God dead?” And every time the movie invites its audience to question Rosemary’s convictions, it plunges deep into the ongoing politics surrounding women and their wombs. Unsettling isn’t the half of it.

Idowu is one of the most dominant defensive lineman to play for Glenn Caruso in his five seasons, but the soon-to-be St. Thomas graduate now has a chance to play in the NFL. Despite a couple of different times where it appeared his football career was over, Idowu got a call from the Seattle Seahawks and is headed there this week to try out with the team. There are five practices scheduled over three days, and if he makes it through that series of practices without getting released, he could be signing an NFL contract by the weekend.

He said he’s just grateful to have the opportunity.

“It’s amazing. I’ve always thought about playing and it’s been my dream,” Idowu said. “I ended up at St. Thomas because I didn’t get an offer from (Gophers coach Tim) Brewster and I figured my NFL chances were done.”

“That’s pretty awesome, to have that opportunity is unbelievable,” said St. Thomas coach Glenn Caruso. “Just to have that chance, I’m sure he’ll go into it with everything he has. We’re not in that factory, nice that he has those abilities.”

Idowu finished his collegiate career as a leader on one of the nation’s top defensive units. It was a year where St. Thomas won its third straight MIAC title, earned its fourth straight playoff appearance and finished with a school record 14 wins. He led a unit that allowed less than 80 rushing yards per game and had two fumble recoveries, both in the NCAA postseason, that he returned for touchdowns.

Idowu finished the season with 52 tackles, including 16 for a loss and five sacks. He also had six pass break-ups.

As Caruso said, it’s extremely rare for any Division III football players to even get offered professional tryouts, much less make a team. Idowu’s story makes it that much more impressive. Idowu said the fact that St. Thomas played for a national title this year, despite losing, got him enough national attention to get his name noticed among agents.

“I was blessed with an amazing senior season and got some attention from some scouts. I talked to a few agents after the national championship and decided I was going to give it a try,” Idowu said.

He said he “took a leap of faith” and is has been up at 6 a.m. daily to train in Woodbury for his tryout. In addition to that, he’s still got a full class schedule and a job to pay off college loans as Division III schools don’t offer athletic scholarships.

He attended the University of Minnesota’s pro day before the NFL Draft, and it went well enough that in his words he said, “I think I can do this.” The draft came and went, but his phone wasn’t ringing. He wondered what he had done wrong, only to find out agents couldn’t reach him because of logistical errors. Somehow, they didn’t have his proper contact information.

“I had heard Minnesota and Tampa Bay wanted to sign me so I was devastated. I thought I had messed it all up,” Idowu said. “I was getting ready to tryout with a Canadian team when my agent called me and said the Seahawks wanted me. It was a really happy moment.”

That was last Wednesday, and Idowu heads to Seattle Thursday for a physical. He’ll have five practices over three days with other rookies, draft picks and undrafted free agents like himself. The Seahawks have eight players already signed among the 15 open slots, and he knows he’s got competition at his spot on the defensive line.

If things work out and he sticks, he has a potential conflict later this month. Idowu is set to graduate with a degree in Business. Graduation is May 26, and if he makes it through tryouts he might not be walking.

“I wouldn’t doubt my mom going down on the field and talking to Pete Carroll about it,” said Idowu.

He got another thrill late last week as the Vikings did call and put him on their short list. He would get invited to try out if one of their current undrafted free agents gets injured.

Of Nigerian descent, football wasn’t a big sport in his family growing up. He broke his leg playing football and sixth grade and said at the time he thought he would never play football again. By his freshman year of high school, he was the B team kicker at North St. Paul. It was then he decided to fully commit to playing football, the game he loves.

“I would get grounded for staying after school to lift in the weight room instead of coming home,” Idowu said.

He has always played football with a loose and enthusiastic approach, yet with a chip on his shoulder like he has something to prove. He made the switch to defense in college because he was too big to run the ball in Division III.

This year’s senior class was among the most successful to ever play football at St. Thomas. Idowu was a large part of that, with the highlight of playing for a national title.

“When I came to UST, Caruso changed the way I looked at football and life in general,” Idowu said. “It was amazing, truly an honor and a blessing. Coming in as a freshman if that was how my career would go, 99 out of 100 people would’ve thought I was crazy. We just worked hard and now we get talent. Now we’re a team that works harder than anybody else.”

In one of his more humorous stories, Idowu said last year before the Tommies clinched a MIAC title he was invited by the company he works for to their Christmas party. It happened to be on the same day as the Division III national championship in Salem, Va. Idowu did not RSVP to the party.

“I told them I couldn’t make it because I would be playing for a national championship,” he said. “Everyone’s goal at the start of the year is to win a national championship. To get there and actually have a chance is surreal. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life even though we lost.”

He said he couldn’t believe what was happening last week when his agent called about the Seahawks interest. He immediately called his parents, who were happy and proud but didn’t take much time to bring him back to Earth.

“My Dad was like ‘You’re still going to class today right,’ and I was like yes,” Idowu said.

Regardless of how it unfolds, Idowu will give it everything he has to prove to Seahawks he can play in the NFL. He’s a long shot and he knows it, but that’s not going to stop him from trying.

“The way I’m looking at it is I might as well shoot for the squad. I’m just shooting for the best,” Idowu said.

After realizing his dream isn’t far away, he tweeted the following: “Thanks to everyone for all the love support and prayers, I really appreciate it. I will put St. Thomas on the map.”

Edina senior Matt Hopfner (pitcher/outfielder) will be taking his talents to Northwestern University next year. (credit: Edina Baseball)

Before I could get the remainder of the word “year” out of my mouth as part of the question “What are you goals this year?” senior Matt Hopfner cut me off.

“State championship,” he swiftly responded. “I think we have a pretty good starting rotation with good relief pitchers. If we make it to state, our pitching is deep enough to make a run.”

The Edina Hornets have two stellar arms atop their rotation with Hopfner’s 6-foot-2-inch, 190-pound frame attending Northwestern University next year on a Division I scholarship. Not to be outdone, teammate Mitch Larson will be going D-I to the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Hopfner has one of the best part-time jobs — he works at the batting cages at Players Only Inc. (credit: Edina Patch)

Edina will need to channel that strength on the mound – and its 2012 American Legion summer championship – in order to take the high school state title this spring.

And they’ll want to forget last spring’s early exit from the section playoffs.

“We went one-and-out and lost to Richfield 1-0 in the first section game,” said Hopfner, a pitcher/outfielder.

With his team currently 3-2 and finally playing outdoors, the 18-year-old took time to talk part-time jobs (what could be better than working at the batting cages?), and which recruiting firm helped him end up at Northwestern.

How sweet was it winning the Legion title last summer?
Growing up, we always made it pretty far in the state tournament in traveling baseball. But finally getting to be No. 1 — especially after beating Eden Prairie — that meant a lot.

If he’s wearing headphones, JT is probably pumping through them
I’ve been a fan of Justin Timberlake lately, especially of his comeback. I like his new album a lot because it sounds like his old stuff. It’s good to see he kept the same style.

Elite Sports Advising got Hopfner’s name out there in the recruiting scene
It worked perfectly for me. There’s no way I would have had the opportunity at Northwestern without it. They sent my recruiting video to Northwestern, and the coaches knew who I was when I went to camp there (last summer).
I then came back to campus for an official visit, went to the football game against Boston College, stayed with some players, and they offered me a scholarship.

Matt Hopfner and his father, Doug, and his mother, Susan. (credit: submitted)

Sharp in the classroom (3.7 GPA), he’s ready for the academic rigors of Northwestern
It’s going to be really tough, but I think Edina prepares kids really well for the next stage — everything form AP classes, to a rigorous curriculum. They help instill that work ethic you need in college.
I’m not sure what my major will be, though. I have no idea.

Flirting with playing time at Northwestern next year isn’t out of the question
They didn’t say I was going to start as freshman. But I’ve been tracking their games and coach said he likes to throw his freshman in both the outfield and relief pitching to the test how they do.

Who gets the credit for his athletic success story? Everyone, apparently
I couldn’t name one person, but it all starts with my family. My dad (Doug) especially. He had high expectations for me, and motivated me to be the best I could be. Also, my coaches and teammates growing up – I’ve always had the same teammates.
Oh, and Mitch Hanson has always been great because we push each other to be the best we can be.

Working at Players Only Inc. is time well spent
There’s an indoor batting cage facility at Players Only Inc. and I work behind the desk year-round. I also coach in their summer league program during the mornings for 8 to 12 year olds.
I can use the facility whenever I want, and it’s something my teammates and I take advantage of.

Know of a better story? Email Shane and tell him about it.

Now, the Minnesota Senate has revived the idea with a budget proposal to expand the sales tax to all clothing.

It’s proving a tough sell.

Senate Democrats had to try twice before they could pass their budget proposal this week. That’s more than embarrassing when you are in the majority.

Both the DFL-controlled House and the Governor say they are now opposed to the increase. Minnesotans have gotten used to not paying the tax.

Entire businesses, including many at the Mall of America, say their success is based on the lack of a clothing sales tax. With the DFL in control at the Capitol, you would think compromise would be easier. The fact that it’s not may haunt DFL House members and the Governor who are all up for re-election in 2014.

The Senate, which is not up until 2016 has more time for taxpayers to absorb any unpopular moves and an inability, at least so far, to set a coherent fiscal agenda.

And if the Senate, House and Governor can’t agree on a tax plan, I am sure Republicans will be quick to point out that Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

I give all due credit to my brother-in-law for pointing out to me something that I hadn’t been perceptive enough to notice before: that Tony Stark/Iron Man is possibly the only superhero whose true identity is scarcely a secret to the world. But it goes beyond that. Stark’s transparency is actually so palpable that it serves to obscure his actions behind his personality.

The brazen lack of shame in his game is likely what lifted the Iron Man franchise off in the first place, not only when held against the moody likes of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy but even in contrast to some of the installments under Marvel’s Avengers tent (specifically the cheekily retrograde Captain America and the flamboyantly square Thor).

Stark, a kajillionaire erector who was handed lemons and, in typical entrepreneur fashion, made an army’s worth of platinum lemonade, lives large and equates his inflated self-regard with his nobility. Hubris equals heroism, an equation that posits Stark as the true Captain America. Unwitting or not, he’s like a propaganda machine for a nation that respects only the achievements of the distinctive.

In two distinct ways, Iron Man 3 pins the indefatigable Stark against that reputation. First, in taking place during the aftermath of the events from last summer’s The Avengers romp, Stark finds himself struggling to exude bluster while not-so-privately battling pangs of post-traumatic stress disorder. (Being the world’s foremost jetsetter, his existential terror may have less to do with his fear that intergalactic invaders will return and more to do with his discovery that there are, in fact, forces greater than his own will to power.)

Second, the world is trembling under the spell of a theatrical international cyber-terrorist called The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) who appears to be beating Stark at his own P.R. game.

Directed and co-written by Shane Black, most famous as the writer of the first Lethal Weapon movies, Iron Man 3 hones in on the fact that Robert Downey Jr.’s Stark is equal parts Murtaugh and Riggs, and soars about as high as any of the films in the series whenever Downey veers unexpectedly from smug self-satisfaction toward hollowed-out insecurity, and swiftly back again. Downey’s manic edge here verges into something less than sane, and the yo-yo reception he gives to the movie’s requisite cute kid/wannabe sidekick alone justifies his paycheck.

The challenge? Create an unforgettable meal with the mystery ingredients hidden inside a wooden basket before time runs out.

But this isn’t your usual episode of “Chopped” – this is “Chopped: All-Stars,” which means the stakes and the talent are even higher.

Four celebrity chefs walked into the “Chopped” kitchen ready to compete on an episode that would later be known as “Mega Chefs” – among them was a star chef with Minnesota roots.

Chef Gavin Kaysen admits, when he initially got the call to be on the show, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to compete. He didn’t have a charity that he really felt compelled to fight for – that is, until he met John and Emily.

Julian’s Story

John Golden and Emily Eaton were your typical Minnesotan family. They had two boys, including a healthy and happy 4-year-old named Julian. In 2011, after Eaton said she noticed some random bruising on Julian’s body, they took him to the doctor. Before they could process what was happening, Julian was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He started chemotherapy the next day.

“The chemo did its job. It killed off the leukemia blasts in his blood cells but it also killed off his white blood cells,” Eaton said.

(credit: Submitted)

Without his white blood cells and other parts of the blood, Julian’s body couldn’t fight off infections.

“Just 13 days after he was diagnosed, he died of infection that his body couldn’t fight,” she said. “It obviously turned our world upside down.”

Emily and John said though they were hurting, they were determined to move forward with a positive outlook, and find a way to share their story in a way that could help others.

After struggling to find a coping method that worked for her, Eaton started a blog called “Creating New Normal,” as a way to share her story through words she couldn’t always say out loud. Golden devoted himself to helping the Children’s Cancer Research Fund – helping improve their website through his company and creating a run in his son’s honor (Joggers for Julian) that beat out the competition in both fundraising and participation.

“So we’ve been trying to do things to help support any mission that would help other parents not go through or at least diminish the experience like we had with Julian,” Golden said.

A Chance Meeting

Through a series of fateful connections, Eaton’s father – who knew Chef Gavin’s father through business – walked into Kaysen’s restaurant in New York City one day, hoping for a favor.

Knowing everything that his family, and especially John and Emily, had gone through after Julian’s passing, he wanted to do something special for them. Golden loves to cook and both he and Eaton have a passion for food. And he knew Kaysen had Minnesota roots. So he asked him if he’d ever be interested in visiting with John and Emily the next time he was in town.

(credit: Submitted)

After hearing Julian’s story, Kaysen was immediately touched. He donated money to Julian’s memorial fund and flew back to Minneapolis, where he went to John and Emily’s home and spent the day cooking a big meal with John for all of their family and friends.

About six months later, Kaysen got a call to be on the next season of “Chopped: All Stars.” He called John and Emily and asked if he could tell Julian’s story.

“We were just thrilled,” Golden said.

The Battle Begins

Chef Gavin Kaysen was no stranger to food competitions. The 2008’s recipient of the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Award and chef of Café Boulud competed on Food Network’s “The Next Iron Chef” and appeared as a guest judge on Bravo’s “Top Chef.” But this time it was different – it wasn’t about the pride of winning, it was about Julian.

Kaysen was raised in Bloomington, Minn. until he was 19 in the home where his parents still live today. He worked at the local Subway – yes, as a sandwich artist – before he got connected in the restaurant world and started his path to culinary greatness.

“My first actual real, true job was actually wrapping ham at HoneyBaked Ham for the holidays. From there, I worked at a TCBY Yogurt and from there I went to Subway,” he said.

Like many chefs, Kaysen said he grew up enjoying cooking, especially baking with his grandmother.
“She passed away a couple of years ago but I still have her rolling pin that we used. I still have her recipes on the little note cards, too,” he said.

Kaysen said he enjoyed food and was always around it, but nothing too fancy – “going to Red Lobster was a special occasion” – but it wasn’t until he got to California, and discovered where food came from that he really found his passion.

It’s that same passion and dedication that Kaysen brought to the “Chopped” kitchen.

It was almost a year ago now that he spent 14 hours filming what would be “Chopped: All-Stars, Mega Chefs.” Kaysen said before going into the competition, he knew who he was up against – esteemed pastry chef Elizabeth Falkner, “Top Chef All-Stars” winner and molecular gastronomy expert Richard Blais and star of “Chuck’s Day Off,” French-Canadian chef Chuck Hughes.

(credit: Food Network)

He’d have to win through three courses in order to have a chance to battle for the $50,000 grand prize — $50,000 that would go straight to Children’s Cancer Research Fund for Julian.

“I’ll tell you, it was an extremely intense two episodes to film – nothing to do with food, but everything to do with emotion. It was pretty incredible,” he said. “I mean, watching a guy film you and interview you and you’re talking about (Julian’s) story and you see a tear come down the guy’s eye, and he’s still filming you, it’s pretty gripping.”

Beyond packing any kitchen tools and essentials, Kaysen took a special book with him to film the “Chopped: All-Stars” finale. It was one of Julian’s that he received from the family when he went to their home to cook that great big meal. In the corner of the inside cover, there’s a message that reads, “Happy 3rd Birthday Julian!”

“I just wanted to have (the book) there,” Kaysen said. “That’s what’s always inspired me about (John and Emily) – how they’ve been able to take that loss and turn it into such an incredible gain.”

The show itself was hard – emotions aside, this wasn’t going to be an easy competition.

“It’s hard because it’s all real. When they give you 20 minutes for an appetizer, that’s all they give you. And you have no idea what’s inside those baskets. They actually cover the basket with a black towel when you walk on the set,” he said. “You have no idea until you open it.”

In the first basket, Kaysen said he was thrown for a loop when it came to the bright pink cream soda beverage.

“I’ve never seen pink cream soda and it was extremely sweet,” he said. “It was like drinking cotton candy. It was disgusting.”

(credit: Food Network)

Kaysen kept things simple but elevated, bringing his French influences and 4-star flavor to the table. Eventually, he found himself facing Chef Richard Blais in the final round … where he had to deal with sponge cakes, or “Twinkies.”

“They’re so disgusting,” he said. “I took out the frosting and I put it in the oven for 15 minutes … and it didn’t even turn brown. You put a piece of bread in the oven for that long and it’d be black. But this didn’t even turn brown. I was like, ‘Uh, ok.’”

He said he tried four different ideas before he found one that worked. With tomatoes as another “non-dessert” ingredient, there was plenty of pressure to create a cohesive dish.

Blais’ final course was up first. A few judges commented that they wished it was more of a simple, clean dessert. That’s when Kaysen couldn’t help but smile.

“I was like, ‘Thank God you said that because it’s coming next,’” he said with a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m bringing it.”

After an exhausting and emotionally draining battle, Kaysen won and became that much closer to $50,000 for Julian.

The Next Chapter

The final showdown takes place this Sunday, when Kaysen will face Food Network’s Sunny Anderson, “Chopped” judge Scott Conant and celebrity contestant (and boxing champ) Laila Ali.

Although he knows the outcome, the only thing he’d say is, “it’s intense.”

“Laila Ali is one intense figure,” he said. “I mean, listen, I know Sunny and I know Scott. … But Laila, I’d never met before. I went into the make-up room in the morning and she was getting done up next to me and we introduced each other. And she said, ‘so what do you do?’ And I explained myself. And I asked her what she did and she explained herself … and my jaw dropped and I was like, ‘Oh my God, Ali’s daughter.’ Talk about the worst person to play a mind game with, Muhammad Ali’s daughter.”

John Golden and Emily Eaton will watch the finale this Sunday at Kaysen’s parents’ home in Bloomington. And while they don’t know who the winner will be, in a way, it doesn’t matter.

“We’re just thrilled that Gavin is talking about Children’s Cancer Research Fund on a national level,” Eaton said. “It’s so exciting to be generating this kind of buzz to this organization.”

In the end, that’s been Kaysen’s goal all along – to tell Julian’s story and bring more awareness to those that are fighting every single day.

“I was telling the judges during the show … as chefs, we always try to think about what we can do to create a legacy – because, quite frankly, we’re a little egotistical (laughs) – so we always think of how we’ll be remembered as a chef,” Kaysen said. “What blows me away is that there’s this little boy who was only 4 years old, and to me, he’ll have a bigger legacy than all of us will, put together. Because his lasts forever and it has a meaning that is so pure, so defined and so real that you can’t create that.”

The “Chopped: All-Stars” finale airs at 8 p.m. Sunday, May 5 on the Food Network. For more information about Chef Gavin Kaysen, click here. To learn more about Julian’s story – and how you can help and donate to the Children’s Cancer Research Fund, click here.

By Eric Henderson, WCCO

For movie fans, there are two distinct seasons: awards season and summer. Some people consider them the respective high and low points of the year. These people are killjoys. Though Hollywood studios’ continuing habit for holding their most “important” releases until November and December grates, at least the payoff is some of the finest, biggest dumb entertainment that obscene budgets can buy. There’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, as the ten movies I feature here prove.

The rules for this list are hard and fast, just like the movies themselves. Qualifying movies have to have been released at least within earshot of Memorial Day or Labor Day or the time in between; in other words, they should have made the bulk of their enormous hauls during June, July or August. And on that note, they have to have made a true “haul.” No mere “sleeper” hits here. The movies I’m talking about were unstoppable box-office behemoths that, at the time of their release, flirted with the upper reaches of the all-time box-office charts.

This list is notably skewed toward movies from the last three decades because the concept of a “summer blockbuster” didn’t even really exist until after Steven Spielberg unleashed Jaws in 1975 and rewrote the rules of distribution and success. Call me a heretic, but I think there have been 10 movies since that did popcorn justice than Spielberg’s mechanical Great White. And if it seems I’ve included very few blockbusters from the last 15 years or so, well, it’s because either I or the form have gotten too old.

(credit: Warner Bros.)

10. Twister (May 10, 1996)

Opening Weekend: $41,059,405
Total Gross: $241,721,524

Did I mention the word “dumb” in the introduction? Just making sure, because the much-anticipated collaboration between director Jan De Bont and screenwriter Michael Crichton (both of whose previous summer blockbusters — Speed and Jurassic Park — were heralded for their ability to not completely insult viewers’ intelligence) shouldn’t have been this … stupid. If you can, look beyond the dippy dialogue and uncharismatic performances of Bill Paxton and Jami Gertz (Helen Hunt, at least, suggests human emotion), Twister is probably the best example of a hot-months action movie delivering on its oversized promise: to show you the awe-inspiring forces of nature. Cow!

(credit: TriStar Pictures)

09. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (July 3, 1991)

Opening Weekend: $31,765,506
Total Gross: $204,843,345

James Cameron broke the bank on this one. Just as he would later do with Titanic (and reportedly Avatar), Cameron spent more money bringing Arnold Schwarzenegger bah-ck than had ever been spent on a movie before. It was the first movie to pass the $100 million benchmark. Of course, the gamble paid off, and his apocalypse-straddling, time-traveling action movie was an absolute sensation. Its liquid metal special effects (carried over from the dud The Abyss) signaled the arrival of computer-generated imagery. And like its (arguably only marginally superior) predecessor, it just doesn’t quit.

(credit: Warner Bros.)

08. Gremlins (June 8, 1984)

Opening Weekend: $12,511,634
Total Gross: $153,083,102

Steven Spielberg owned both you and summer in the early ’80s. No fewer than half of the movies on this list were directed or executive produced by him, and the other half could’ve just as easily been taken up some of the movies I couldn’t make room for (e.g. Jaws, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds). Gremlins is a unique case in that it radiates Spielberg-isms even as it satirizes them. Everything cute and cuddly about Spielberg’s middle America is here shown to be anarchic and destructive. And vice versa. Credit Joe Dante for bringing a nasty, metallic edge to Spielberg’s Norman Rockwell side.

(credit: 20th Century Fox)

07. The Empire Strikes Back (May 21, 1980)

Opening Weekend: $4,910,483
Total Gross: $209,398,025

Star Wars became the biggest popcorn movie of all time. The Empire Strikes Back, though it didn’t quite match the original’s astonishing box-office rampage, can now be regarded as one of the best popcorn movies of all time. Every campy detail established within the first movie is enriched and made mythologically resonant in this sequel, and its final minutes contain perhaps the best twist and cliffhanger in the entire history of serials. The Force is strong with this one.

(credit: Universal Studios)

06. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (May 23, 1984)

Opening Weekend: $25,337,110
Total Gross: $179,870,271

Most would say that the Indiana Jones series never topped its first outing, 1981′s Raiders of the Lost Ark. And, yes, it’s a rollicking good adventure. But the eternal 10-year-old in me prefers the second installment. Why? Because Temple of Doom is punishingly action-packed. When it was released, Roger Ebert called it something like the ultimate “bruised forearm” movie, a rollercoaster movie that climaxes, appropriately enough, with a diamond mine rollercoaster sequence. Cheerfully vulgar where Raiders was tastefully exciting, Temple of Doom is 100 pure adrenaline. And chilled monkey brains.

(credit: 20th Century Fox)

05. Alien (May 25, 1979)

Opening Weekend: $5,312,945
Total Gross: $80,931,801

OK, I lied. There is one “sleeper” on this list; Alien racked up its dollars magisterially over time. But still, at the height of its popularity, Alien had managed to sneak into the top 50 grossing movies of all time (a feat not matched by the next movie on this list, despite its phenomenal grosses). If we’re talking the other kind of top “grossing” movies, then Alien‘s infamous chest-burster scene probably pushed the movie to a much higher place on the list when it came out in 1979. In the afterglow of Star Wars, Ridley Scott’s monster movie made outer space scary again. And Sigourney Weaver’s indomitable Lt. Ripley ensured summer would never again be thought of as no-girls-allowed territory.

(credit: Walt Disney Studios)

04. WALL•E (June 27, 2008)

Opening Weekend: $63,087,526
Total Gross: $223,808,164

Color me shocked. I figured WALL•E, like most Pixar movies, was the top-grossing movie in 2008. I’d forgotten that there was this little juggernaut called The Dark Knight, but I’m still surprised that the best this animated charmer managed was fifth-place at the end of the year. C’mon, people! Hancock?! Still, this predominately wordless tribute to physical comedy (and to the #1 movie on this list) was the biggest family movie of the year, and remains one of the most beloved of all Pixar’s creations.

(credit: Universal Studios)

03. Back to the Future (July 3, 1985)

Opening Weekend: $11,152,500
Total Gross: $210,609,762

Just as critics were starting to tire of the hegemony of summer action movies, along came the miraculous Back to the Future, which managed to radiate charm (Michael J. Fox said the movie turned him into “Mickey Mouse”) and craft in equal measure. Oh, and intelligence. In stark contrast to, say, every single action blockbuster in the last 15 years, Back to the Future‘s secret weapon is its ingenious, Rube Goldbergian screenplay, which juggles multiple time periods and temporal paradoxes so deftly, it makes Christopher Nolan (Inception) look hopelessly clumsy.

(credit: Columbia Pictures)

02. Ghostbusters (June 8, 1984)

Opening Weekend: $13,578,151
Total Gross: $229,242,989

It’s easy to accuse Ghostbusters of being a “formula” blockbuster now. But in 1984, the notion of undercutting top-dollar special effects with the mundane, deadpan comedy of Saturday Night Live comedians like Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd (like a big-budget update of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein) was still a wild new spin. Screenwriters Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, working with director Ivan Reitman, made sure that the spectacle and the comedy were given equal billing, no more so than when a King Kong-sized pile of marshmallows stampedes down midtown Manhattan.

(credit: Universal Studios)

01. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (June 11, 1982)

Opening Weekend: $11,835,389
Total Gross: $359,197,037

It’s almost too painful to consider that this is what blockbusters used to be. Not the latest soulless installments of Transformers or Pirates of the Caribbean. Not the newest debasements (endorsements?) of masculine body functions like The Hangover. Not the umpteenth self-serious comic book superhero adaptation. Just a lonely young boy and the pet alien who becomes his best friend. It’s almost unthinkable that a movie this deeply personal, elemental, simple and elegantly beautiful could ever withstand the onslaught of all those other aforementioned blockbuster templates. I guess that’s irony — the moviemaking style Steven Spielberg helped invent has become something that would today crush his best impulses.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the Secret Stash Soul Revue with Sonny Knight, Maurice Jacox, Jackie Harris and the vocal group, the Valdons, will be performing – showcasing the Twin Cities funk and soul scene.

In 2012, Secret Stash Records released their unearthing of vintage R&B grooves from the 60s and 70s Twin Cities’ music scene, called “Twin Cities Funk & Soul: Rare R&B Grooves from Minneapolis/St. Paul 1964-1979.”

The collection sparked renewed interest for the music and managed to bring together the singers and musicians featured, now called the Secret Stash Soul Revue.

While the old school music has gained steam, there is also an effort to feature new songs, so Minneapolis-based Chastity Brown will also be featured throughout the evening.

For more information on the show and to purchase tickets, click here.

Video: ‘Secret Stash Soul Revue’ Release Show

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Local Music Tap is a new blog aimed at promoting Minnesota-based musicians, bands and shows. If you have music blog ideas, please email cepremo@wcco.com or leave a comment below.

Some of my favorite things have been found at garage sales. Unique kitchen tools like my old-time manual food processor used for quickly grating cheese or potatoes, wooden wine boxes are great for both storing wine and decorating, and thanks to garage sales I have a decent collection of cigar boxes for storing little things around the house.

My most used purchase has to be the Very Vegetarian cookbook that I picked up for $1. At the time I had no clue that “very vegetarian” actually meant “vegan” as I was simply attracted to the wide array of vegetable focused recipes. Over the years I’ve cooked my way through the book and recently made a recipe that quickly became a favorite: Red Onion Pickles.

(credit: Crystal Grobe)

Not only are these pickles easy to make, they are a great accompaniment to many dishes and I’ve found myself eating them raw, adding them to tacos, and making quick snacks of baguette slices, cream cheese, and red onion pickles.

Red Onion Pickles
(from Very Vegetarian by Jannequin Bennett)

3 large red onions, peeled and cut into slices
½ cup + 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
¼ cup water
¼ cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 whole clove
3 black peppercorns

In a small saucepan, combine vinegar, water, sugar, salt, clove, and peppercorns. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Divide sliced onions between 2-3 Mason jars and pour hot liquid over onions. Stir gently and let cool slightly on the counter before sealing jars and storing in the refrigerator. Let onions sit at least one hour before using. Onions should keep for a couple of weeks.

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Monday, April 29: Shadow of a Doubt (Riverview Theater)

Heavily referenced in the recent art house shocker Stoker, Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt was frequently referred to by the master of suspense as his favorite among his own films. Among the potential reasons why, it deposits the embodiment of pure, antisocial evil right at the heart of domestic Americana. More than that, it toys with the notion of family as an infallible source of security and stasis. In fact, it may be the root cause of all your deepest problems. But for those who find that notion too distasteful, rest assured these metaphoric implications are buried deep within one of Hitchcock’s classiest thrillers.

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Tuesday, April 30 through Friday, May 3: Paradise Trilogy (Walker Art Center)

Ulrich Seidl very well may be the Todd Solondz of Germany, and his Paradise trilogy provides possibly the most ambitious forum for his penchant for grotesquerie. Screenings of Paradise: Love, Paradise: Faith, and Paradise: Hope are showing this week at the Walker Art Center.

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Thursday, May 2: Singin’ in the Rain (Heights Theater)

Singin’ in the Rain is an artillery of pleasure, from its opening montage fabricating the flawless rise to stardom of Gene Kelly’s Don Lockwood, right to Kelly’s closing cry of “Stop that girl!” before launching into a heartfelt rendition of “You Are My Lucky Star.” From the deferred reveal of why no one at Monumental Pictures is allowing Lockwood’s leading lady Lina Lamont to speak for herself, right down to the priceless scenes depicting the Hollywood film industry’s growing pains with the advent of talking pictures. From Debbie Reynolds’ boundless optimism as up and comer Kathy Selden, to Donald O’Connor’s peerless professionalism as he sings, dances and guffaws up a storm. I dare you to not smile at least once during this film.

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Thursday, May 2: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Walker Art Center)

What I wrote about one of my 10 favorite movies of 2011: “Apichatpong ‘Joe’ Weerasethakul’s latest doesn’t quite have the same plumes of mystery that marked his earlier masterpieces Tropical Malady and Syndromes of a Century, but its mélange of shadow people, doting ghosts, sensuous catfish and sparkling crepuscular caves still adds up to one unforgettable trip. And if none of that previous sentence makes one lick of sense to you, my advice is probably to skip this one.”

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Friday, May 3: Airport & Airplane! (Trylon Microcinema)

You’re no doubt familiar with Airplane! (justifiably ranked among the most hilarious movies ever made), but when was the last time you took in a screening of the prototypical 1970 disaster movie Airport? Ludicrous plot twists, hysterically campy dialogue, flagrant overacting, especially from Oscar-winning Helen Hayes (who turns her own old biddiness into something pathologically cute) and Oscar-nominated Maureen Stapleton (who, it must be admitted, lends some legitimate credibility to the proceedings with her ticky sturm und drang). Airport is a top-heavy hodgepodge of ingredients slopped together in a bowl and called soufflé. Fitting, given the movie was written by recipe card. And yet, Airport is pretty irresistible. Much like Arthur Hailey’s artless blockbuster novel it was adapted from, Airport makes for, if nothing else, pretty good people watching. If the book functioned as sort of a Cliff’s Notes version of airport procedural, the movie is a portrait in miniature of Hollywood in a moment of crisis, stuck in a dead zone between the Golden Age and the still-emerging New Hollywood. This is all probably a moot point for most lifelong Twin Citizens, though. The reason to see this movie now is because most of it was filmed in and around the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, circa 1969. (Added bonus: On Sunday, the Trylon will be presenting a “free mystery film,” but surely it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the Dana Andrews/Linda Darnell film from 1957 they’re teasing is Zero Hour, the poker-faced film whose food-poisoned plot and overdramatic dialogue Airplane! lifted almost directly. And stop calling me Shirley.)

Papadopoulos & Sons – a British comedy about Greek immigrants – was a surprise hit in its home country. But Sons takes a more subtle route than that other surprise hit comedy about an overweight, Hellenic wedding.

Successful entrepreneur Harry Papadopoulos (played by the decidedly non-Greek Stephen Dillane) loses it all in a bank collapse. His family pushes him to bury the hatchet with his unreliable brother Spiros (the decidedly Greek Georges Corraface) in the hope that they will reopen the fish and chip shop they ran in their younger days.

Papadopoulos goes easy on the ethnic caricatures and broad comedy that made Nia Vardalos’ debut its millions. First-time film director Marcus Markou lets the fun unfold in a very loose and organic way. A seasoned stage director, Markou brings out the best in his actors – giving Papadopoulos & Sons a big fat Greek heart.

Papadopoulos & Sons plays at St. Anthony Main Theater tonight at 9:30 p.m. and on April 29 at 7 p.m.

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(credit: The Film Society of Minneapolis-St. Paul)

Electrick Children. A young Mormon woman sets out on a road trip to Las Vegas to meet the rock singer whom she believes impregnated her via song. (9:20 p.m.)

Kuma is the Turkish word for “second wife.” A middle-aged Turkish-Austrian housewife discovers that she has cancer. She arranges a wedding between a Turkish girl and her son, but her husband has a different plan for the girl. (2:10 p.m.; also showing April 29 at 4:50 p.m.)

The Deep. Iceland is riveted by the miraculous survival story of a shipwrecked sailor, who withstands hours in freezing water before being rescued. But scientists can’t seem to believe the sailor’s uncanny luck. Based on actual events. (8:30 p.m.)

~Steve Swanson

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For the festival schedule, and a complete listing of all the movies being shown, click here. Ticket information is available here.

Throughout the entirety of the 2013 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, we’ll be spotlighting one notable movie each day, along with other notable screenings. To see the WCCO Movie Blog’s complete coverage on the MSPIFF, click here.

As Rhode Island legislators voted to legalize gay marriage this week, all five of the state’s Republican senators voted for the measure. A Republican group called the American Unity Fund is lobbying Republicans across the nation to support gay marriage.

Their argument is, in part, that the rights of gays to marry is synonymous with the Republican ideal of individual rights and less government intrusion on personal decisions.

Here in Minnesota this week, a prominent Republican voice, Brian McClung, former Deputy Chief of Staff to former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, voiced his support for gay marriage. The McClung endorsement also contained a stark warning to republicans.

In a newspaper editorial and several interviews McClung warned that if republicans do not do an about face on this issue they risk “losing an entire generation of voters.” McClung points out that polls show that Americans under 30 overwhelming support gay marriage.

The Republican votes in Rhode Island came as a surprise.

It’s not yet clear what will happen in the Minnesota legislature. But there are indications that if it doesn’t happen this year, it is likely just a matter of time.

Three stories, one city. That’s the narrative conceit director Niccolò Castelli deploys in Tutti Giù. And to help whip it all together there’s the kinetic energy of pretty X-Games-style photography.

The movie’s three Italian-speaking Swiss protagonists can be identified by their passions. We have a skateboarder, an alpine skier and a graffiti artist. And each has issues that stem, more or less, from character flaws.

The skater can’t be honest with his friends about his need for a heart transplant; the skier finds her talent and potential crippled by the media’s demands; and the graffiti artist suffers from an almost total inability to talk to with people — even gorgeous women that are totally into him.

Castelli, the director, holds these threads together pretty well. But while he pulls off the over-all narrative, he doesn’t quite succeed in detail. The glibness of the dialog combined with the Ken-and-Barbie good looks of everyone involved give Tutti Giù a Hallmark movie aesthetic. And it’s particularly not becoming when one considers the movie’s subject matter — skateboards, spray paint, rock ‘n’ roll, skiing, sex.

The plot twist, I must say, got me. I didn’t see that coming. But a well-done story doesn’t make up for the awkwardness that exits in so many of Tutti Giù‘s pretty, European scenes.

Tutti Giù is playing today at the St. Anthony Main Theater at 7 p.m. Director Niccolò Castelli could be in attendance as he is at the festival.

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Other Highlights: Saturday, April 27

(credit: The Film Society of Minneapolis-St. Paul)

In a World…. Lake Bell directs and stars in this American comedy about a vocal coach who strives to be a voice-over star, like her father. But when she lands her first gig, she finds that all of her work is still ahead of her. Between laughs, she battles sexism and the problems brought on by pride. The film also stars Demetri Martin, who is awesome. In English. (7:30 p.m.)

JÎn. When 17-year-old JÎn flees some kind of Turkish militia, she dreams of finding herself in the big city. But before she gets there, she has to dodge bullets in forest shoot-outs and navigate some extremely treacherous plains. Along the way, she builds relationships with animals –  a bird, a bear, a snake in a Jungle Book sort of way. By the end, director Reha Erdem shows us that dreams, like mirages, don’t usually make life easier when they’re reached. In Turkish, Kurdish. (3:50 p.m.; also playing on Sunday, April 28 at 4:05 p.m.)

The Discoverers. How can a history professor make a splash in his profession while also making things right with his estranged family? By taking a huge trek Lewis-and-Clark style across the United States. The movie follows this long-shot journey while engendering sympathy for its eccentric protagonist. (6:15 p.m.; also playing on Sunday, April 28 at 5:30 p.m.)

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For the festival schedule, and a complete listing of all the movies being shown, click here. Ticket information is available here.

Throughout the entirety of the 2013 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, we’ll be spotlighting one notable movie each day, along with other notable screenings. To see the WCCO Movie Blog’s complete coverage on the MSPIFF, click here.

Doom-saying documentaries these days focus mainly on the threat of climate change. They’ve got glaciers melting, landscapes dying, sea levels rising, and coastal cities waiting to slide under the sea.

Lots of docs in this vein, like Chasing Ice and A Fierce Green Fire, are effective — even moving — in their depictions of the consequences and realities of the environmental situation. However, their similar structures (almost all of which end with a call to arms) have grown tiring, almost trite.

But Fall and Winter is a different doom-and-gloom, soothing-saying beast.

First off, the film isn’t focused on climate change. The more immediate threat, the film shows, is agriculture. Yes, agriculture. Farming, the movie argues, has been bad for humanity all along; it’s led to awfully unfair social hierarchies in almost all agriculturally-based civilizations, and it’s also led to globalization, which is depleting the planet’s resources by means of a toxic consumer culture.

Worst of all is that in 20 years the earth won’t likely be able to support so many billions of humans. The topsoil won’t be there and neither will the fresh water. In the face of unprecedented catastrophe, we are banking on a speedy scientific breakthrough.

I’m not sure I totally bought the argument, but the movie made it well enough. And it evoked particular pathos in showing how throughout history native people lost their way of life and natural treasures when their “white brother” showed up, took everything and killed whatever was left.

Oscillating between polemic and something like a New Age proselytical tract, the movie’s tone is a dreamy attack on modern culture. Dissolving images of billboards and stock photos make consumer culture look cheap, temporary, out-of-touch. Images of industry, old-growth forests and cookie-cutter farm crops create a contrast that questions whether modern man has really taken dominion over the earth or just mutated it into a Frankenstein no longer controllable.

From the get-go, the doc calls for a spiritual and practical return to humanity’s roots. What does that mean? Living off the land, the things which particular environments produce — not just the four staple crops we grow everywhere. The second half or so of the movie is dedicated to showing how people are making super-green, DIY homes out of recycled bottles and organic materials. These people are radicals today, no doubt; but it’s not hard to imagine their creations catching on in the future if not for love of nature but from need.

Fall And Winter is playing today at the St. Anthony Main Theater at 9:30 p.m. It’s also playing again on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.,  during which director Matt Anderson and producer Taylor Feltner will be in attendance.

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(credit: The Film Society of Minneapolis-St. Paul)

Other Highlights: Friday, April 26

Pietà. Winner of a Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Film Festival, Pietà tells an intense tale of a merciless loan shark who meets a woman claiming to be his long-lost mother. But when the woman tries to convince the protagonist to leave his bloody profession, the loan shark realizes he’s in over his head. By acclaimed director Kim Ki-duk. In Korean. (4:30 p.m.; also playing Sunday, April 28 at 8:30 p.m.)

Be Good. A wry look into the ambiguous and daunting world of modern parenting, Be Good follows a couple (Mary and Paul) as they’re pushed to the limits of patience. After taking maternity leave, Mary works all the time but wants to be with her baby. Paul, who’s with the child all day, can’t find the time to work on his screenplay. Touching comedy ensues. In English. (9:30)

Breakfast With Curtis. This is a tale of two houses. In one are a bunch of bohemians. In the other, normal American  folk. A rift separates the two houses, but there’s a chance of its bridging when Syd, a goofy bookseller of the former house, gets an idea for a new art project — one that would employ a young normal neighbor boy as a videographer. Lots of wine drinking. In English. (9:45 p.m.; also playing Saturday, April 27 at 9:15 p.m.)

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For the festival schedule, and a complete listing of all the movies being shown, click here. Ticket information is available here.

Throughout the entirety of the 2013 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, we’ll be spotlighting one notable movie each day, along with other notable screenings. To see the WCCO Movie Blog’s complete coverage on the MSPIFF, click here.