FILM AND MUSIC You’re Gonna Miss Me at Sound Unseen
This weekend is really about Sound Unseen — no secret there. But there are definitely a couple of films worth mentioning. When a film is compared to Gus Van Sant’s Gerry and Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny, you have to stop and listen (if only for a moment). Daft Punk’s Electroma tells a whacked out story of two robots on a quest to become human. Watch a trailer. (Friday at 9:15 p.m.)
The other Sound Unseen film this evening comes with another outrageous comparison — this one by the filmmaker himself. “I started out thinking I was making One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” says Keven McAlester, “but I ended up with something more like Being There.” I don’t know what’s more ballsy — setting out to make Cuckoo’s Nest, or thinking you ended up with Being There. Sure, I like to reach for the stars, but I never claim to have actually grabbed one. Nonetheless, with cinematographer Lee Daniel behind the lens, and singer-songwriter Austinite Roky Erickson as the subject, You’re Gonna Miss Me is certainly worth a watch. We all love a tragic rock star tale.
Also on the film front this evening — and a bit more of a secret than any Sound Unseen event — is a local short film festival featuring the premiere of Fading Moment, directed by Howard Espinoza. “It’s natural to be paranoid,” reads the movie poster. Watch a trailer and begin your adventure with Cindy Smith, a nurse determined to help who she believes to be an innocent victim. Other shorts this evening include Christopher Michael Beer’s Fade trailer; The Feminine Mystique, by Ryan Taylor; Ziegler Productions’Men of My Dreams, written and directed by Steve Carlisle; When Minimum Wage Isn’t Enough, by Adam Zuehlke; and Harry Putter and the Sorcerer’s Phone, produced by Matthew Feeney and directed by Jeremy Gustafson. (Of course, if you just spent an hour clicking through these links, you’ve pretty much seen it all.)
Friday at 8 p.m., Oak Street Cinema, 309 Oak St. S.E., Minneapolis; $8 (seniors $6, students and members $5).
BOOKS AND AUTHORS Nervous Poetry
Film is truly lovely, but we mustn’t pass up opportunities to experience things in the flesh (or even of the flesh). And we mustn’t pass up opportunities to run our fingers across pages. And we mustn’t pass up opportunities to hear words formed into poetry — rather than the careless abuse they so often endure. This evening, Minnesota raised William E. Stobb leaves his current Wisconsin haven to grace us with his words. “Got to feeling like something someone just because / I like it doesn’t / mean it’s supposed to keep existing.” An unconventional poet (if such a thing as conventional poetry truly exists), playing with form and style, Stobb will read from his latest collection Nervous Systems. Joining him will be local poets Juliet Patterson and Paula Cisewski.
More live performance: Paradise Hotel, written by Richard Foreman, opens at the Bedlam tonight. Did the title of this post get your attention? Sex sex sex sex sex. This stream-of-conscious play is far from common, far from boring, and far from the ever-prudish Minnesota character we try so hard to deny. “The theatre is about sex,” says Foreman, and his play clearly sets out to illustrate this. It’s rated NC-17, for crying out loud.
Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7:30 p.m., Bedlam Theatre, 1501 S. 6th St., Minneapolis; 612-338-9817; $13 (students $10).
MUSIC A New Tamborine Man
All ye Dylan fans grab your coats. (That’s right. It’s going down into the 50s tonight.) Ezra Furman and the Harpoons are in town to help warm the soul, however. You won’t want to miss the blues harp riffs, the tales of life and woe, the poetry.
Minneapolis-based band A Night in the Box’s MySpace page lists their genres as “Bluegrass/Folk Rock/Indie”…which is true, but their sound is more White Stripes than Nickel Creek. Night in the Box’s latest album, The Hustler, The Prayer, The Thief, features some of the rowdiest bluegrass you’ve likely ever heard, and has lately been getting serious play on The Current. Catch this local sensation Saturday at 11:15 p.m., but come early for the equally-promising opening acts — the country-tinged Jack Klatt and Spiritual Mansions. –by Danielle Kurtzleben
My boricua brother Tito Nieves was supposed to be playing at Trocaderos on Saturday night, but alas, no longer. (Maybe someone was just playing an evil joke on me.) Nonetheless, there’s another good show. While she certainly doesn’t have Tito’s fabulous ritmo, MJ Kroll serves up some formidable blues pop, reminiscent of Sheryl Crow. You might know her as the lead singer of Beta Lounge. Saturday she celebrates her solo CD release party.
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