I know all eyes are on the new Coen Brothers movie, A Serious Man, which opens Friday—but there’s another high-quality, locally shot movie opening this week: Rob Perez’s Nobody, an indie comedy about an art student seeking the inspiration he needs to finish his final project. The movie opens Thursday, Oct. 1, at the State Theatre, then starts a run on Friday at Block E. It features several local actors, including Sam Rosen and Emily Gunyou Halaas, and contains scenes shot at MCAD, Porky’s on University Ave., The Black Forest Inn, and several other recognizable locations around town. Last week, I attended the cast/crew party at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis and spoke with Rob, Sam, and Emily about the new film—and discovered, much to my chagrin, that there are no zombies, vampires, time travelers, amnesia victims, or apocalyptic disasters in it. Or, for that matter, very many serious men.

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A truism arts journalists and critics often encounter is that artists are not always the most incisive or articulate commentators on their own work. Some artists won’t talk about their work at all—preferring to let it “speak for itself”—and the ones who will don’t necessarily offer much in the way of insightful analysis. 

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The 5th annual Ivey Awards for excellence in local theater took place Monday night at the State Theatre and, as usual, the winners represented a diverse cross-section of actors, directors, technicians, and theater companies. Hosted by Claudia Wilkens and Richard Ooms, the 2009 Ivey awards went to:

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Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is one of best-known, most-often-produced, -quoted, -imitated, -butchered plays in existence. It is an easy play to stage, but a difficult play to do well, which is why most productions fall in the mediocre middle, where far too many great plays go to die. 

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The theatrical version of Mary Poppins is what’s known in the biz as a brand extension, and it’s a business in which Disney has grown quite proficient over the years. By teaming up with Cameron “Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables” Mackintosh, Disney has given itself the ability to create a seemingly endless string of critic-proof productions with vast mass appeal and production values few can match. These shows typically run on Broadway for a while, then fan out across the globe in a series of touring productions that are physically scaled down and don’t usually feature the same actors that appeared on Broadway.

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It’s been a good week for geezer nostalgia: Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Jackson Browne at the fair—and, last night, Loggins and Messina were at the State Theatre, touring together for only the second time in 30 years (there was a reunion tour in 2005). 

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