St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack

An Unfortunate Episode

Watch those credit cards. While most errors are innocent, they can still lead you into a trail of confusion and irritation. This is from the St. Louis Magazine blog Relish.

Frontenac Grill

And so a restaurant that began as a Coco's, that mid-price, polite version of Denny's, has gone through a few name changes, like a Las Vegas grass widow, and now it's come full circle to be the Frontenac Grill. The project was mostly completed by the late Mike Faille, whose more-or-less full story appeared in St. Louis Magazine last year; he was the man who brought us Talayna's Pizza, stained glass and overwrought statuary. Lawyers for the Sinatra estate, and the very aura of Frontenac eliminated much of that heritage, showing its ancestry in many, emphasis many, large photographs of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack pals. We're great admirers of Francis Albert Sinatra's singing, but this is not (yet) a spot for the cabaret tunes of the swingin' life he exemplified.

Lights are romantically low, and there are two bar areas, with tables between. Prices are on the high side, but note the location and the name, which define high rent district.

However, primarily -- and happily -- the Frontenac Grill is about the food. Restaurants that are an excuse for something else are, well, poor excuses for restaurants. “Steaks Pasta Pizza” says the sign on Lindbergh Boulevard, and that mostly covers things. And yet there are plenty of details that make sure this isn't taken for just another old-fashioned St. Louis Italian restaurant. And in the kitchen is the executive chef David Timney, who has been successfully feeding St. Louisans more than 20 years

At the top of the appetizer list, for instance, is calamari, and right next to it are crab beignets. The calamari's breading is crunchy and extremely well drained. Alongside are a warm tomato sauce, a little chunky and garlicky, not surprising but pleasant, and aioli, garlic mayonnaise that had been spiked with sriracha, the Southeast Asian hot sauce. Good stuff. In the dimly lit dining room, we thought perhaps it was a remoulade, but whatever the name, it was terrific.

Crab beignets? Ping pong-ball-sized orbs, crumbed on the outside before a trip through the fryer, and inside a gooey center, probably the fontina cheese the menu mentions, with the crab meat and a dab of crab seasoning ala Old Bay. A real winner, making the accompanying sauce superfluous.

Given the restaurant's heritage, pizza was a must as an appetizer to share. Four kinds, St. Louis thin crust, Chicago deep-dish, New York, described as thick bread dough, and Boston, a new one to us. Ann ate a fair amount of pizza in western Massachusetts many years ago, but there was little to distinguish from its counterparts elsewhere. Today's Frontenac version is partially baked and finished on a grill. We found it extremely tasty. Thick by St. Louis standards, it wore a chunky tomato sauce, a light hand with mozzarella and “other cheeses,” and our addition, some salami. Salami is under-appreciated as a pizza topping; it adds the same saltiness as anchovies, plus a little more chew. Cut into julienne, it almost disappeared into the chunky sauce, but showed in the flavor. This was a first-rate pie, one we'd happily order again and again. Just don't let us hear anyone moaning because it's different. Grandma's apple pie and the one made by the cousin who lived in Virginia apple country were different from each other, too.

Most enjoyable among our entrees was the pork chop. Brining is the best thing to happen to pork since the barbecue pit, virtually guaranteeing a juicy, tender piece of pig. This guy was perfectly cooked – the kitchen prefers to do it medium, which is quite acceptable – and topped with a salad of shredded arugula, tart and slightly bitter. The other ingredient was slivers of something slightly crisp, a little sweet, and a faded red color. Too dark for us to distinguish with accuracy, the light of day on the leftovers proved Joe right; it was tomatoes. The sweetness was a good contrast to the greens, which wilted slightly from the chop's heat, and worked well with the meat. We chose an alfredo sauce to go with the pasta side, and it was mild, benefiting from salt and black pepper.

Veal piccata, one of those St. Louis classics by which Italian restaurants should be judged, brought tender slices of veal, hammered thin and sprinkled with the traditional capers. The pan sauce, thickened with flour from the meat's preparation, could have shown a little more lemon, but that's a matter of personal preference. Tutto mare pasta can be sauced with a cream sauce or olive oil. Mussels and clams, plus good shrimp but a minimal amount of crab topped the pasta, but the olive oil option was just not flavorful enough. The ribbons of pasta were reasonably close to al dente, but overall this dish was a miss. Given Timney's prowess. we think that the unassertive seasoning will eventually shape up.

On the dessert front, an apple tart with streusel topping worked well, displaying an excellent crust and nicely tart apples with a little nutmeg to offset the sweet streusel, all topped with cinnamon ice cream. A light, tender bread pudding was scooped into three small balls and drizzled with raspberry and chocolate. Both tasty.

Weekend nights, the Grill offers live music, and as the tables in front of the musicians empty, the tables are removed to make way for dancers. During our visit, a trio began with Al Jarreau and Al Green, and morphed into nostalgic music of the '60's and '70's. Plenty of dancing from a crowd whose dress varied from sparkly tops to pressed jeans and cowboy boots. Our server was pleasant to deal with but slightly disorganized; we guess he was pretty new to the game.

 

Frontenac Grill

731 S. Lindbergh Blvd., Frontenac314-569-4115

www.frontenacgrill.com

Lunch Mon.-Sat., Dinner nightly

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $13-$37

Way to Heaven

The theater is an excellent place to look at what is real and what is false, and whether what is occurring on stage actually happened, and why, or if the playwright is taking us along on a leap of fantasy directly from his, or her, imagination. "Way to Heaven," which opened last night as a New Jewish Theatre production at the Jewish Community Center, is another view of an extremely strange event that took place during World War II, written by Juan Mayorga, a Spanish playwright.

In the middle of the war, reports of the Holocaust, of concentration camps and furnaces and extermination of large numbers of people, began to leak out into the American press. The International Red Cross heard the reports, too, and decided to send investigators to see if civilian prisoners were treated as well as military prisoners, to see if the Nazis were following the rules of the Geneva Convention. When the Germans heard this, they developed a scenario. The camp at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia (Terezin is the Czech word), became a small village, with a soccer field, a town hall, houses, even a synagogue. Inmates were given roles, and scripts, and direction, and when the inspectors arrived, in June, 1944, they saw a play, went home and wrote reports that all was well. The "actors" were shipped to Auschwitz or Dachau and murdered.

Mayorga's play bounces here and there in a non-sequential, non-linear fashion, but it's very strong, and Doug Finlayson directs without flair or furbelow, but with real style. The three main characters are excellent. Jerry Vogel is the Red Cross investigator, Jason Cannon the German commandant of the camp and Terry Meddows the unofficial leader of the prisoners, given the task of being what amounts to the "director" of the play created by Cannon. And there is a chilling, heart-rending performance by Elizabeth Teeter as a little girl who tries to teach her doll to swim in a small stream that crosses the stage, and who sings, too.

The play is divided into five sections: Vogel's lengthy monologue opens things. It's years later as he talks about what he saw and how he responded, and how he was a victim of an awesome snow-job by the commander, who quoted Spinoza and Shakespeare and showed off his library. Vogel remembers how Cannon told him about the town clock, more than 400 years old, and how Meddows accompanied them as they strolled through tow n.

We then jump backward in time to a scene by the townspeople. Boys play with a top; one asks his friend what his sister looks like when she takes her clothes off. A young couple (Scott McMaster and Julie Layton) talk about their future, bicker about their present. Young Teeter is very patient with her doll-student, reminding her to breathe, to use her arms and legs. The boys are played by Braden Phillips. Parker Donovan, Matthew Howard, Leo Ramsey and Drew Redington, and Shaina Schrooten portrays another young woman.

Cannon takes the stage next for a long monologue, displaying his knowledge, quoting various philosophers, discussing the "Jewish problem," and, whenever he fails to understand something, falling back on, "It must be Jewish humor." He's physically perfect for the role and, like Vogel and Meddows, makes a vivid impression.

The fourth section involves Cannon and Meddows, selecting the cast, discussing problems. Cannon forces Meddows to reject some actors, though both know the rejects will either be on a train to a death camp or on "the way to heaven" (himmelweg in German), the name sardonically given a ramp from the railroad station to a building that the Commandant describes as an infirmary but which is a gas chamber that the Red Cross representative does not enter. And when Meddows resists, Cannon has a simple, irrefutable statement, "If they're working here, they're not on the train."

Along the way, Meddows asks Cannon why the Jews have been given shoes without laces, and Cannon does not answer. He doesn't refuse; he just goes off in another direction. Did he drop a line? Did the author lose his train of thought? My answers: It's difficult to run (away) when your shoes are flopping around your feet, and I wouldn't put potential weapons in the hands of my prisoners. Or maybe it's to prevent them hanging themselves.

And in the final section, Meddows talks to his cast, cajoling and supporting and teaching and praising. Knowing the results, it's heart-breaking.

It's a terrific evening of theater, sensitive, well-acted and powerful, and it will run through Feb. 12. Tech work is strong, with John Stark's twisted forest backdrop looking as if it had come from the Brothers Grimm and Michele Friedman's costumes looking quite proper for the time and place. And a quibble: With all discussion of the trains, and even though we're told that they arrive at 6 a.m., it would have added to the effect to hear a little more whistle now and then.

Way to Heaven opened last night (January 26) as a production of the New Jewish Theatre at the Jewish Community Center, to run through Feb. 12

-- Joe

Albert Nobbs

With Glenn Close and Janet McTeer providing dazzling performances, the sad, intimate, always-reaching-but-never-touching story that is "Albert Nobbs," falls short of excellence, a conclusion I intensely disliked having to reach. But the movie, which opens here today, fails to strike the necessary chord. Perhaps the brilliant Close is just too tightly wrapped, disappearing into herself too often.

It's a project that Close, such a the wonderful actor, has worked on ever since 1982, when she did an off-Broadway production of the play, written by Simone Benmussa and based on George Moore's 1918 story. Close also served as one of the producers, co-wrote the screenplay with Gabriella Prokop and John Banville, and contributed lyrics to Brian Byrne's original music.

St. Louis theater buffs may recall a production by Theatre Project Company, starring Fontaine Syer, in the 1980s, performed at the old Gatesworth on Union boulevard.

Close, tight-lipped and almost silent, poses as a man to be the title character, working as a waiter at Morrison's Hotel in Dublin. There is a strict pecking order among the staff, and there is an aura of politeness and tact. They speak formally to one another in strict adherence to late 19th-century manners and morals. Close, living in constant fear of being found out, seems to almost disappear into the wallpaper. She hides her savings under a floorboard in the depressing room, checking their safety at least once a day. And then Hubert Page (Janet McTeer) shows up. Tall and taking long, shambling strides, he's a house painter -- and also a woman. McTeer absorbs the role in glorious fashion, and in my opinion, both she and Close deserve the Academy Awards for which they have been nominated. They are so alike, and so different, that it's amazing, and to see Hubert try to teach Albert is a warm and wonderful thing. Their outing on the beach at Brighton is a sheer delight.

Pauline Collins is Mrs. Baker, who runs the hotel, flirts with the (male) customers, winks at any immoral thoughts by them, and has a splendid run-in with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, who's a high-style guest. Brendan Gleeson, as a physician with richly developed carnal desires, is another acting highlight, as is Mia Wasikowska as Helen, a young waitress.

Mr. Nobbs, who probably has never had a sexual experience, perhaps only a handful of sexual thought, has a goal for that under-the-floorboard stash, and "walks out" with Helen, adopting a protective air. Meanwhile, of course, she has no idea of what Helen is like and where her allegiance lies. For all her made-up life, for all her duplicity, she's an innocent.

Unfortunately, and despite a full complement of outstanding acting, and stylish direction from Rodrigo Garcia, there just is not enough story, not enough interaction among the characters, to fill a feature-length film.

Albert Nobbs opens today at several theaters

-- Joe

Man on a Ledge

We're not very far into "Man on a Ledge," when we realize that Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) is no more going to jump off the Roosevelt Hotel window ledge than you and I. But what's he doing out there?

That comes clear a little while later as this hodge-podge of a movie combines dozens of cops-and-robbers cliches in an often-turgid, occasionally lively tale, written by Pablo F. Fenjes , whose claim to fame is that he was the ghost-writer of the book in which O. J. Simpson "imagined" he was the perpetrator of the crime for which he was found not guilty.

Cassidy is a former New York policeman and a criminal who has served time, now taking the fall for David Englander (a wasted Ed Harris), a richer and smarter criminal. But Cassidy has figured a way to get back at Englander and enrich himself at the same time. So while he stands on the ledge and talks with the police psychologist (Elizabeth Banks), his kid brother, Joey (Jamie Bell) and his cute, brash, sexy-tough girl friend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are doing a little work patterned after any (or every) episode of "Mission: Impossible." They're crawling through building pipes while taking instruction from the elder brother.

Director Asger Lath gets some extra mileage by shooting the crowd down below and getting some good work from Kyra Sedgwick as Suzie Morales, a brash TV reporter.

The acting is fine, and the pacing is good. The writing is just so sloppy that there's very little worthwhile entertainment going on, either on the ledge or the street corner -- or in the building's innards.

Man on a Ledge opens today (January 27) at several theaters.

-- Joe

Saffron

We wrote about Saffron for the print edition of St. Louis Magazine. You can read that review here.

Lester's Sports Bar & Grill

What does it take to make a sports bar? Many television sets, of course, all tuned to an all-sports station that features either games or loud conversations by groups of former athletes forever interrupting one another or questioning someone's manhood -- maybe both at the same time. And what about a sports bar and grill, like Lester's in the Central West End, just east of the intersection of Euclid and Maryland? Does the addition of "grill" mean better meals, or just more toasted ravioli, burgers and chicken wings?

Lester's certainly has the television sets, and a large U-shaped bar. And a dining room to the east of the bar, with plenty of television but a lower ambient noise level. And a patio and a rooftop terrace, in a neighborhood where dining and/or drinking outside is The Thing To Do, or will be when the weather warms a little. Lester's also has a key ingredient for success in St. Louis restaurants -- parking, right next door. Sadly, at least to us, the kitchen closes at 10 p.m., though it stretches to 11 on Fridays and Saturdays. We think that post-event (theatrical, musical or sporting) activities should lead with a drink and a snack, and a 10 o'clock close cuts everything too fine.

But Lester's offers a wider-ranging menu, like salads, barbecue and delicatessen sandwiches on rye bread it says is baked in house, in addition to toasted ravioli and chicken wings.

A conclusion: Yes, Lester's Sports Bar & Grill is a sports bar, and a grill, too, which seems to draw a slightly older, more mixed audience.

Lester Miller's aim, going back to his Clayton Road digs, apparently was for a delicatessen of the style of the Stage or the Carnegie, or the Second Avenue, in New York, or maybe Canter's, in L. A., but not enough St. Louisans are up for it. The compromise comes close to working, but the sports theme obviously was a necessity.

It's easy, if you'll excuse the phrase, to chicken-out on appetizers. Chicken soup with a matzo ball was a winner, deep-flavored chicken broth with a few vegetables, some pieces of chicken and a fat, baseball-sized matzo ball in the middle. The ball was of the floater school, matzo balls traditionally being divided into floaters and sinkers, and it was light, even fluffy, and tender, a good example of that traditional dumpling. And the wings are available three ways, a dry rub, Buffalo-style or tossed with garlic, lemon and pepper. An order of dry-rubbed brought a good-sized serving of fat, juicy wings, nicely seasoned with subtle things beyond and pepper, very worthwhile.

If we want to continue the puns, we can talk about beefing up other appetizers. Quesadillas, something we've always thought of as an adult version of a grilled cheese sandwich, work well with Lester's smoked brisket added to the cheddar and pepper jack cheeses and grilled onions. The salsa was chunky and mild, and the guacamole was inoffensive. But the brisket's contribution was significant, raising these guys to first-rate. The same brisket appears in the house chili, another mildly spiced dish, very tasty but heavy on the vegetables and chunks of tomato, and therefore a little sweet.

On the sandwich side (there are no entrees, just sandwiches and some ribs), the menu features the deli offerings, sandwiches of smoked brisket, pastrami, corned beef or smoked turkey breast. Alas, the pastrami fails, too lightly seasoned and too lean by far. Diet-friendly, perhaps, but not what many of us prefer. The pulled pork sandwich was properly smoky, and reasonably moist, if not deeply pig-flavored. The barbecue sauce was pretty mild, tomato-based and sweet.

Fat half-pound hamburgers can be topped with grilled onions, bacon or cheese for an extra dollar; ours, with the grilled onions, turned out to be close to the as-ordered rare, and very juicy, better than many of its kin in similar establishments. But the so-called award winning grilled all-beef hot dog showed exactly one grill mark, and its internal temperature reflected that lack of acquaintance with the heat source. The bun, too, was cold (unlike the hamburger's). Uninspiring.

Except for the french fries, all the sides (potato salad, slaw and baked beans) were quite sweet. The potato salad, so cold it was close to frozen, lacked zip, and so did the slaw. Beans sported a bit of meat, but lacked acidity to offset the overdose of brown sugar.

Dessert goes a couple of steps up from some of the sports-bar cliches. A chocolate layer cake, cold but moist and rich, was dark and nicely moderate in its sweetness. We'd order it again. Cheesecake keeps to the deli theme. It arrived drizzled with some sort of red berry puree, almost but not quite raspberry, and thickened to nearly a gel. The inside of the cake was the texture of cream cheese, which Joe liked and Ann didn't. Closer to the edges (and thus the heat source), it was cake-ier, less gooey and with more of the classic cheesecake texture. Overall, it was satisfactory, with its graham cracker crust, but the puree subtracted a few points.

Good service, both early in the evening and later, though we fear the noise level would be almost lethal on certain game days. But that's a sports bar.

 

Lester's Sports Bar & Grill

4651 Maryland Ave.

314-932-6040

www.lestersrestaurant.com

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Sandwiches: $7-$15

Oleanna

Clarence Thomas has been a U.S. Supreme Court Justice since 1991, approved by the Senate in a 52-48 vote, the narrowest confirmation margin ever, amid a lot of sexual harassment discussion involving Anita Hill. A year later, "ripped from the headlines" in "Law & Order" style, "Oleanna" opened on Broadway as David Mamet's take on the hearings and the confirmation.

The searing drama opened last night as the first play of Hot City Theatre's 2012 season, and regardless of gender, it will make your skin crawl with pain and your toes curl in terror. Annamaria Pileggi's never-a-pause direction, and solid performances by John Pierson and Rachel Fenton make the 90-minute-no-intermission play speed by like the City of New Orleans through the Mississippi countryside.

The Broadway production, directed by the playwright, starred William Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet's wife). The 1994 movie, also directed by Mamet, starred Macy and Debra Eisenstadt.

John's office, a small room with a desk piled with paper and the blue books even I used in college exams. He's seated at the desk. Carol, a rather plain co-ed, brown hair tied back, glasses on her nose, stands nearby. She doesn't understand, she says. What don't you understand, he asks. Everything, she says.

Turns out she claims not to understand anything from John's class, or John's book, or John's lectures. She says she's stupid. He insists she's not. They talk past one another. Neither appears to listen properly.

A phone interrupts often, mostly when tension is highest, or when an important statement is begun, a key question asked. From John's end, we learn that he and his wife are about to buy a fancy house, betting on the come that the college's tenure committee, meeting that day, will recommend him for tenure and a big raise. John, of course, is distracted. He tries to comfort Carol, but he's pompous and condescending, making foolish statements. She gets more and more frustrated; as she appears to lose it, he holds her arms, trying awkwardly to comfort her, but still keeping her at arms' length.

Confusion reigns. Disagreement? Certainly. Misunderstandings? Every phrase. Harassment? Damned if I know.

A blackout sends us into Act II. Or Scene II. It's a few days or a few weeks later (the program doesn't bother with a time line), and we're back in John's office. The tenor has changed. Carol, part of a group that sounds like one of Chairman Mao's truth squads, has protested to the university and to the tenure committee that John's behavior has been a clear case of harassment, ranging on the sexual. John is aghast. Stupid? Of course. Patronizing? Probably. Harassment? As I said earlier, Damned if I know.

Carol and her "group," their blood at a galloping boil, want John's scalp, and the rest of his skin, too. He's twisting in the wind, seeing his tenure gone, his house with it, maybe his job as well. Another blackout. John now is coming apart; his separation letter in his hands, Carol again in his office, gloating a little, but offering a deal. . . .

The acting is very good. Pierson, supercilious and pontificating in the early going, becomes a shadow. Fenton, whose star rises as his sinks, keeps everything simple, as befitting a college student, but power goes to her head as it did to his. Pileggi's direction is stripped clean of nonsense. Like a U-boat torpedo, it is on target and merciless. An excellent drama, not nearly as dated as I feared it would be. Mamet's dialogue crackles as sharply today as it did 20 years ago, and we'll get a chance to compare 1992 with 2009 when his drama, "Race," whose title makes the subject matter perfectly clear, opens at the Rep. on Feb. 10.

Oleanna, by David Mamet, produced by the Hot Ciy Theatre Company, opened Jan. 20 at the Kranzberg Theatre, to run through Feb 4

--Joe

A Steady Rain

The Chicago School of drama, led by such as David Mamet, Nelson Algren and Tracy Letts, involves pain, profanity and polarization, in almost-equal parts. It's well-represented in newcomer Keith Huff's "A Steady Rain," which opened last night in the Rep's Studio Theatre and will run through Feb. 5.

It's tough theater, directed in proper style by Steven Woolf, with powerful acting from Joey Collins as Denny and Michael James Reed as Joey. It plays out in a gloomy police precinct interrogation room, though the actors' conversations leads us to living rooms and other places, but the location is unimportant. We have two characters in a love-hate relationship, like so many two-handers, but it certainly holds our focus, or did mine until a softball ending left me squirming.

Denny and Joey are lifelong friends; Italian-American Denny and Irish-American Joey went to "kinnergarten" together. As grown-ups, at least physically, they're beat cops, passed over for promotion because they don't deserve it. Joey drinks, Denny is on the take from streetwalkers and pimps, which he defends as preserving the capitalistic system and protecting the girls from violence. And his almost-constant profanity, much of it close to being racially tinged, makes others uncomfortable, which is the mildest possible description.

As Denny says, "You got a problem with the bottle, I got a problem with my mouth. We're helping each other out, right?"

Joey, who has been the victim of Denny's sadistic bullying since childhood, says nothing. He lives alone, with a bottle as a companion. Denny, honestly trying to keep his buddy sober, invites him for dinner a lot. Denny has a house and a family; he is so protective of them that he's willing to demonstrate to his wife, two children and a dog named Heinz what he is protecting them from. A classic controlling bully and abuser.

Denny also is having a feud with a pimp, partly over a girl named Rhonda, whom Denny also likes, invites to dinner, offers to Joey. A real buddy, right? And when the two policemen carelessly make a terrible mistake, the balloon goes up.

Both Collins and Reed offer strong performances; Collins' ice-blue eyes make some of his anger even more frightening, and Woolf's direction turns both men into fierce creatures. Robert Mark Morgan's set is magnificently drab, with window blinds that occasionally open to show a city out there, and Dorothy Marshall Englis' costumes are a perfect match. Peter Sargent's lighting helps create an impressive mood. It's a worthy production, but a shame that Huff didn't finish as strongly as he began.

A Steady Rain, a Repertory Theatre of St. Louis Studio Theatre production, opened Jan. 20 and will run through Feb. 5

--Joe

A Dangerous Method

Michael Fassbender has been on movie screens everywhere, it seems, playing a variety of characters and handling all of them very well. "A Dangerous Method," in which he portrays Carl Jung, "Haywire," an action flick, and "Shame," in which he's a cold sex addict, all open here today. ("Shame" will be the next review.) They bring to five the number of 2011 films in which he was prominent, including starring roles in "X-Men: First Class," and "Jane Eyre."

His breakout role came three years ago in "Inglorious Basterds," and he got a lot of very good notices when he portrayed Bobby Sands, the Irish revolutionary who starved himself to death, in "Hunger," in 2008. The 34-year-old actor was born in Germany to an Irish mother and a German father, grew up in Ireland and currently works out of London.

With Fassbender as Jung, Viggo Mortensen as a marvelous, very human Freud, and Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein, as complex and sexual a woman as the screen can show, "A Dangerous Method" highlights two things -- talking and making love -- that humans can do exceptionally well, and David Cronenberg's direction keeps ears and eyes riveted to the screen.

The first scene sets a strong tone as Spielrein, riding in a carriage to a mental hospital in Switzerland in the first decade of the 20th century, has a world-class temper tantrum. It's staggeringly powerful, and it sets up the young woman as a power to be reckoned with. She's to be treated by Jung, and she travels from patient to lover to peer in a series of brilliant scenes that show both Knightley and Fassbender as fierce performers on the screen.

And it's interesting that Fassbender, who plays sex addict (bad term, but it works) in "Shame," is involved with far more sensuality and the fanning of sexual appetites as he and Knightley go at it in "A Dangerous Method." Spielrein, a real person whose intellectual interaction with Freud is as powerful as her physical one with Jung, became a psychoanalyst in her native Russia and was murdered by German soldiers in the early days of World War II.

Cronenberg's direction is powerful, too, working from a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, adapted from his play, "The Talking Cure," based on a novel by John Kerr. Outstanding writing and direction make this a natural for fine actors, and Mortensen gleams like a rare gem as Freud, bringing him a delightful sense of humor. Jung treats Spielrein, who sits on a couch as one of the first people to undergo "psychanalysis," as Jung calls it. Freud convinces him to add an 'o,' turning it into the "psychoanalysis" we call it today.

The two men, Freud as the mentor, have a wonderful relationship, and hearing them talk as they walk in a series of beautifully-manicured gardens, is exciting. There's also fine acting from Sarah Gadon as Jung's wife, Emma, but exciting work from Fassbender, who is having Spielrein on the side, as it were, and Mortensen, as the man who may have been the 20th century's most famous -- certainly its most quoted -- physician.

A Dangerous Method opens today at several theaters

-- Joe

Shame

Adolescent boys have little on their minds except sex. Brandon Sullivan is no longer a teenager, but he has nothing on his mind except sex. Something is quite wrong with the man, and that's the story of "Shame," another Michael Fassbender-Steve McQueen collaboration that opens today and leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction.

Fassbender is a fine actor, and it's easy to see the difference in his portrayals of a man enjoying sex and some of its variations with Keira Knightley in "A Dangerous Method," reviewed above, and his interaction with lots of faceless, nameless, speechless women in "Shame."

As a seducer, he's excellent. He's in a bar with his boss (a very good James Badge Dale) one night, and Dale is in hot pursuit. He's a little too brash, a little too pushy. He breaks the mood and Fassbender is right there to pick up the pieces -- and th egirl. There's another, early on, when Fassbender sees a girl (Lucy Waters) on a subway, traveling through Brooklyn. Lots of interaction by eye, without a word, and we're sure he is scoring agian, but he cannot find her in the station. Maybe it's an accident, maybe she changes her mind, but it's a fine scene.

There are lots of excellent moments along the way, but the subject matter is so depressing that it's difficult to like the movie. Fassbender and McQueen worked together a few years ago in "Hunger," when Fassbender played Irish revolutionist Bobby Sands. McQueen and Abi Morgan co-wrote the screenplay; she, by the way, also wrote the screenplay for "The Iron Lady."

Sullivan's life goes farther awry when his sister comes to visit and talks about an indefinite stay, which causes considerable panic. Carey Mulligan offers a good performance, but his problems keep getting in the way of a good, coherent story.

Shame opens today at several theaters

-- Joe

Nuremberg

At the end of World War II, coming up on 66 years ago, Nazi leaders were put on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, charged with a variety of war crimes. The U. S. government commissioned Stuart Schulberg, a screenwriter and brother of Budd Schulberg, to shoot a documentary film of the trial, called, simply, ":Nuremberg." A few years later, director Stanley Kramer did a feature called "Judgment at Nuremberg" with an all-star cast.

It's still a very good movie, but now the original is being re-released, put together by Josh Waletsky and Stuart Schulberg's daughter, Susan. It opens today, with Liev Schrieber offering newly written narration.

Robert Jackson, an associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, served as the chief prosecutor, and in the dock were such as Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer, all prominent members of Adolf Hitler's inner circle. With newsreel footage from then 1930s to back the rather dry courtroom action, this is a fascinating and gripping film, a perfect view of the banality of evil, spiced with particularly scary examples of man's inhumanity to man.

Very much worth seeing, and thinking about.

Nuremberg opes today at the Plaza Frontenac

-- Joe

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Count on post-viewing arguments after watching "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," a tear-jerker that counts on reactions to 9/11 as a starting place, with one's feelings toward amazingly precocious children serving as kindling.

We have Thomas Horn as 9-year-old Oskar Schell, only child of Thomas (Tom Hanks) and Linda (Sandra Bullock). Thomas dies on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center and we're at the cemetery where Oskar sits in the limousine while Linda buries an empty coffin. The boy idolized his dad, who made up silly games, like a huge fantasy about a missing "sixth borough" of New York, maybe a northern relative of Atlantis. The relationship was a good one, and the pain is obvious.

And then then boy finds a key in a small envelope with the word "Black" written on it. He takes the key to a neighborhood locksmith, played by a long-ago Rep company member, Stephen McKinley Henderson, wearing a yarmulke. They decide it may be a name, and Oskar decides he'll visit all the Blacks in the five boroughs. He borrows phone books from the doorman (John Goodman in a neat cameo), finds several hundred, and starts his journey around the city, made improbably long by the fact that he won't ride on subways or in buses. He carries a tambourine, his old ploy to help nervousness. Please don't ask why. The movie says so, and so did Jonathan Safran Foer's novel and Erioc Roth's screenplay.

At home, Oskar's love for fantasy and game shows in his use of a walkie-talkie to contact his grandmother (Zoe Caldwell), who lives across the airshaft in the next building. A strange old man (Max von Sydow) shows up there from time to time, and begins to follow Oskar. He does not speak, using a note pad, plus tattoos with "yes" on his right hand, "no" on his left.

Of course, Oskar meets mostly warm and loving people, like Abby Black (Viola Davis),

who welcomes him and cries over his story while her husband (Jeffrey Wright) is preparing to

leave her.

The use of 9/11 footage can either emphasize Oskar's tale or be seen as a cheap and

tawdry device. The horror of the day, and director Stephen Daldry's use of it can fit almost any

interpretation. I found it just another device, and not overdone. Others will despise it. Young

Horn is quite good, and I found him quirky and likable, with moments when I saw myself and

some of the equally quirky things I did as a kid growing up in the city.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close opens at several theaters

-- Joe

Pariah

As if high school years weren't difficult without any extra baggage, Alike (Adepero Oduye) is trying to deal with her growing knowledge that she is a lesbian. That's the premise of "Pariah," the well-made little film that is Dee Rees' debut as a writer and director. The taut movie opens today.

Oduye, who was born in Nigeria but grew up in Brooklyn, seems just right in the part. She's confused, unsure of herself and her feelings, uncomfortable with friends and family. Her parents, played by Charles Parnell and Kim Wayans, are no better off than she is and the family is in turmoil. They are no more comfortable with the situation than their daughter.

When Alike tries an evening at a gay/lesbian club in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood, where she lives, that does not work out either, and an attempted relationship with a friend, Laura (Perrnell Walker), doesn't make either of them particularly happy.

Rees, who says the movie reflects some of the difficulties of her own life, writes with a good touch. She obviously understands the problems of her characters, and her direction is warm and in good touch with young people on the edge, the way Alike is. A sensitive story that works well with difficult subject matter.

Pariah opens today at the Tivoli

-- Joe

Red Tails

It's a comic strip, but that isn't all bad. George Lucas is involved, and Lucas loves the aerial warfare of World War II, when P-41s and P-47s and P-51s did battle with Stukas and Messerschmitts and Zeros, and our fliers outflew their fliers and shot them out of the sky in flaming crashes and huge explosions. He paid homage to them in all the "Star Wars" films, and his animation-aided dogfights made other aerial combat movies look like the Wright Brothers in action over the North Carolina sand dunes.

"Red Tails," which opens today, is a tribute to the Tuskegee Institute-trained African-American pilots ("call us Negroes," they tell white pilots) who fought American racism and red tape to be allowed to fly real escort missions over Italy in 1944.

But its screenplay is hopelessly awful. Everyone is a cliche, speaking in cliches and acting in cliches. Interestingly, director Anthony Hemingway and screenplay writers John Ridley and Aaron (remember Boondocks?) McGruder all are African-American, and that may be part of the problem, along with their age. Ridley is 45, McGruder is 37, and the black soldiers of World War II were very different.

The Tuskegee airmen were sent to Italy, kept isolated at a small airport, given old equipment and sent off to attack isolated trains and trucks. No combat, no duty flying as escorts for the Flying Fortresses. Their commanders, played by such as Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard, are career officers, used to their subservient roles.

The four young pilots are daredevils whose planes are extensions of their libido, are Easy (Nate Parker), the group leader; Lightning (David Oyelowo); Smoky (Ne-Yo); and Joker (Elijah Kelley). All are handsome and charming, and unused to discipline or following orders. Lightning is the best pilot and the worst offender; he also spots an Italian girl on her roof while he's flying back to base. He finds her house, and while she speaks no English and he no Italian, it isn't long before they're discussing marriage, using up any left-over cliches. Of course they get around to sex, but in a rare switch of either movie or wartime priorities, that comes later.

With good acting and terrific special effects, audiences deserve a better movie.

Red Tails opens today at several theaters

--Joe

Bond. James Bond.

Three Sean Connerys and one Roger Moore -- that's the 007 lineup for a four-night extravaganza of James Bond movies running Jan. 19-22 as part of the Webster Film Series.

They all begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus. "Dr. No" (1962) opens on Thursday, with "Goldfinger" (1964), "Thunderball" (1965) and "Live and Let Die" following Friday-Sunday, respectively.

Connery was only 32 when he won the starring role for "Dr. No," the first of the series, with Terence Young directing and Ursula Andress as Honeychile (Honey) Ryder. Guy Hamilton directed "Goldfinger," with Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, Bond's love/sex interest.

Young was again the director for "Thunderball," with Claudine Auger as Domino, and Hamilton introduced Moore in 1973, with many stylistic differences in "Live and Let Die," with a 22-year-old Jane Seymour as Solitaire.

All fine examples of a particular style, the early Bond films are highly entertaining.

-end-

Faraci Pizza

The heyday of the pizza parlor is long past, but sometimes nostalgia rears its handsomely graying head. The Faraci family has been serving pizza to St. Louisans since 1968, first in Ferguson and now in Ellisville. (The original location has been sold but remains in operation.) While we're sure the take-out business is good, there's a dining room just made for large casual groups or families with children. Yes, high chairs; no, no children's menu. Places like this were feeding children long before adults decided kids couldn't eat the same things they did.

By the way, we've heard complaints about the lack of children's menus at restaurants ranging from here to Galatoire's in New Orleans. Galatoires?!

Yes, pasta and sandwiches are on the menu, but that's not what Faraci is known for and it wasn't what we were after. This was a pizza mission, pure and simple.

But to hold us until the pizza was done, how about a salad? Just a small dinner salad, we said. This is not a spot for fancy salads. But the iceberg and a little romaine were fresh and crisp and cold. And the housemade Italian dressing seems to be pretty much vinegar and oil, no sugar. Bits of romano cheese had been added, along with some slivers of onion, crisp and not fiery, along with a single small tomato. It was amazingly good, not wearing an excess of dressing, an example of simple things being done just right. Somehow, though, as we were ordering the salad, the phrase “Could we have just one meatball, please, at the same time as the salad?” fell out of someone's mouth. The meatball, roughly the size of a tennis ball, was very tender indeed, in a slightly sweet tomato sauce. A nicely tasty appetizer.

This is indeed St. Louis pizza. It arrives on a rectangular aluminum tray, either 12 or 14 inches long. (a 7-inch is available at lunch.) Crust? Thin. Very thin, and crisp to the point of crackling at the edges. The Faraci brothers say they take three days to be sure the dough has the proper number of rises. The sauce, slightly chunky and a little garlicky, gives more to the whole flavor than does the cheese. Yes, provel, although not in an overwhelming ratio to the sauce. At some points, the two mingle to produce streaks of a Cheddar-colored orange, but the melt is too smooth to be Cheddar.

We like a variety of flavors to our pizza, so we ordered the Faraci special -- pepperoni, bacon, Italian sausage, mushrooms and onion. The bacon was nice and crisp, certainly, but it was the sausage that caught our attention. A light hand with the fennel seed, just a little hit of red pepper, enough to add a slight glow to things, and un-greasy but still moist, it's also made in-house, or so we found out later. The combination worked well, the toppings complementing one another so that no single topping overwhelmed another. Of the toppings on the menu, the only things slightly out of the ordinary are the shrimp and the Genoa salami; this isn't the sort of place to find sashimi tuna or sate sauce.

Don't let the carryout counter fool you; the dining room is beyond that. Friendly, courteous, prompt service.

Nothing wrong with old-school pizza at an old-school parlor.

 

Faraci Pizza

15430 Manchester Rd., Ellisville

636-230-0000

www.faracispizza.com

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Tricky

Smoking: No

Pizza and entrees: $10-$18

Space Junk

Human beings certainly have a single, and single-minded, excellence at one thing ,

They certainly can screw things up in terms of how they live. They have practically despoiled their home planet -- water and air are polluted, and getting worse. Crops are loaded with chemicals; fish and animals are being destroyed. And now we're busy ruining our last frontier. Humans have traveled outside their atmosphere for less than a half-century, and they are busy filling the skies with waste, circling the earth at some 17,000 miles an hour. .

"Space Junk," a film that looks at the debris that is pouring into our skies, is having its world premiere run at the St. Louis Science Center. It's fascinating, and it's scary. Coincidentally, and providing a link between the movie and real life, a chunk of space waste is threatening the International Space Station this very weekend, forcing it to take evasive action to avoid a possible collision.

Only 38 minutes long, "Space Junk" looks at the dead satellites called zombies, meteorites that were there first, pieces broken off a variety of rockets and other things that have fallen off existing satellites. Thousands are up there in low earth orbit, and the odds of a collision are shortening every day.

Director Melissa Butts, a Minneapolis filmmaker, worked with Don Kessler, retired as the head of NASA's Orbital Debris Office, using interviews, photography from outer space and animation of various types to create a fascinating and potentially very scary tale. There have already been a few collisions, and a few aging satellites have been destroyed, ironically creating that much more junk, but in smaller pieces. The cinematography is delightful, and the result is frightening. Even bits of matter as tiny as a paint chip, traveling at those supersonic speeds, can do mighty damage.

Tom Wilkinson narrates, and Kessler talks about his career as the "Father of Space Junk," trying to keep up with a sky rapidly filling with challengers to the stars. They begin with a helicopter journey to Meteor Crater, near Flagstaff, Ariz.. where a meteorite slammed into the Earth some 50,000 years ago. The crater, about 4000 feet in diameter and 570 feet deep,is an awe-inspiring site, clear evidence of a collision from outer space. I visited it about 30 years ago in conjunction with a junket for "Meteor," an awful film starring Sean Connery, but flying via helicopter into the crater and walking around on the bottom was a gripping experience. Being so close-up and personal to something like that is unusual and memorable.

"Space Junk" is a frightening tale of what we are doing to our universe, and the IMAX pictures and animation are exciting. If Kessler's predictions are accurate, and if Butts' film looks at all like what might happen, the results will be less exciting, but far more frightening.

Space Junk opens today at the St. Louis Science Center

-- Joe

The Iron Lady

If there's a sure thing in the Academy Awards competition, it's Meryl Streep as Best Actress for "The Iron Lady," a biographical tale of Margaret Thatcher, long-time conservative prime minister of England. Once again, Streep depicts a real person, as she did with Julia Child in "Julia and Julia," and once again she simply nails the performance.

If only the movie was as good. . . .

The movie is all right, a well-made tale of Thatcher overcoming a childhood that saw her teased and bullied as the daughter of a butcher, definitely a lower-middle class position, but we see her as an older woman, fading into dementia, and not enough of her as a driving, powerful politician who ruled England with an iron hand. For example, considering her status as a girl, we don't see good reasons for Thatcher's staunch conservatism, her anti-union activism.

Ali Morgan's screenplay is acceptable, but falls short. Phyllida Lloyd, who directed Streep in the wildly funny "Mamma Mia," does solid work again, but when you think of Streep in two wildly different characterizations, her performance stands out that much more. The woman can adopt so many personas that it's difficult to understand such talent. Just sitting back and enjoying it may be the best way to go.

As in all her roles, 13 of them earning Oscar nominations as Best Actress, Streep is the ultimately prepared performer. She probably is more like Thatcher than Thatcher was, her posture and speech amazing. Her look is good, too, but a lot of makeup helps. The voice, the poise, the walk are all Streep, delivered in magical style.

Jim Broadbent, a consummate actor himself, stands out as her husband, Denis, who put his own ambitions aside to be the ultimate mate and helper to a woman whose ambition would not be denied.

Alexandra Roach and Harry Lloyd portray the young couple and are strong, but as soon as Streep appears in the frame, it's all over.

Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher. A good film, not a great one, but a great actress, delivering a great performance.

The Iron Lady opens today

-- Joe

Battledrum

Leave it to the Metro Theater Company to find a new and intelligent -- and still entertaining -- approach to a very sticky subject.

"Battledrum," which opened a January run yesterday at the Missouri History Museum, is about drummer boys during the Civil War, and it's strongly anti-war, even if it's set within one of the bloodiest. And it does not take sides, although many other Americans still seem to. "Battledrum" is about war, but as a partly remembered bumper sticker said, it's more about the fact that war is bad for every living thing. The hour-long play, with music by Lee Ahlin, book and lyrics by Doug Cooney, supports neither the North nor the South.

Three of the young cast members are drummer boys, but they're also frightened children, part of the Union army but not really knowing why. Rufus (Patrick Mullen) was left alone on his Kentucky farm when soldiers burned it. His father went to war, fighting for the Confederacy, and his mother has disappeared. A offer of food makes him a Union drummer boy, though not a soldier. Jackson (Mark Holzum) is a soldier, a young one, a real drummer boy whose drum is named Obadiah, after a Biblical prophet. He lords it over Rufus,but still tries to protect him and to teach him how to survive. He also reads (or pretends to read) from a letter found in an abandoned overcoat, and it's funny to hear the boy gushing to "My precious only darling. . . ."

They soon meet George Washington (Robert Moore), an escaped slave. He came north on the Underground Railroad, which piques Rufus' interest because he wants a ride, too. George has something neither Rufus nor Jackson have -- he can read, having learned from listening to the teacher of his young master. He reads from the letter, too, but it's totally different.

All three young men are fresh and spirited, with energy that makes up for other shortcomings. The cast is rounded out by Nicholas Kryah, the long-time Metro resident artist and veteran of more than 5000 performances. He's the corporal, the man among boys, and he teaches the facts of life in gruff but kindly style. He also designed the simple, effective set. Susan Elaine Rasch plays four or five other characters, of both genders, handling the switches in excellent style as she goes from a mother to a runaway girl to several soldiers.

Cooney and Ahlin intersperse a variety of songs into a play aimed a young audience, but which does not talk down to it. An opening scene when Rufus' farm is torched is quite strong, and while "Battledrum" is more about people in wartime than war itself, it's a solid piece of entertainment that will both teach and amuse.

Battledrum, a production of Metro Theater Company, opened yesterday (Jan. 10) and will run through Jan. 29 at the Missouri History Museum

-- Joe

Brunch: Brasserie by Niche

Brunch at Brasserie by Niche seems to be the hottest Sunday ticket in town. We didn't realize that until we arrived the other day -- with reservation -- to discover the joint jumping, every table in use and hungry diners waiting. We always advise people to make reservations; it feels funny when there are only three other tables occupied, but it's a lot funnier to arrive with out-of-town visitors and discover a full restaurant.

So reserve or hope for a lucky break. Interestingly, we've discovered that as the day advances, the crowd gets younger. More social activity the previous night, we assume. Or perhaps the newly painted exterior, a brighter red than ever, causes severe pain in the morning sunlight. Once a table has secured, and perhaps some hair of the dog ordered, the next challenge is deciding what to eat.

This is a first-rate, intelligent menu, hovering precisely in the spot between breakfast and lunch. A burger and housemade granola can appear, or onion soup and a hazelnut waffle. Our single quibble is that the grapefruit brulee really shouldn't be considered a side dish. It's a segmented half red grapefruit showered with sugar and run under a broiler to harden and then brown, and it cannot be properly enjoyed when it arrives simultaneously with the quiche or eggs Benedict. It's a first course. The kitchen was very busy ("slammed" is the technical term) and we were not surprised it took a while for our order to arrive. But bring that grapefruit first, please.

Eggs “en cocotte” says the menu; what arrives is a small, hot skillet containing creamy spinach seasoned with tasty lardons of good bacon, eggs broken over that base and quickly baked, and a couple of new potatoes that had been crushed slightly and then fried to crispness The combination of flavors was swell, the eggs perfectly cooked and the crunch of the potatoes a fine contrast to the creaminess of the spinach and eggs.

Brioche french toast turns out to be thick slices of what's basically a dense bread pudding. A generous serving of marvelous lemon curd crowns them, making the small container of (real) maple syrup almost unnecessary. An excellent combination, to be sure, and some completely crisp thick bacon alongside is a fine escort.

Mimosas and bloody Marys up front, of course, but also a drink called a corpse reviver. This was all over drink menus on our recent trip to New York, and we sampled the gin/Lillet Blanc, Cointreau and lemon juice drink. Serious alcohol, beautifully cold, slightly bitter, it was indeed a drink to get the attention of the hung over. We noted several of them here and there around the dining room.

And some dessert. Chocolate mousse pairs up with a couple of hazelnut shortbread cookies, the mousse leaning toward milk chocolate in color, but darker in flavor. A scoop of brandy ice cream charms, but might be even more enchanting topped with a shot of espresso to create a French affogato.

And then there is the isle flotante, or floating island. The English name always sounds a little stodgy, but never fear; this was originally a French dessert, and the Brasserie's is beautifully delicate. A cloud of meringue sits on a puddle of custard sauce flecked with vanilla bean seeds. The whole is lightly drizzled with a little caramel, just a thin, glittering thread here and there. Very light, a first-rate choice after a heavy meal.

We spent close to two hours at brunch. As we noted, the kitchen was very busy. But good brunch is designed as a leisurely meal and should be handled that way. Good coffee, a drink, a chance to chat and to relax, building strength for the week ahead. Besides, there always will be another football game. A fine meal with attentive service, and first-rate people watching, including several tables of other restaurateurs and their families enjoying the role of customers for a change.

 

Brasserie by Niche

4580 Laclede Ave.

314-454-0600

www brasseriebyniche com

Brunch Sun.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Brunch Entrees: $6-$14

On Golden Pond

Ernest Thompson's splendid play, "On Golden Pond," is a perfect vehicle for Ron Himes and Linda Kennedy, the Black Rep's two standouts for lo, these many years, and both actors deliver in a rich, compelling style in the company's new production, which opened over the weekend and will run through Feb. 5 at the Grandel Theatre.

Tom Aldredge and Frances Sternhagen, who won a Tony for it, were the original Norman and Ethel Thayer in their summer house in Maine. Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn were the movie couple, with Fonda's daughter, Jane, as their child, and Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews followed in a live TV production. James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams starred in a 2005 revival, with Thompson making some minor adjustments for an African-American cast. That script is used by Himes and Kennedy, who perform together as if they've been doing it for years - which they have.

Lorna Littleway's calm, unhurried direction is proper, and James Burwinkel's superb set, which looks as if it just stepped out of a copy of Better Homes and Gardens, adds to the effect. The result is a totally delightful production.

Norman and Ethel have been married for many years; he's about to turn 80 and is a former English professor, retired from the University of Pennsylvania. He's crochety and curmudgeonly, quick with the sarcastically simplistic response, outwardly seeking no affection while inwardly demanding it. Ethel, of course, understands him perfectly and loves him without restraint, but he seems to take pride in being difficult.

He's estranged from their daughter, Chelsea (a satisfactory performance by Kathi Bentley), and each resents the other. He wanted a son to fish with and to understand him; she wanted a father who would display affection and apparently has spent her adult life (she's 42 in 1978, when the play is set) seeking same. They have not seen one another for eight years, and Ethel is saddened, though she's just not strong enough to do battle with Norman.

Now Chelsea is about to visit Maine, a stop between California and Europe, with a new boy friend, Bill (good work from Chauncy Thomas), and the boy friend's 13-year-old son. Billy (a proper performance from Chris Cross, who needs to slow down a little). Of course, Norman and Billy hit it off to perfection, and Billy, obviously his father's son, is willing to stand up to Norman, at least for a while. The cast also includes Aaron Orion Baker as Charlie, the postman, Chelsea's one-time beau, a relationship obviously ended about as soon as she heard him laugh the second or third time.

Watching and listening to Himes and Kennedy is a joy. Like the characters they play, they understand one another perfectly, and they are such superior performers that their timing is absolutely delicious. I was often reminded of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, the finest acting "couple" I've ever seen. It was a great pleasure.

On Golden Pond, a production of the Black Rep, will run at the Grandel Theatre through Feb. 5

-- Joe

Sunday in the Park With George

In one of those strange and wonderful coincidences that often make theater scheduling more than the sum of its parts, St. Louis is home right now to two classic musicals, "Sunday in the Park With George," which opened at the Rep last night, and "La Cage aux Folles," which is running at the Fox. This provides us all with the opportunity to see two splendid shows and to re-create 1983 on Broadway, when they were the most decorated.

"La Cage" won six Tonys to two for "Sunday," but the latter won the more prestigious award, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the following year.

'Sunday," with Stephen Sondheim offering magical music and lyrics, is brilliantly staged by Rob Ruggiero, who is hereby redeemed for last season's "High." As a show that re-creates a painting, Ruggiero, with help from scenic designer Adrian W. Jones, costume designer Alejo Vietti and lighting designer John Lasiter, puts everything together just the way artist Georges Seurat would have wanted it. Ron Bohmer, in a glorious performance as the artist, handles the ultra-complex Sondheim lyrics perfectly to put the stamp of completion on it. And as usual, Sondheim does things with the English language that no one else can or could, like a throwaway line about puddles from poodles who piddle. The cast responds with power, and even a sense of glee at their success.

Ruggiero also has made a 19-person company into a perfectly cohesive unit, an ensemble performance that is one of the best in the 40 seasons I've been writing about the Rep. Choreographer Ralph Perkins, music director F. Wade Russo and sound designer Michael Hooker also deserve high praise for this facet of the diamond-sharp production.

On the other hand (and, unfortunately, there has to be one), I still have problems with James Lapine's book, though fewer than I used to have. I still think that Act I is glorious, though I've never believed it was a complete story. I've said that just the first acts of "Sunday" and "Into the Woods" would be a perfect evening of Sondheim entertainment, but they would not comprise a show. But the second act's George's crass commercialism and cheapening of the art form of the original Georges is a straw man for a cheap shot, and the concept of moving everything to America does not work. The final-scene change of heart doesn't save the Lapine-Sondheim creation.

Why did I have fewer problems last night? Maybe the passage of nearly 30 years has tempered my impatience. . . .

The cast, as noted, is wonderful. The last time we saw Bohmer he was in the Studio, a physician busy titillating women out of hysteria and into highly stimulated enjoyment with his vibrator. He's equally successful as a painter, and Bohmer sings and acts with real style. It's a long and difficult part, and Bohmer, a Webster alum who earned a B.F.A. in the early 1980s and learned to be a Central Park carriage driver while breaking into a fine theatrical career as a singer and actor, scores high. His intensity as George is considerable. By the way, George at the Rep bears no resemblance to the real Georges Seurat. This is a totally fictional character, both in the19th and 20th centuries, except for the creation of "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."

Erin Davie is a delightful Dot, fighting to keep the relationship alive, considering herself "unfinished," while Georges is "complete." But eventually she realizes that while paint may be beautiful, bread is vital, and she runs off with Louie the baker, which does not seem to bother George at all. Her second act performance as her own grand-daughter is weaker, mainly because she is forced to sing and talk at an extremely uncomfortable level. I chortled, hower, as she ran offstage after the final curtain call grabbing at a bustle that obviously was coming loose.

But there's lovely work from Zoe Vonder Haar as the querulous elderly mother, and some other people, with Kari Ely as her maid, and even if Whit Reichert does very little, he lights a stage for me. Some Webster students like Nyssa Duchow, Charlie Ingram, Jacob Lacopo, Audrey Rae McHale and Jordan Parente get a chance for a major production and carry it off nicely. Deanne Lorette, as Yvonne and Naomi, was a fine presence, as were Chris Hietikko as Jules, Steve French as the limping, bad-tempered Boatman, Sean Montgomery as one of the Soldiers (his buddy was rather flat), Maggie Cansler, Mark Emerson, Jamie LaVerdiere and Rebecca Watson.

And then there was little Abbey Friedmann, the youngest in the cast and a delightfully irritating child.

"Sunday in the Park With George" is a happy new year greeting from the Rep, a highly entertaining production that will run through Jan. 29.

Sunday in the Park With George, a Repertory Theatre of St. Louis production, opened Jan. 6 at the Loretto-Hilton Center and will run through Jan. 29

--Joe

La Cage aux Folles

Smart guy, that Harvey Fierstein. Facing the playwright's perennial problem of getting the show over smoothly and in one piece, Fierstein solves it admirably in "La Cage aux Folles," which opened a two-week run last night at the Fox. With a stage cluttered with careening characters and no sensible solution in sight, George Hamilton, as Georges, calls a halt to the action.

"Time for the finale," he says, and the show sweeps into a noble one, with Lynne Page's fabulous choreography and reprises of four delicious songs by Jerry Herman bringing everything to a tuneful and happy conclusion.

Loose ends? Leave 'em backstage, sweep 'em out in the morning.

With Herman's score and Fierstein's brittle, zingy dialogue leading the way, "La Cage" is a delightful play with a lot of charm and a gay-rights anthem, "I Am What I Am," sung beautifully and with great power by Christopher Sieber. He's Albin, the flamboyant drag-queen entertainer at a gay night club on the French Riviera. It's a stunning first-act finale. Sieber is superb as a man who has struggled all his life and now feels betrayed by his long-time partner (Hamilton). By the way, he played Georges opposite Feinstein in the 2010 Broadway revival, to very good notices.

And then, Fierstein lightens the tone. "La Cage" does not become a political polemic, but returns to its light-comedy status, though retaining its stance as a plea for human rights and ridiculing a homophobic politician who might have taken a night off from the Republican caucuses in Iowa.

Herman, whose musicals include "Mame" and Tony winners "Hello, Dolly" and "La Cage," is at the top of his form here. The original production was in 1983, starring George Hearn and Gene Barry. It was a Tony winner as Best Musical, and also won the same honor in the revival category in 2004 and 2010.

Terry Johnson directs the current version, with Page's choreography and costume design by Christopher Wright. All are exciting, and nicely updated from the original work by Arthur Laurent, Scott Salmon and Theoni V. Aldredge, respectively. The fabulous Cagelles, danced by Matt Anctil (Angelique), Logan Keslar (Bitelle), Donald C. Shorter Jr. (Chantal), Mark Roland (Hanna), Terry Lavell (Mercedes) and Trevor Downey (Phaedra) are exactly that -- fabulous -- and Jeigh Madjus mostly charms as Jacob, hired as a butler but much preferring to be the maid.

Billy Harrigan Tighe is a proper ingenue as Jean-Michel, son to Georges, and Allison Blair McDowell is a visual treat as Anne, his girl friend and the object of a sweet love song, "With Anne on My Arm." Georges' winsome "Look Over There" and Albin's powerful, "A Little More Mascara," and "I Am What I Am," ("and what I am is an illusion") are better songs, but there's a personal appeal as Jean-Michel sings of the girl he loves.

Hamilton works hard under his fashion-magazine tan. There were a couple of flat spots, but his singing was generally acceptable and he was ideally costumed and cast as a nightclub master of ceremonies. Not for "Cabaret," of course, but just right for the charming, fast-moving, highly entertaining production provided by "La Cage."

La Cage aux Folles, a touring company, opened at the Fox Theatre Jan.3 and continues through Jan. 15

J. Gilbert's Wood-Fired Steaks & Seafood

Yes, it's part of a chain, but its lineage is so good we had to try J. Gilbert's. There may be a few folks around who remember Gilbert-Robinson, the folks who gave us Fedora in Union Station, one of the first Modern American menus in St. Louis, and brought us Bill Cardwell as well. J. is for Joe, as in Joe Gilbert; he and Paul Robinson built the excellent, Kansas City-based operation that also created Bristol, Houlihan's, Annie's Santa Fe and others.

It's a steakhouse; the full name is J. Gilbert's Wood-Fired Steaks & Seafood and it follows in the finest footsteps of G-R. Dark-ish inside, although sufficiently lit to allow reading menus sans flashlight, and there's a good-sized bar, of course. The dining room noise levels were not unreasonable on a fairly busy night. (Although if the bar crowd gets excited, all bets are off.)

This is not, of course, your father's steakhouse. Onion rings are pretzel-crusted, pork chops are from Berkshire pigs. Crab cakes? Well, sure. But these fat guys are the best we've had in years, big guys full of lump crab, scarcely enough filler to hold them together, lightly seasoned and totally satisfying. Not cheap, $17 for two as an appetizer, but they arrive with a scoop of tropical salsa, pineapple and mango with cilantro and a little heat, particularly tasty. The mustard aioli alongside is superfluous. The cakes also are available as an entree, three plus sides for $30.

 

Keeping to the crab theme, a bowl of crab bisque, considerably crabbier in flavor than most of its ilk, very creamy and – oh, thank you – served hot enough. It charmed, especially on a cold, windy night.

Having taken care of some seafood, it was on to the steaks. The 16-ounce, bone-in rib eye is referred to as a cowboy cut, the reference being to cowboys using the bone as a handle. A knife and fork is easier, considering the size of this handsome hunk, which arrived perfectly rare, tender and absolutely delicious. The most marbled of all the usual steak cuts, it may require a little knife work to remove the larger fat streaks, but it's worth it. The smaller strip steak was also first-rate, deftly seasoned and cooked, with the same smokiness, even more apparent in the leftovers the next day. We happily argued over whose steak tasted better. The strip, ordered medium-rare, showed its difference from the rare rib eye, rating a compliment to the kitchen.

On the side, poblano gratin potatoes carried just a little heat, but plenty of garlic, very tasty, although the center layer of potatoes was not quite done. Wild mushroom risotto excelled, creamy and full-flavored from the mushrooms. Spinach, quickly sauteed and not overcooked, was exceedingly tasty and lent an air of virtue to an evening of comparative indulgence. Only the broccolini failed, stringy and unredeemed by chips of fried garlic that looked like sliced almonds.

Apple croustade equals, more or less, an apple tart. The pastry was flaky, and the apples particularly apple-flavored, not necessarily an easy thing to find. There could have been a great deal more cinnamon flavor in the cinnamon ice cream, but the croustade itself was worth the purchase. Chocolate is represented on the menu by a triple chocolate cake, moist but firm layers that were almost bittersweet, a milk chocolate mousse filling and mirror-shiny chocolate glaze atop the towering piece. Raspberry ice cream a lovely pink resting alongside, not so tart as a sorbet would be, but good taken on its own merits. Both good choices, but no arguing over which was best.

The wine list was mostly in a medium-price range, through it could have used a few more hearty reds to accompany the beef. The by-the-glass selection was above adequate and offered some good choices.

Service was attentive and chatty, which we also noted at other tables. However, our view is that it is unnecessary, bordering on patronizing, for servers to repeatedly endorse our choices, happily complimenting our wisdom. A smile and a simple "thank you" would be a better response, in our opinion.

Located on the west side of West County Mall, with an outside entrance (and valet parking for a fee), J. Gilbert's does not serve lunch.

 

J. Gilbert's Wood-Fired Steaks & Seafood

17A West County Center, Des Peres

314-965-4600

www.jgilberts.com 

Dinner nightly

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $16-$39

The Best and Worst of 2100

 

Well, here we are again -- the final week of another year. No movies opening to provide fodder for this space. What to do? Sigh!

I know. I'll write about the movies I saw during 2011. I'll make a list of the best -- no, even my ego won't allow "best." Besides, what is best? What criteria do use? How about a list of movies that I saw, enjoyed and would happily see again? And that, of course, creates other problems in terms of movies that have not opened in St. Louis yet, and some movies that I did not see, for one reason or another.

All right. Herewith, an arbitrary decision. My favorites, and least-favorites, that opened and were discussed in this space during 2011. The list includes 12 that I liked a lot and 10 that I cordially despised. Standards? I see a lot of movies and have throughout my life, especially in the 40 years I've been writing about them professionally. Regular readers will understand that my tastes are quirky. I have a peculiar sense of humor. I like some movies that other critics, and movie-goers despise, and vice versa. I was one of the rare critics to dislike "The Way We Were," way back when. I'll probably offend some people, though I'd rather pique their curiosity and, perhaps, engage in a discussion.

Well, enough about you. Here's my list, and it's in chronological order so that you can more easily find the original article from this very blog file.

Casino Jack (Jan. 7): St. Louisan George Hickenlooper saved his best work for last. His direction of a bitter tale based on the life and works of Jack Abramoff, con man and lobbyist and friend to our senators and representatives was brilliant, and Kevin Spacey delivered a matchless performance in the title role. Hickenlooper died in October, 2010, at the age of 47.

Rabbit Hole (Jan. 14): Nicole Kidman never has been more powerful, or given herself up to a role more completely, than in a movie that explores the after-effects of the death of a child. It's based on David Lindsay-Abaire's play that ran in the Rep's studio a few years ago, and he also wrote the screenplay. John Cameron Mitchell, also a playwright, directed with style. Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are the parents of a boy who ran out of his yard and was hit by a car driven by a high school student, Dianne Wiest portrays Kidman's mother.

Cedar Rapids (Feb. 18): I described this movie as being rude, crude, tasteless and vulgar. Also very funny. Phil Johnston's story of a weekend convention of Midwestern insurance salesmen is hilarious, more so if you like rude, crude, tasteless and vulgar, and funny performances by John C. Reilly, Ed Helms, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche and Alia Shawkat. There are times when gross is good, and this is a giant sale from the gross-ery store.

Of Gods and Men (March 25): A strange juxtaposition of films, but coincidence is stranger than fiction, and this story, based on fact, took place in 1996, when a group of Algerian rebels threatened a monastery. A group of French Cistercian Trappist monks faced almost certain death but would not leave their home, where they produced honey and did good to the poor people of the village. Michel Lonsdale and Lambert Wilson lead a wonderful cast in a heart-rending tale directed by Xavier Beauvois. Lonsdale quotes Blaise Pascal, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction."

Winter in Wartime (April 29): A Dutch film, set during World War II, that is a coming-of-age tale and one about fathers and sons. A teen-aged Dutch boy, son of the mayor of his village, helps an English pilot evade capture and eventually escape. At the same time, the rigors of war in winter are shown in a perfect representation of an event only 66 years ago, but largely forgotten.

Midnight in Paris (June 10): The longest St. Louis run of a film in many years (more than six months), and a return to joyous form by Woody Allen. A fantasy of Paris in its glory years of the 1920s and its even more plush times as the 19th century turned into the 20th. Owen Wilson delights as an American honeymooner who meets a list of classic characters from Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, including Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, Paul Gaugin and Salvador Dali. A wonderful fantasy.

Sarah's Key (July 29): A multi-generational tale of a little Jewish girl and her brother, set among the Nazi occupation of France, with Melusine Mayance showing much skill as the title character. Many years later, Kristen Scott Thomas as an American writer with a French architect husband, moves into the apartment. Gilles Paquet-Brenner directs intelligently from the novel by Tatiana de Rosney.

The Descendants (Nov. 23): The ubiquitous George Clooney, perhaps the most relaxed and understated movie actor since Cary Grant, looks as good in Hawaii as he does everywhere else, as he deals with becoming a widower and the single father to two daughters while mysteries and real-estate deals keep him occupied. Alexander Payne's direction is relaxed and on target, and young Shailene Woodley is remarkable as Cooney's teen-aged daughter. So is Nick Krause as Sid, her boy friend.

Into the Abyss (Nov. 23): German director Werner Herzog is a genius, and shows his skill in a documentary about a man just eight days before his execution for murder. Michael Perry and Jason Burkett killed three people just to steal a car, and Perry is about to die. Herzog is a low-key interviewer, talking to Perry, his father(also in prison) and others who were involved. The aura of "In Cold Blood" hangs in the air and Herzog's movie stays in one's mind for a long, long time.

My Week With Marilyn (Nov. 25): Michelle Williams doesn't look like Marilyn Monroe but she has the moves, the moods, the aura, in a lovely homage based on an absolutely other-worldly experience by Colin Clark. Kenneth Branagh sparkles as Laurence Olivier, who cannot cope with Monroe's antics; she cannot cope with being an actor. Delightful comedy, perfect date movie.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Dec. 20): Rooney Mara is only an eyelash behind Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, the toughest cookie in Stockholm, in a fine adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel by Steven Zaillian. David Fincher directs the long, tense, powerful tale, and Daniel Craig is a slightly different, but equally strong, Mikael Blomkvist. Long, but exciting and tension without pause.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Dec. 23): With Gary Oldman in a marvelous portrayal of George Smiley, the great spy novel by John Le Carre comes to the big screen. Tomas Afredson directs a long but fast-moving story of English spies and those who spy on them. A large, impressive cast that includes Colin Firth, John Hurt and a who's who of English actors and a taut, plot line. Mystery fans will be very happy; so will movie buffs

And toting the push brooms behind the circus parade: These films have one common thread. They're dumb, and the filmmakers treat the audience as being dumb, too, No imagination, no spark, neither grace, nor charm, nor humor. And the losers are: Somewhere (Jan. 14), The Eagle (Feb.11), The Battle of Los Angeles (March 11), Ka-Boom (March 25), Heartbeats (April 29), White Irish Drinkers (May 6), Hesher (May 13), Meek's Cutoff (May 13), The Future (Aug. 19), Machine Gun Preacher (Oct. 7).

 And a Happy, movie-filled 2012. . . .

-- Joe

Bailey's Range

David Bailey, who has given St. Louis Rooster and Bailey's Chocolate Bar, among other places to eat and drink, went into the downtown burger business at Bailey's Range during the time the Cardinals were winning the World Series. We can only begin to imagine the crush on those nights. While the Range looks small, there's an upstairs, and it seats about 120. That's a lot of hamburger-seekers to fall upon a new spot. But Bailey quickly got the ducks in a row, and is cranking out satisfaction day and night. Night, especially, when it's open until 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday (or Saturday and Sunday, depending on how you look at the middle of the night).

Regular readers know that for us, it's nearly all about the food. But we'd like to point out before we get swept away in burgerness that the décor is pretty amusing. A looooong communal table (seats 40? Yep.) and a semi-partition made of old windows, a good view of the immense kitchen, and a fair view of the passing street scene all make for fun, as do the old milk cans used as light fixtures.

Don't think that because we're talking burgers, fries and shakes, this is a diner menu. Not at all. Yes, chili cheese fries as a first course, but also chicken liver mousse. That mousse, silky and rich, is as good as it would be in a restaurant with entrees priced three times as much. “Regulars like it,” reports Bailey, although he admits newcomers are occasionally taken aback by its presence on the menu. And cheese curds, sourced from Marcoot Creamery in Illinois, are creamy, just a little squeaky, the way cheeseheads say they should be. Several thin slices of Granny Smith apple are a reasonable garnish.

Not all the Range burgers are beef. There's bison, chicken, duck, lamb, pork and vegetarian (oddly, neither deer nor antelope), and if you like one set of toppings but prefer another meat, well, that can be done, too. We headed for the Ozark, a rustic-sounding name but a sophisticated approach with sauteed crimini mushrooms, caramelized onions and a blob of black pepper goat cheese, with lettuce and tomato alongside. This is a kitchen that understands "medium-rare;" the burger arrived dark pink inside, extremely juicy, the goat cheese and vegetables all dancing in perfect synchronicity. We've just returned from New York, and visited the home base of a small-but-growing group called Five Napkin Burger, a name that, while surely trademarked, certainly applied here on Olive Street.

A duck burger? Yes, especially one named Smoking Duck. And it was excellent, cooked a bit longer to leave just a bit of pink, nicely smoked, topped with some first-rate and notably crisp slaw and a barbecue sauce that had a hit of cassis, the black currant liqueur. It was the sort of dish that causes one to grunt with pleasure with the first bite. Delicious, and juicy, but more complex than its cousin on the next plate.

Fries were pleasant but not outstanding, although the idea of 10 choices of dipping sauces is a winner. The "crazy ketchup" had both sriracha, the South Asian hot sauce, and perhaps Tabasco, providing enough heat to be overkill to some. We liked it but would have preferred some mellow notes to round things out properly. And yes, there are salads.

Desserts are ice cream and their offspring, though there are no ice cream sodas, drat the luck. We tried two shakes, one with liquor. The non-booze featured chocolate and salted caramel, and we can attest to enjoying some very rich ice cream. Additionally, Bailey knows the difference between caramel and butterscotch, and the salt is a splendid balance to the sweet. The boozy one was an adaptation of the mojito shake, which involves cachaca, mint leaves and lime sorbet. We asked for it without the mint leaves, placing it somewhere between a caipirinha and a daquiri. Tart and refreshing, neither too thick nor too thin, it was dangerously good.

We sat at the bar, with fine service, save for a food runner who did the “Who gets the . . . .?” routine, a question that is never acceptable at a table for two. Good people-watching, and good food, with a sound level enough to cover a discouraging word.

 

Bailey's Range

920 Olive St.

314-241-8121

www.baileysrange.com

Lunch and Dinner Wed.-Sun.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Burgers: $6-$12

Stotties

Christmas week, when things are almost as quiet as August: Fewer meetings, more folks at home, and a good time to offer something a little special. I found this recipe in a recent ad supplement, and adjusted it a little to reflect what I had on hand.

Stottie is not a word often heard in this part of the world. They're traditional breads from the north of England, and they're not usually made in this sweet-ish style. Rather they're bread-like, split and used for sandwiches like ham and pease pudding (I'm not making this up...) or sausage, bacon and egg. Sounds like just the thing on the way home from the pub after closing time, their answer to what we fill with White Castles.

This one, though, is dense and moist, slightly sweet, the sort of thing I can see Grandmum cutting slabs of for a winter afternoon pot of tea. I don't think butter or jam is necessary, although it's good toasted. Not a handsome loaf at all, to be sure, but very easy to put together, no kneading and just one rise. You could even call it relatively healthy with all the fruit and nuts and oats. And I think it would be fine to substitute whole wheat flour for part of the white flour.

 

1 c. old-fashioned oats

1/2 c. honey

1/4 c. butter

1 Tbs. salt

1 1/2 c. water

1 c. applesauce

5 1/2 c. all-purpose flour, divided

2 envelopes Rapid-Rise Yeast

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

(or may substitute 2 tsp. “pumpkin pie spice”)

2 eggs, room temperature

1 6-oz. package dried cranberries (about 1 1/2 c.)

1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

 

Grease two 8- or 9-inch round pans. I used 8-inch springform pans, which have higher sides than my regular cake pans that diameter, and they worked well.

Place oats, honey, butter and salt in a large mixer bowl. Heat water and applesauce until boiling. Add to bowl and stir well. Cool mixture until it's just fairly warm (120 to 130 degrees). The length of time to cool will depend on your mixer bowl; my Kitchen Aid has a heavy base and doesn't cool off very quickly. A sink half-full of cold water helps cool such bowls down.

Add 2 cups flour, yeast, spices and eggs. Beat 30 seconds on low to combine, then raise speed to high and beat for 3 minutes.

Stir in cranberries. Add remaining flour and walnuts to make a stiff batter. Spoon batter into the pans. It will probably be too stiff to spread with a spatula, just dampen your hands and pat it down so it's all about the same height. These are supposed to look rustic. Cover the pans and let rise in a warm place until batter has about doubled in size, perhaps an hour depending on ambient temperature. While they're warming, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and make sure there's a rack in the middle of the oven.

Bake for 50-55 minutes. They should sound hollow when thumped. Remove from pans and cool on a rack.

Gives 2 loaves.

 

-Ann

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

They called it the Circus, partly because it was located in a warren of offices near Cambridge Circus in London, partly because of its various legal, illegal, immoral and vital activities as the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service of England. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," a powerful, intelligent, gripping movie based on one of John Le Carre's classic spy novels, opens today as a highlight of the holiday movie season.

This is not to be confused with the TV series of 1979, when Alec Guinness portrayed George Smiley in the six-hour mini-series. Director Tomas Alfredson and the brilliant Gary Oldman bring this one to ground in a little over two hours of taut, tingling tension. The story is unchanged: Smiley, a year into a forced retirement, is brought back to find a double agent who is a player in the Circus.

Le Carre, born David John Moore Cornwell, was himself a spy, working for British intelligence before being exposed by Kim Philby, himself a famed double-agent who disappeared into Russia in 1963. Philby and four colleagues, including Guy Burgess, came through Cambridge University in the 1930s, became Russian agents and, to put it mildly, caused major problems to Allied intelligence during World War II and its aftermath.

The movie features some of England's top actors as Smiley's colleagues, working under a man known as Control, the leader of the Circus and Smiley's boss, as well as his good friend. John Hurt, a matchless actor, is a joy to watch. The other insiders include Colin Firth, Toby Jones, David Dencik and Ciarin Hinds, and none of them misses a beat. Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan wrote the screenplay and Hoyte van Hoytema was the director of photography.

There certainly is some violence, but "TTSS" is primarily a tale of character, of men who live on the edge of a constantly shifting ledge. It's a wonderful book, with Le Carre at his best and the various spies living under constant pressure, depicted almost lovingly in the book. Alfredson, born in Sweden, revels in the increasing tension, and audiences will applaud him for keeping them so involved.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy opens today at several theaters.

--Joe

The Artist

Many people, my fellow St. Louis Film Critics among them, have chosen "The Artist," which opens here today, as the best movie of 2011 and are supporting it for Best Picture honors when the Academy Awards come around on Feb. 26.

I respectfully disagree.

I've seen the majority of the 2011 releases, though I'm still waiting on "Albert Nobbs," "Coriolanus" and a couple of others that may be contenders, and while I'm fond of "The Artist," and think it's an outstanding achievement and a very entertaining movie, there are a couple of problems. First, making an "homage" to a dead art immediately limits the size of its audience and pins a target that says "pretentious" on its chest. Second, after a wonderful opening, the "homage" factor runs dry and so does the story for about 20 minutes after the midpoint.

Making a silent film, in the style of the 1920s, is not easy, and writer-director Michel Hazanavicius has done a superb job (and I might support him for a directorial Oscar). Going back to the square format offers a different look to audiences, and convincing actors to try something different had to be a chore, but it was successful.

Guillaume Schiffman, the director of photography, delivers brilliantly, and the editing, by Anne-Sophie Bion and Hazanavicius, is magnificent. Real skill in both areas.

The story has more than its share of whiskers. Jean Dujardin is remarkable as George Valentin, and note the character is a letter away from being Valentino, hardly a coincidence. He's a star, with a beautiful wife (Penelope Ann Miller) and great popularity, and a gorgeous young co-star in the marvelous Peppy (Berenice Bejo). He has a loyal chauffeur, Clifton (the wonderful James Cromwell) and he works for a cigar-waving boss (the really excellent, cigar-chewing John Goodman, who might get my vote as Best Supporting Actor).

But sound is on its way in, and matinee idols like Valentin are on their way out. Peppy becomes a star. Clifton remains loyal.

People who never have seen many silent films will enjoy the experience. People who like well-made films and who enjoy the work of directors who take chances will be entertained. But in the final analysis, I'm glad that movies have sound, and dialogue, and even special effects. I'm also glad that cars have starters and do not have to be cranked any more. It's fun to peek into the past every now and then, but I wouldnj't want to live there.

The Artist opens today at several theaters.

-- Joe

We Bought a Zoo

In a holiday season with lots of sex and violence, I knew there would have to be a warm-hearted movie aimed at the entire family. "We Bought a Zoo," as one immediately realizes from the title, fills that slot as it opens today. In truth, it's so warm and so filled with heart that it is not recommended as a follow-up to a big Christmas dinner. It's hokey and predictable, too, but it is entertaining, especially if there's a child in the next seat, most especially if there's another on the other side.

Based on a true episode in the life of Benjamin Mee, an English writer, it makes the easy transition to the U.S., where the animals speak in the same accents. Matt Damon portrays Mee, a writer trying to cope with the recent death of his wife and the fact that he has become a single father to 14-year-old Dylan (Colin Ford) and seven-year-old Rosie. That's the perfect age for a child actress, and Maggie Elizabeth Jones steals every scene she's in as if she were Margaret O'Brien as Tootie in "Meet Me in St. Louis."

I wouldn't say little Maggie is impressive, but it wasn't until the credits were rolling that I realized Scarlett Johansson was in the movie, too.

Johansson is managing the zoo, which Mee buys after a single visit. He then decides he'll make it his life's work, though he probably has a book deal in the works, a fact that neither director Cameron Crowe nor Aline Brosh McKenna, with whom he wrote the screenplay, shares with the audience. He has sufficient funds to pay back wages to the loyal staff that has been taking care of things while not being paid.

Damon is solid, and Crowe's direction keeps the story rolling nicely. The movie is about 15 minutes too long, but what the heck, the animals don't get overtime.

We Bought a Zoo opens today at several theaters.

-- Joe

The Elves and the Shoemaker

The Imaginary Theatre Company is not a figment of anyone's imagination, not even the vibrant one belonging to Steve Woolf. It's a real theater company that lives and works at the rep, taking productions aimed at young audiences to school groups and such around the area, entertaining and teaching and, we all hope, creating a permanent love of theater inside everyone.

Every now and then, ITC shows off to the public with short runs, and right now, a charming, bright production of "The Elves and the Shoemaker," is on stage at the Heagney Theatre of Nerinx Hall High school. Unfortunately, only three performances remain -- one Thursday morning and two on Friday, and the Rep's web site reports them as "sold out."

Adapted from one of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm by Sarah Brandt, with Neal Richardson, the musical director, adding some pleasant music and lyrics, the story has been updated a little, and the four-person cast, directed by Bruce Longworth, displays considerable skill. The actors wove a spell that enchanted a theater filled with small people for its entire 55-minute running time.

Jerome Lowe is the Shoemaker, Lakeetha Blakeney is his wife, and the talented couple of Alan Knoll and his off-stage wife, Laurie McConnell, do everything else, from royalty to beggary to a display of elfin skills. They also show the ability and agility to handle quick changes as they bolt through a series of Dorothy Marshall Englis' bright and evocative costumes.

In truth, Lowe is not a talented shoemaker. It's almost as if he began as a hat- or wig-maker, failed badly and let the force of gravity take over as he continued to seek a career in fashion design. He now has reached bottom with a pair of green shoes. Trying to sell them in the town square, he's a total failure, but he's a kind and generous guy, and when he meets a poor beggar (McConnell), he gives them to her.

When he returns home, Mrs. Shoemaker is not amused, which is not surprising, because while a soft answer may turn away wrath, a empty stomach does not. But while they sleep, the Elves arrive and begin to turn things around for the Shoemaker. Knoll and McConnell, with a variety of accents and dance steps, move from role to role -- Knoll's attempt at re-creating Dame Edna Everage is a high spot -- and as hard as it may be to believe, everyone's a winner before the final curtain.

Lowe presents delightfully befuddled innocence, and while Blakeney shows the anger of hunger from time to time, she's a loyal wife. Knoll, who has brightened local stages for close to a decade, always has shown fine comic timing, and McConnell makes an excellent stage partner. Ellen Isom's pleasing choreography, is nicely entertaining and Scott Loebl's set works well.

Best of all, Longworth and the actors approach the material, and their audience, with an impressive lack of condescension.

The Imaginary Theatre Company presents "The Elves and the Shoemaker" at the Heagney Theatre Thursday (Dec. 22) and Friday (Dec. 23)

--Joe

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

From the charming drawings of the Belgian artist George Remi, using the pen name of Herge, the young newspaper reporter named Tintin and his loyal dog, Snowy, go off in search of good stories and buried treasure in "The Adventures of Tintin," a feature-length animated film that is entertaining in spite of being in 3-D.

I don't like 3-D. Never have. I think it's phony and a gimmick, and it bothers me that a director of Stephen Spielberg's taste and ability would use it. The film, in the works for many years, is a blend of real animation (Snowy the dog) and live movement turned into computer animation (Tintin and others). With his carrot-colored hair and top-knot, Tintin has a face that looks a little like a Kewpie doll, or even a Billiken. Jamie Bell is the voice, with Daniel Craig, the hero of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," as Red Rackham and Ivanovich Sakharine. Andy Sarkis is Haddock, and his ancestor, also named Haddock.

The film combines three of the comics, "The Secret of the Unicorn," "The Crab With the Golden Claws" and "Red Rackham's Treasure." Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish wrote the screenplay, and there is more Tintin in the plans if it goes as well on American screens as it has in Europe.

As in all comic books, our hero goes through a wide variety of adventures, always arriving safely at the other end of the story. Children and, to a great extent, their parents, will have a grand time. I did.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, opens today at several theaters

-- Joe

Brunch: Jilly's Cupcake Bar

Cupcakes? Marvelous cupcakes, sweet constructions of carbohydrates and buttercream, are in sharp and delightful contrast with the equally tasty, slightly more savory, if less traditional food offered for brunch at Jilly's Cupcake Bar & Cafe. Chef Dana Holland, whose work we first encountered at the original Babalu's on Euclid, doesn't go for the ho-hum, so there's a wide variety of interesting fare every Sunday morning.

That said, the brunch is not without a few glitches. This is a hopping spot; and arriving sans reservations is chancy. Lots of windows and signature pink walls make everything bright as servers thread their ways between tables, bearing coffee, juice and used plates. The drill is a little confusing at first: Check in with the host or hostess, and when a table or seats are assigned, line up to pay, potentially a problem if tipping is necessary even before setting eyes on the server. Then proceed to the table, and thence to the buffet. The line for the food waxes and wanes, so patience may be necessary, especially when the person directly ahead saves a place for a couple of relatives and their 8-year-old.

The buffet table contains a delightfully large number of dishes, despite its compact layout, with light and cold items first, then the chafing dishes, and finally the official desserts, with, yes, the cupcakes as a highlight. Wonderfully moist banana bread sits with the mini-muffins. Chicken salad, normally among the most boring items at a brunch, is creamy, savory, white meat that remains moist without being overdressed; it carries a small note of onion, but neither grapes nor celery. Just interesting. Just delicious. Also quite tasty were slices of pate and rilettes, moist and with notes of brandy and perhaps a little mace. Untried: Egg salad, fresh fruit, pasta salad, brie with apricot chutney, several other items that looked tempting.

Biscuits and gravy? Of course, but with an orange-y Creole gravy, not killer-hot by any means, but a good match with Holland's maple sausage links. Also among the hot dishes was a caramel-apple bread pudding, a reasonable substitute for pancakes or waffles, especially when its lily can be gilded with roasted pineapple on the next plate, resting happily in its brown sugary juices. Similar in theory but completely different in execution is the Mexicali strata. Strata is basically a savory bread pudding, eggs and bread with unsweet ingredients. The texture indicates the addition of cheese and some corn tortillas, seasoned with cumin and chiles, plus extra salsa and sour cream to add as desired. Absolutely delicious, a superb example of what makes Jilly's brunch stand out.

And then there's the eggs Benedict. Thin slices of baguette and tender ham rest under properly poached eggs, the whole topped with hollandaise. But wait, that hollandaise, or perhaps Dana Holland-aise, carries serious heat. That's definitely not paprika sprinkled over the top. There's no excuse to miss the macaroni and cheese, clearly of the tender/gooey school rather than the firm/tidy one, and utterly irresistible for all ages of customers. Only the green onion cheese potatoes fail. Sounds like a good idea, but not warm enough, not cheesy enough and not much green onion flavor, a surprise considering its neighbors on the menu.

Shrimp cakes, less fragile than crab cakes, are imaginatively seasoned like the Maryland classic crab version. (We'd like one of these as a base for the poached egg and hollandaise, come to think of it.) Pork loin, so often tough and uninteresting, is fork-tender and moist despite being pre-sliced. Piped next to it is a light tan cloud that is either a dense cumin-laced gravy or a light cumin-laced potato puree, and some honey-sweetened applesauce waits in front to add its own particular contrast. Another fine dish.

Yes, dessert includes mini-cupcakes, un-frosted, with three different bags of icing and various sprinkles for do-it-yourselfers. But we went for and were delighted with the so-called parfaits. Flat cakes are split, filled and frosted with a couple of the house's cupcake combinations. This is an excellent idea, producing a wonderfully moist result that allows for portion control, if you're the sort of person who controls dessert portions. The turtle version, all dark chocolate, caramel and pecans, was nice, but it was the lemon-raspberry that rang the bell. For those who remember jelly rolls from childhood, here's the same great combination, a delicate sponge cake flavored with lemon and a tart raspberry filling, worth waiting in line for.

Good coffee, although it was so busy on our visit that getting refills usually meant walking up to the beverage station. Orange juice, too, is included in the price of the brunch, which at $15 is good value for the money. (No liquor license, if that's a concern.) And do plan on making reservations.

 

 

Jilly's Cupcake Bar & Cafe

8509 Delmar Blvd., University City'

314-993-5455

www.jillyscupcakebar.com

Brunch Sun. 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair to good

Smoking: No

Brunch: $15

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

It's very long. It's also incredibly powerful, keeping me riveted to my seat for its entire 158 minutes, or more then 2 1/2 hours .

That's my take on "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," a strong, vibrant adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel. Screenwriter Steven Zaillian has taken some liberties with Larsson's work, though I think he does minimal damage to the original, and young Rooney Mara comes within an eyelash of equalling Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. Because of Zaillian's vision, or perhaps that of director David Fincher, we don't see quite the same Mikael Blomkvist, but Daniel Craig's portrayal is as solid as that of Michael Nykvist. Craig's version is slightly humbler, less the casual seducer.

Fincher's sexual scenes between Salander and the horrid, sadistic Nils Bjurman (Yorick Van Wageningen) are fiercer -- perhaps more difficult to watch -- in 2011 than in 2009. Her revenge also is more violent, but Bjurman had it coming.

Mara's full name is Patricia Rooney Mara, and she's the daughter of Tim Mara, grandson of Jack Mara, the founder of the New York Giants of the NFL. Her mother, Kathleen, is a great grand-daughter of Art Rooney, who founded the Pittsburgh Steelers. NFL royalty, indeed, but the 26-year-old actress has been working in film and television for six years. She played Erica, the girl friend of Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network," also directed by Fincher.

The cast is deep and strong, with Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger, the billionaire who wants to see his daughter, Harriet, avenged; she's played by Alexandra Daddario as a young girl, Moa Garpendal as she grows up. Stellen Skarsgard is outstanding as Martin Vanger and Joely Richardson as Anita Vanger. Robin Wright is Erika Berger, the editor of Millennium magazine and Blomkvist's boss

Mara is strong and wonderfully expressionless as Lisbeth; her stare sends a chill into you. Interestingly, I found that she and Rapace, from the 2009 film, are almost interchangeable as you watch them. Terrific performances by both.

Cinematographer Jeff Cronenworth has the gloomy Stockholm palette down pat, and Fincher's pace allows the viewer time to keep the various characters in their proper places. I'm glad I do not have to choose between the two versions; they're slightly different but highly enjoyable.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo opens today on several screens.

-- Joe

Young Adult

Charlize Theron is a terrific actress and a beautiful woman. She also seems to have a great deal of courage, which she displays in "Young Adult," opening here today. The movie, another collaboration of writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman, who are responsible for the delightful "Juno" of a few years ago. It's tight and well-made, but the standard Hollywood star never would accept the role, much less seek it.

Theron is Mavis Gary, a well-to-do writer who lives in lovely digs in Minneapolis, is in her mid-30s, successful and gorgeous. But she's bored. She is not in a relationship and she misses the glory days when she was the most popular girl in high school in Mercury, Minn.

So Mavis, showing that she has matured emotionally hardly at all in the past 20 years, decides to return to Mercury and look up her old high school beau, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), apparently not realizing that he might have found other interests. The town is small enough, and apparently has not grown either, that she finds him first thing. Well, he's married, which Mavis knew, and he has a brand-new son, which she didn't.

None of those things bother Mavis, and she sets off to reclaim Buddy, as if she merely had checked his warm body, perhaps thinking it's just an overcoat, with Buddy's wife, Beth (Elizabeth Reaser). This is not normal behavior for a Hollywood star, unless we're in the type of movie where Mavis is kidnapped by extra-terrestrials and turned into a vampire, or a mongoose.

Hollywood stars don't go in for that sort of thing. They're nice, and generally loyal.

Theron, still searching for something, finds some relief in a bourbon bottle with Matt (excellent work by Patton Oswalt), who distills his own. There's no question that Matt and Mavis were not fated to be high school chums. He definitely was the class geek, and besides, he missed a lot school after absorbing a savage beating by classmates. Mavis would neveer have been aware.

"Young Adult" is an interesting tale, blunt and without a vanilla coating.

Young Adult opens today at several theaters

-- Joe

Joy Luck Buffet

The intrepid diner has learned that treasures lurk in the most unexpected places. And so it is at Joy Luck, where camouflage is provided by the word Buffet in its name. There are, in effect, two restaurants inside, the buffet and a printed menu featuring the fiery food of Szechuan province. We later learned there is also a more standard American-Chinese menu, but we've always preferred extremes. Fortunately, the Chinese menu also has English translations.

The buffet seems patronized almost exclusively by those whose ancestors were not from Asia. Sad but true, the delicacy and freshness that marks good Chinese food doesn't stand up well to continued heating on steam tables. While the cost is very reasonable, $6.49 to $8.99, depending on when one visits, and the buffet itself is large, four tables plus a counter for sushi, the selection is mostly among unremarkable, inexpensive items. We saw a couple of dishes with a few shrimp, but there were nine different preparations of chicken. Our favorite was an absolutely stunning hot-and-sour soup, assertively spiced with both heat and sourness, showing a remarkable earthiness, and served steaming hot. Close behind were some simple stir fried green beans, still slightly crunchy (but, alas, barely warm, especially after a stroll back to the table). And we cheered at the doughnuts, little pillows of dough, not greasy, tossed in granulated sugar and on a serving platter refreshed frequently enough that they stayed tender and very warm each time we visited.

When we asked for the Chinese menu, we were warned about the spiciness of much of the food. But at least no one insisted it was too spicy for people like us, which happened a few times some years ago. The spicy Szechuan dumplings had a great gingery filling and were dressed with chili oil, a frequent ingredient in this cuisine. The skins were thicker than some, a common trait in the Szechuan kitchen. And, yes, they were spicy, spicier than most hot dishes at Chinese restaurants around town. Not spicy was a dish called tiny golden mushrooms, which brought little enoki mushrooms and  pieces of cucumber with a hit of sesame oil, a nice counterpoint to its hotter siblings.

Another spicy starter was the pig's ear, cool julienne slices of the crunch-chewy gristle (remember that Chinese chefs and diners think about texture as well as taste and aroma), dressed with a little chili oil and speckled with bits of Szechuan peppercorn. Tasty seaweed salad was not the brilliant green color we usually see, but longer, thin pasta-like strands of dark reddish brown. The dressing was more acidic than we usually find, perhaps from the presence of some ginger. Hot-and-sour noodles, slurpy, sour, spicy, salty, with plenty of garlic and a garnish of cooked peanuts, which reminded us they're not nuts, but legumes that can be cooked like lentils or limas. Also a winner.

From the main courses, there was a stir-fried pork with garlic sauce. It's marked as hot on the Americanized menu, not on the Asian version. Still, it was fairly spicy, with red and green sweet peppers, the small dried hot red peppers and plenty of chili oil, plus bamboo shoots and shiitake mushrooms. Crispy chicken (shown below) appears as knuckle-sized pieces of meat that are seasoned and fried, then tossed with what seems to be more peppers, including sweet green and red, slices of jalapeno, and the killer baby reds. And yet most of the heat seems to come from the chicken rather than the peppers and oil. It was one of our favorites among the main courses.

Shrimp in a variation of the salt-and-pepper dish that utilized the tingly Szechuan pepper, excelled, too, the shrimp shells so tender that even for the fastidious, peeling was unnecessary, the sweetness of their flesh a nice backdrop to the heat. We were glad to see lamb on the menu, too, two choices, cumin and country style. We chose the latter and still are not sure if we were given the other by mistake. The thinly sliced lamb was tender and vigorously seasoned with cumin and some of the hot chili oil. It would have been a fine dish had it not been extremely salty, something we didn't encounter in any of the other dishes we tried.

Not seen on any of the menus is the hot pot, though we saw several bubbling away on tabletops. Interestingly, the pan is divided into two sections; we're told one is spicy, the other not. That's what we'll try on our next visit, when we introduce our pal the Old China Hand to the pleasures of this cuisine, and, happily, the marvelous Mrs. Hand can have food that won't cause her to combust.

Mostly good service, although when things are really rocking, one occasionally must be a little aggressive to get attention.

 

Joy Luck

8030 Manchester Rd., Brentwood

314-645-9982

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Entrees: $6-$11

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

The frequent lighting of cigarettes and the billows of tobacco smoke that provide an almost-constant presence are tempting to the retired smoker, but watching the degeneration of French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg is sufficient to remain resistant to the habit, prominent though it is in "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life," which opens a five-day run tonight as part of the Webster University Film Series.

Joann Sfar, a highly regarded artist and designer, makes his feature film debut as writer-director with an excellent look at Gainsbourg, showing skill and imagination in both areas. The talented Gainsbourg, born Lucien Ginsburg, lived hard, smoked constantly, carried on torrid affairs with a series of attractive women like Brigitte Bardot, Juliette Greco and Jane Birkin, just to name a few who happily give themselves to the homely, often thoughtless and cruel singer and lover. Birkin is the mother of talented actress Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Eric Elmosnino is outstanding in the title role, and the actresses above are excellent lookalikes, with Laetitia Casta as Bardot, Anna Mouglalis as Greco and Lucy Gordon as Birkin. Razvan Vasilescu and Dinara Droukarura are his parents, and Vasilescu is a sheer delight when he giggles with the joy and pride of the realization that his eldest son -- his pride and joy -- is in the bedroom with Bardot.  

Kacey Muttet-Klein plays the young Lucien with real skill and a rich display of chutzpah when he gets up early one morning and walks proudly into the German police station, so that he can be the first to wear the yellow star that the Germans forced Jews to affix to their clothing. Failing to show the talent at the piano that his father demanded, Lucien became an art student; he was maybe 10 or 11, so young that the teacher makes him turn his head away while the rest of the class studies and paints a highly nubile nude model. Lucien, peeking all the while, then convinces her to take her clothes off in a private session for the same purposes, then takes her out for ice cream. It's a delightful moment.

Gainsbourg probably was the most popular song writer in Europe through the '50s and '60s, scoring hit after hit for himself and for a variety of singers. He was in his late 30s when he won an all-Europe song contest with a piece sung by for the teen-aged France Gall, born Isabelle Genevieve Marie Anne (Sara Forestier). In 1965, he wrote, "Les Sucettes," ("the lollipops"), whose robust double-entendres caused him great difficulties when someone complained and the 18-year-old Gall claimed she did not know about the sexual connotations. She did, however, continue to sing and record his songs.

Among Sfar's directorial steps, he introduces a lifesize puppet with an exaggerated nose (think toucan at the zoo) and ears. He's Gainsbourg's conscience, or his alter ego, or his evil twin, but he adds considerable balance and interest along the way. A very fine tribute to a man of great talent.

            Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life opens today at 7:30 p.m., and plays nightly through Thursday at the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus

--Joe

Passione

Like New Orleans, Naples is a city famous for its music. And also like New Orleans, it's famous as a seaport, and as a city where passions run high. "Passione," which opens here today, is a rich and fascinating documentary film of Naples, its people and its music, directed by John Turturro, who also acts as an occasional narrator.

 

And it's a very small-d democratic view, though it shorts grand opera and religious music in favor of flamenco, blues, jazz, Euro-beat, even modern hip-hop rhythms. Mostly, of course, it's songs of love, primarily tragic love, sometimes commercial love. There are three versions of "O Sole Mio," the most moving a rendition by M'Barkea Ben Taleb, a Tunisian who sings in Arabic. Fausto Cigliani offers a brilliant, tense, guitar solo, and James Senese, who never knew his American father, a black soldier from North Carolina, shows great talent on the saxophone and talks about his childhood difficulties stemming from being of mixed race, mixed nationality and illegitimate.

 

Three elderly Neapolitans argue the superiority of Enrico Caruso and Fernando de Lucia, an early 20th-century opera star on a similar level, but they do agree that no one in the discussion has heard De Lucia at his best because of the difference in recording ability.

 

The most startling music is a World War II-era novelty, "Pistol-Packin' Mama," sung in both English and Italian by a highly theatrical trio including Ben Taleb, Max Casella and Peppe Barra while silent military and newsreel footage shows Naples during wartime and after it was freed from the Germans, including de-lousing treatment for children.

 

It's a fascinating film, showing Turturro's love for Italy (his mother was Sicilian, his father from Bari), even in a difficult time with immigration problems, poverty and high unemployment (sound familiar?). Neapolitan laundry lines and back yards offer an interesting backdrop for singers in front of fountains, statues, churches and slum apartment buildings. The cinematography, often magical, is by Marco Pontecorvo, son of the great Italian director, Gillo Pontecorvo, whose "The Battle of Algiers" is a landmark film.

 

Passione opens today at the Tivoli

 

--Joe

Christmas With the Rat Pack

Dean Martin was there, and so was Sammy Davis, Jr. But who was the third person supposedly on stage at the Fox Theatre last night for "Christmas With the Rat Pack?" Perry Como? Bobby Darin? Bing Crosby? It sure as heck wasn't Frank Sinatra, nor even a good imitation.

Mark Adams gave an outstanding performance as Martin, and Giles Terera was a first-rate Davis. But Alex Banks, listed in the program as an alternate to Stephen Triffitt, was out of place in every facet of his performance, from a bad-looking hairpiece to a voice that was as close to Mike Shannon's as to Sinatra's. A Fox staffer reported that Banks had done the role on Tuesday, but there was no indication of whether he was in the slot for a couple of days, or for the entire run, which lasts until Dec. 18.

The show itself is satisfactory entertainment, with a lot of good and familiar songs, backed up by a band of 16 musicians, by my count, led by Matthew Freeman from the piano. They were terrific, and a most welcome sound to someone who was around for many of the Big Band years. The drummer worked with Davis as a duet on a splendid medley of Christmas songs, and they were charming together.

Adams had the Martin moves, the delivery, the entire attitude. For example, after telling a pretty awful joke, and receiving an appropriate -- minimal -- amount of applause, he looked up at the audience and said, "Look, I didn't invite you here. You came of your own free will."

He did nicely on trademarks like "Volare," and "Mambo Italiano," and was startlingly effective on "King of the Road."

Terera and the drummer covered nearly a dozen carols in delightful style, and he also was especially strong on "Mr. Bojangles." He and Adams teamed very nicely on "Sam's Song," and the three performers scored on the Frank Loesser classic, "Standing on the Corner (Watching All the Girls Go By)."

They had some help in harmony, dance, costumes and comeliness from the Burelli Sisters, patterned after the Boswell sisters all the way to having the same first names, Connee (Grace Holdstock), Martha (Frankie Jenna) and Helvetia, or Vet (Soophia Foroughi).

Christmas With the Rat Pack opened Tuesday (Dec. 6) at the Fox Theatre and will run through Dec. 18.

-- Joe

Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas

It's difficult to be a curmudgeon this time of the year. Christmas sweetness is everywhere, but there are times when gum drops and candy canes are delicious. So it is with Christmas theatricals. Most of them have enjoyable scenes, if nothing else, and nice singing and dancing. Besides, I encourage all parents out there to take children to see and enjoy live theater. When those kids grow up, they'll be eternally grateful to you, their parents.

First in line for our seasonal sugar is "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas," which opens tonight at the Peabody Opera House (I saw it last night at a preview). The title is not quite accurate, but accuracy would create a title far more unwieldy than the one the show already bears.

The bright, mostly-tuneful production also will give a lot of people their first opportunity to see the remodeled, totally charming Peabody Opera House, and that's almost worth the trip by itself. The building looks good, and feels good, with a note to modern times offered by the presence of cup-holders on orchestra seats. Orchestra sight-lines were good, everything was neat and clean, and I was as impressed as I was on my first visit, in the fall of 1947, when Vladimir Golschmann conducted the St. Louis Symphony, and Jascha Heifetz was the violin soloist.

To return to the business at hand: "Grinch" is fun; it runs about 75 minutes without an intermission, and Stefan Karl is strong as the Grinch, all decked out in green. He mugs delightfully, bellows at the audience at proper intervals, sings satisfactorily, acts well and clowns in a most enjoyable manner. He's fun to watch, and he will not frighten the smaller children, the way that clowns sometimes do. Besides, his charming interaction with Cindy Lou Who, the youngest of the Who family, will demonstrate that love can often conquer all in her relationship with the Grinch. Clara Young and Bailey Ryon alternate as Cindy. I saw Clara and she's a winner.

Seth Bazacas was excellent Young Max, the dog who is the Grinch's forced assistant, and Bob Lauder was fine as Old Max, who narrates and sings a couple of songs.

The simple choreography, by John DeLuca, is enjoyable, as are the costumes by Robert Morgan and the set by John Lee Beatty. Timothy Mason wrote the book and the lyrics, adapted from the Dr. Seuss story, and Mel Marvin composed the score. Two songs come from Seuss' own words, with music by Albert Hague. Speaking of songs, it appears that the composers and lyricists got bored about two-thirds of the way through the action. The last seven songs, or more than a third of the music, is reprises of earlier songs.

Still, it's a good entertainment for the young ones, and it hasn't played here enough times to wear out its welcome with the older generation.

Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas opens tonight at the Peabody Opera House and will run through Dec. 18

-- Joe

Brunch: Dressel's

We've been enjoying watching and tasting the evolution at Dressel's as Ben, son of founder and long-time owner, Jon, has taken the helm, expanding both the premises and the menu. Now the Welsh- and classical music-themed Central West End veteran has begun serving Sunday brunch. And it's definitely brunch and definitely delicious; the regular menu doesn't kick in until 3 p.m., so don't think you can get eggs over easy atop your outstanding chips. However, a hamburger is available. Incidentally, this now makes five brunch spots within a half-block of the Euclid-McPherson intersection.

Even with its relatively small menu, there are different and imaginative selections. Dressel's is making its own sausage, for instance, and is using a lot of local suppliers, like ham from Reckamp Farm near Wright City.

Plenty of Bloody Marys on tables as we walked through the bar, but we tried a strawberry Bellini. Made with pureed strawberries and sparkling wine (traditionally the Italian prosecco), it was just right, almost no sweetness at all, a little spritz to the wine. And the coffee was better than we usually get in a bar, proof, perhaps, that Dressel's is turning into something much more than just another watering hole, utilizing also the talents of chef Michael Miller

Corned beef hash utilized sweet potatoes as well as the expected white ones, plus tasty onions. It was served over a slice of rye toast, topped with a fried egg, and then sauced with a tomato Hollandaise, known in French as sauce Choron, and appearing in any color from pale pink to the vivid orange seen here. It's a first-rate sauce, and we hope it sticks around for a long time. The sweet potato-corned beef combination worked well, that salty-sweet combo a natural.

Ricotta pancakes with pumpkin butter or brioche French toast? Decisions, decisions...but we went with the French toast. As an aside, we'd point out that this is a fine place for brioche—not as a hamburger bun, where it's far too sweet and almost certainly too fragile. Real maple syrup came alongside, and it was topped with a dusting of powdered sugar, and a few blueberries and strawberries. The dish is served with some of that housemade sausage and breakfast potatoes. The potatoes are irregularly shaped deep-fried chunks, a little greasy but mostly unremarkable. The link sausages, though, are anything but. About the size of a woman's finger, they're juicy and very well seasoned, with an earthy spiciness that impresses.

This is not a restaurant where we can go incognito; Jon is a member of a lunch group with Joe, and the gang occasionally partakes at Dressel's. But any establishment that not only celebrates Beethoven's birthday (coming up! December 16!) but also makes its own tasty sausage is okay in our book.

 

Dressel's

419 N. Euclid Ave.,

314-361-1060

www.dresselspublichouse.com

Brunch Sun. 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Dining room door

Smoking: No

Brunch entrees: $6 - $12

My Three Angels

My Goodness!! An old-fashioned comedy. You remember -- funny lines, many laughs, real wit, good timing, no stupidity, no four-letter words, no violence, two intermissions.

That's "My Three Angels," a 1953 Broadway success and a 1955 movie (re-titled "We're No Angels") that has been frequently revived ever since. It opened over the weekend as a St. Louis Actors Studio production at the Gaslight Theater, to run through Dec. 18. Originally a French farce, "Les Cuisines des Anges," by Albert Husson, "My Three Angels," was written for Broadway by the husband-wife team of Samuel and Bella Spewack. The movie version credited Husson as the author, with a screenplay by Ranald MacDougall.

It's a simple little story. Three convicts in a French prison colony in Central America have been hired out to repair a roof. Under the roof lives a family that runs a shop on the ground floor. Felix (Larry Dell) is a poor businessman, his wife Emilie (Penney Kols) worries a lot and their daughter, Marie Louise (Emily Baker) is busy mooning over a young Frenchman (Casey Boland) whose Paris-based uncle really owns the shop and who is a capitalist who precedes the InBev management style.

The convicts, Joseph (the matchless, wide-eyed Whit Reichert), Jules (the hulking, delightful Garrett Bergfeld) and Alfred (the young, quick-to-kill Dan Mueller) hear a lot of talk from their perch on the roof, and since they're all kind, generous, lovely gentlemen despite their murderous tendencies, they decide to help the family, no matter what it takes. And it takes a lot, all carried off with style and grace under the nicely paced direction of Elizabeth Helman. Before it's over, Marie Louise finds a new love, Felix becomes wealthy and worry-free and Emilie can spend the rest of her life happily thinking about something that might have been.

The performances are solid. Reichert is a comedian blessed with perfect timing, and he's strong enough to pass some good laughs to his compatriots. Both Bergfeld and Mueller bring excellent support. Dell frets properly, Kols awakens nicely, Marie Louise pouts prettily. Richard Lewis adds spark as the miserable businessman, Teresa Doggett joins the action a couple of times as a customer who doesn't like to pay her bills but does like to buy things, usually with a flounce here and there, and Casey Boland handles two minor roles in proper style, though he was simply too muddle-headed to be believed even a little bit as a frightened nephew. And some believability is vital to successful comedy.

Helman's direction works well on the minuscule Gaslight stage, and the the tech work, including Doggett's costumes, Christie Johnston's set and Steve Miller's lights, is fine.

The lines crackle with a style that was made famous on stages by such as George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, Noel Coward, George Bernard Shaw and dozens of others in the days between the World Wars, when literacy and wit were important. It's nice to be reminded of those days.

My Three Angels, a St. Louis Actors Studio production, opened Dec. 2 at the Gaslight Theater, and will run through Dec. 18

-- Joe

The Santaland Diaries

Let's look at the other side of the Christmas coin, or the Hannukah gelt, and get a view of those who think differently, like David Sedaris, for example. In search of work one year, he signed on as an elf -- named Crumpet, no less -- working in the winter wonderland at Macy's in New York. He kept a diary during a one-season career in retail, and it grew into "The Santaland Diaries," first broached during a standup in a Chicago night club. It opened a St. Louis run during the weekend as a Stray Dog Theatre production at Tower Grove Abbey.

Radio host Ira Glass interviewed Sedaris, put his sketches on the air. Actor-director Joe Mantello helped work them into a stage production, and it's become part of the Christmas routine in many theaters, sort of an anti-"A Christmas Carol," filled wth rude children, nasty grown-ups and an aura of commercialism covering it all like dust.

St. Louis actor Ben Watts does excellent work in the one-man show, directed by Gary F. Bell is well-focused style. Watts has Sedaris down pat, and his sometimes-nasty, sometimes-sweet reaction to his clients, or customers, is right-on. He also does excellent voice treatment of some of the Santas with whom he works, the parents, his associates and his bosses.

He points out that Satan is an anagram of Santa, and he actually has some sympathy for some of the children, but the parents and the commercialism of the store draw his ire, and some lovely sarcastic commentary.

His elf costume, designed by Nicole L. Willing, is a delight, and the 90-minute show breezes on Jay. V. Hall's nicely designed set, with candy on the backdrop, and a large, throne-style chair dominating the stage and reminding one of a similar chair at O'Connell's. The constant irony wears a little here and there, but it's good entertainment for the season as Sedaris reminds us about the creep of crass.

The Santaland Diaries, a production of Stray Dog Theatre, opened on Dec. 2 and will be on stage at Tower Grove Abbey through Dec. 17

-- Joe

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The story is part of everyone's heritage, its literary turns as familiar as the curves on U. S. 61 between here and Hannibal, its characters as well-known to us as our own relatives. And when the famous fence is the first thing we see as we enter the Rep, we settle in for an anticipated -- and neatly provided -- evening of pleasure.

Of course there are dark moments in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which opened last night, but we need them so that we can not only be as brave as Tom, but also so we may receive extra pleasure from the bright ones. Laura Eason's new adaptation, on a tour with New York two stops away, is breezy and comfortable, and the staging, especially the work of director Jeremy B. Cohen and lighting designer Robert M. Wierzel, is glorious.

Wierzel's touch is never better than during the fence-whitewashing, when the fence turns white, board by board by board, as a variety of actors wield a brush that never saw real whitewash. It's a little thing, but the sort of thing that brings the magic to live theater. Several shadow scenes, with the actors in silhouette against the backdrop, are almost as impressive.

Only Tom (red-haired Tim McKiernan) and Becky (cute, round-faced Hayley Treider) play one person. The other six cast members, making their Rep debuts (as are McKiernan and Treider) play one or two characters and also are part of the ensemble, townspeople of St. Petersburg, Mo. (Mark Twain's name for Hannibal), church members, pupils and the like. Church attendance is bolstered by a half-dozen, half-complete mannequins who fill the pews, bobbing their heads in time to the sermon by Michael D. Nichols, an excellent preacher. Nichols also portrays Injun Joe and is properly fear-inducing.

Young McKiernan, an Arizonan whose first professional acting job was to originate the role of Tom in the play's premiere in Hartford, Conn., in the spring of 2010, has the proper attitude, and a lovely, totally false bravado most of the time. He dropped out of the cast for a while, then returned for a stop in Louisville before coming here. Kansas City is the next stop.

Treider is a proper 19th-century schoolgirl, but with several of the attributes shown by her 21st-century descendants. Nance Williamson charms as the older women, Aunt Polly and the Widder Douglass, and other hard-working cast members included Robbie Tann as Huckleberry Finn, Justin Fuller as Joe Harper, Joseph Adams as Muff Potter and Nate Trinrud as Sid, a half- brother to Tom and a complete prig to the world. Huck has a bright moment when he appears after a makeover by the Widder. Words are unnecessary for the effect.

Daniel Ostling's set uses chairs and window frames that drop from the ceiling, ladders as cave entrances and considerable movement of the scenery to keep up with the action. Lorraine Venburg designed the period clothing and Tommy Rapley was the fight and movement director.

The play flattens a little here and there, especially in the first act when Tom, Huck and Joe Harper have run away from home to an island in the Mississippi and suddenly get very bored. It also ends rather abruptly, but we're in Tom's dream, and there are other adventures down the road, just no more for tonight.

It's a good piece of theater for the holiday season. The younger segment of the audience will be thrilled to learn that the books they're reading in school can have other lives.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer opened at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis on Dec. 2 and will run through Dec. 23

-- Joe

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

"It isn't easy being green," is one of Kermit T. (for the) Frog's most famous lines, and a more recent Muppet, Elmo, could echo it with a different color, which we learn in "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey," which opens here today.

The documentary, directed by Constance Marks and narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, follows Elmo's pal, Kevin Clash, who operates and speaks for the puppet. It wasn't always that way. The puppet was designed by Richard Hunt, a veteran of the Muppet crew, who one day tossed it to Clash, a relative rookie, and suggested that maybe Clash could find a voice and a personality for the little red guy -- or gal.

Marks' interesting documentary, written by Philip Shane and Justin Weinstein, follows Clash, now 51, who was fascinated by puppets as a small boy. As a pre-teenager, he watched them, built them, created lives for them, did shows in the backyard, in schools and any place he could find an audience. His dream, of course, was to score with the Muppets. He did some TV in his home town of Baltimore, then got a chance to work with Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan) as a puppeteer. Kermit Love, one of Jim Henson's long-time colleagues, was a mentor as Clash waited and finally became a Muppet puppeteer in 1984.

Many people talk about Clash's skill; he has performed as many different Muppets, created a couple and now is an executive with the Muppet organization. Marks' film is excellent in discussing Clash's work, and the Muppet operation, but it's light on personal details.

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey opens today at the Plaza Frontenac

--Joe

The Last Night of Ballyhoo

Like many playwrights, Alfred Uhry makes fun of the people he loves and loves the people he makes fun of. He showed this in "Driving Miss Daisy," his most honored play, and he does it again in "The Last Night of Ballyhoo," which opened last night at the New Jewish Theatre, to run through Dec. 18 a the NJT's home in the Jewish Community Center.

"Ballyhoo," commissioned for the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, ran at the Rep in 1999; the NJT production, directed by Gary Wayne Barker, is smooth and mostly funny, but it deals with serious matters in terms of Southern American Jews, very different from those in the North. These second- and third-generation Jews are wealthier, descended from German immigrant stock and not at all receptive to more recent Jews arriving from Eastern Europe.

The "Ballyhoo" Jews of 1939 consider themselves only a step or two behind those original WASPs, the Episcopalians. They may not be welcome in the Episcopalian clubs, but the Russian and Polish Jews are not welcome in theirs. The biggest news in Atlanta that year was the premiere of the movie, "Gone With the Wind," and the biggest social event is Ballyhoo, a dance for the most elite of the young Jews -- think something comparable to the Veiled Prophet Ball in the same year, if Jews were allowed.

Adolph Freitag (the excellent Greg Johnston) is a lifelong bachelor whose widowed siste and sister-in-law, and a daughter of each, live with him in a neighborhood much like then one where Daisy Wortham lived. Boo (fine work by the calm, mature Peggy Billo) resents that she never had a chance to run the family bedding company. Reba (a grand performance with sparkling comic timing by Laurie McConnell) is prone to malapropisms and responses that don't quite fit their questions. She's happy to shop, cook and serve in her wifely role.

Lala (Uhry's characters' names force their so-called humor and cheapen them), Boo's daughter, lasted six weeks at the University of Michigan, and seems committed to seeking a rich husband, though her more immediate goal is a date for Ballyhoo, and Rachel Fenton is properly flighty and air-headed in the role. Sunny, Reba's daughter, is a good student at Wellesley College, seemingly interested in things slightly more solid than her cousin. She wants more than a husband from her life, and she's obviously her uncle Adolph's favorite. Alexandra Woodruff says she reads the works of Upton Sinclair, but her performance still leaves her slightly vacuous and not totally invested in Sunny.

The two men, Joe Farkas (Adam Moskal) and Peachy Weil (Dylan Duke) are not nearly as well drawn, both tending more to caricature than to character, and they are not written as well as their female counterparts. Peachy is missing only a letter sweater to become totally trite, and Joe, a recent hire by Adolph, is in over his head trying to explain the entire history and structure of Judaism in a couple of scenes. Barker's direction works well, and Justin Barisonek's set is good, though a little modest for the family's economic stature. Michele Friedman Siler designed costumes that fit the period. On the debit side, however, is the fact that at least two songs, including "White Christmas," were not written until several years after the play's date of 1939.

It's a mostly entertaining play, but Uhry never seems sure whether he wants his Jews to be more Jewish (or more religious), and if he does, how they should have gone about it in Atlanta in 1939.

The Last Night of Ballyhoo opened Thursday, Dec. 1 as a New Jewish Theatre production at the Jewish Community Center, to run through Dec. 18

-- Joe

Tony's

The St. Louis dining institution that is Tony's may or may not still be at home at Broadway and Market in another few years. Plenty of speculation on that, but no firm answers. But what about this restaurant that's become the subject of so much chatter recently? What's going on there?

Tony's key word must be Elegance "Welcome to Tony's," say the parking valets. "Welcome to Tony's," say the men who open the doors. The walk down the carpeted, wood-paneled hall to the maitre d's stand creates a sense of anticipation, and the understated décor reinforces the thought that food and service are the focus of the evening.

There must be folks for whom dining here is a routine event, but for most of us, it's definitely a special occasion, or for a special occasion. For the enthusiastic eater, this means time poring over the menu, more time discussing and considering the specials, described by the captains down to the last grind of the pepper mill. First courses create particularly difficult decisions for us. The soups are always fabulous, Joe's in love with the roasted peppers and anchovies. Then there are the pastas, served as first courses, in the Italian style. However, this being Tony's, a request to have one as a main course will be granted in the blink of an eye. The seared sea scallops with black truffles are a classic, the order bringing forth three immense ones, perfectly seared and carefully positioned on the plate before the dinner. Then, kept hot over a burner on the guerdon, or serving cart, a sauce, creamy, rich and flecked with bits of the black truffle that adds its wondrous, woodsy, delicate flavor, is poured over and around the scallops. It's difficult to keep from licking the dish.

Now that “Mad Men” has brought the mid-20th century back in fashion, we expect more folks are going for beef tartare. A half-century ago, in the '50s, this was considered a manly dish because the beef is raw. Were begirdled women too refined for such a rowdy dish? The hand-chopped tenderloin is tossed at the table with minced onion, capers and anchovies, and presented with slices of housemade melba toast. (Oh, there's another Fifties food!) The toast is a more elegant way of eating it, but we're such carnivores, we use our forks to dig into the juicy meat with the crunch of onion, the tartness of the capers and the salt of the anchovy bits all singing in fine four-part harmony.

Vince Bommarito tells us that 41% of the main courses are seafood these days. That says a lot about St. Louis dining habits, which echo those of most of the nation. And we're sure it's not just because lobster Albanello is probably the house's signature entree and its most popular. Large chunks of lobster are sauced with a reduction of white wine (“About a thousand bottles,” laughs Vince, Jr., the chef and a CIA graduate), butter and shallots, and plenty of mushrooms. The Bommaritos padre and figlio both encourage diners to have a little pasta with it, the better to mop up every drop of the sauce, and it's a good idea. Carb-counters can ask for a sauce spoon, an interesting utensil that allows for politely getting almost the last molecule of yum.

On a recent visit, a nightly special was a fish stew that included with half a lobster, swordfish, another huge scallop and an equally gargantuan shrimp. The broth seemed located on the Italian-French border right where it meets the Mediterranean, since it was full not only of fish stock but notes of fennel, garlic, saffron and maybe just a little hit of orange peel. Definitely a big-flavor dish, the seafood in the stew was perfectly cooked, the lobster generously sized, and alongside, quite properly, were two slices of toasted bread slathered with rouille, the spicy mayonnaise that's traditionally served with such a dish.

Helen Fletcher, one of our town's pastry masters, has closed Truffes, her baking and catering business, and is doing exciting desserts for Tony's. Her splendid chocolate cake is still there, of course, but now there are new goodies like an almond tart with salted caramel ice cream, a dark chocolate and coconut tart with toasted coconut ice cream, absolutely irresistible, and a pumpkin mousse set over a brown sugar-laced graham cracker base, the two separated by a thin layer of cheesecake. The mousse, seen on a number of tables around us, kept drawing us back for just one more bite.

Not surprisingly, the noise levels here are nearly always quiet-to-pleasantly-medium. The staff seem less reserved than they did a decade or two ago, a sign of modernization; the only slip we experienced was not being offered the restaurant's wide-ranging, deep and expensive wine list.

 

Tony's

410 Market St.

314-241-7007

www.tonysstlouis.com

Dinner Mon.-Sat

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair (use Broadway lobby)

Smoking: No

Entrees: $21-$43

Black Nativity

There's enough Christmas music to last from now to Valentine's Day, all in a single performance of "Black Nativity," the flashy, tuneful, sparkling St. Louis Black Repertory Company musical revue that opened last night at the Grandel Theatre and will run through Dec. 18.

Conceived and directed by Ron Himes, and first presented a couple of years ago, it's a tuneful blend of the sacred and the profane, the old and the new, the classic and the contemporary with a cast of 22 bright, perky, talented singers and dancers, clad in some spectacular costumes coordinated by Jennifer (J.C.) Krajicek and Robert Van Dillen, and with Kyle Kelley as musical director.

Three talented high schoolers, Dominique Milam and the White sisters, Alexis and Tyler, are the keynote trio, all returning from the earlier production of "Black Nativity," and they're delightful. They sing and dance well, and Tyler, a sophomore, is a gem. All arms and legs, like many 15-year-olds, she often seems to appears awkward or gawky, but she's in complete control, and there's a sly, one-off comic touch to much of her work. The three girls lead the way into many numbers, though they often then stand aside to let others blend into, or finish, a number, but they add a natural feel to the production.

Women dominate the cast, but the men -- Mathew C. Galbreath, Germaine Depry Gbaho, Herman Gordon, Daniel Hodges, Curtis Jefferson and Leslie Johnson-- work and sing as if they were a dozen, offering every possible musical style. Gordon's "What Will You Bring the King?" a Diane White-Clayton composition sung in a manger setting, is rich, and Johnson's duet with Raphaelle P. Darden on "Baby, It's Cold Outside," was delightful.

The show, first produced a few years ago, opens with classic European and African hymns and folk tunes, dealing with the birth of Jesus and the visiting wise men, carrying the traditional frankincense and myrrh, but it does not lack for humor as some wonderful shepherds played by Matthew C. Galbreath and Curtis Jefferson, deal with a flock of funny, charming, noisy "sheep" that includes Kristian Greer, Kenyada Harris, Hodges, Milam and the White sisters.

Evann Jones scores with the Eartha Kitt classic, "Santa Baby," and now that Michael Buble has recorded "Santa Buddy," with the same music, it's probably time for Barbra Streisand or another Yiddish-speaking singer to come up with "Santa Bubbie." Jones also dances up a storm and is a delightful presence.

Himes' direction is focused and economical, with a great deal of song and dance in a show that runs a little more than two hours, and Alicia Gbaho's choreography is athletic and enjoyable. The bare stage is brightened by reflective bits in front of the upstage curtain that add random light notes here and there, and Nathan Schuer's lighting scheme works well. Kelley's quintet, which he leads from the piano, includes drummer Keith Fowler, percussionist James Belk, bassist Jeff Anderson and guitarist Craig Florez, and shows it can easily handle anything from Handel to hip-hop. A fine evening of musical theater.

Black Nativity, produced by the St. Louis Black Rep, will be at the Grandel Theatre through Dec. 18

-- Joe

My Week With Marilyn

Michelle Williams doesn't look like Marilyn Monroe, in my opinion. But she has the walk, the poses, the attitude, the voice, the hair and other things just like her. And, in "My Week With Marilyn," which opens here today, she offers a perfect re-creation in a charming, funny movie, based on a couple of Colin Clark books, themselves based on a summer job with the 1957 movie, "The Prince and the Showgirl."

Clark (the excellent Eddie Redmayne), who was 23 and had just finished college, got the job because his father, a museum director and leading member of the English intellectual community, was a friend of Sir Laurence Olivier, who was directing the movie. Clark had the title of third assistant director, which meant he was a go-fer, driver and errand boy, getting coffee for people and generally keeping out of the way. He has been a successful writer, movie and television producer and writer of "The Prince, the Showgirl and Me," and more recently, "My Week With Marilyn," adapted for the screen by Adrian Hodges, and directed by Simon Curtis.

The original movie was a mess, and a lot of its messiness shows up in the movie from the book about the making of the movie. Olivier, after directing three Shakespeare adaptations, was making his debut as a director of a comic fantasy, with a screenplay by Terence Rattigan. He also was the star, of course. Monroe took advantage of the trip to England to extend her honeymoon with Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott). She was into the Method, and even had Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker) as her acting coach. Olivier scorned Method actors, and did not hide his feelings.

An aside: Olivier and Dustin Hoffman co-starred in "Marathon Man." One morning, in preparation for a scene, Hoffman was running up and down stairs, punishing himself to near-exhaustion. Olivier was seated, calmly reading a newspaper. Hoffman, panting and sweating, stopped near Olivier, asked him just how he prepared for what would be an arduous scene.

"Nothing, dear boy," said Olivier. "When they tell you, you go up and do it. It's called acting."

Monroe was notoriously undisciplined on the set, careless, usually late, thoughtless about the effect this was having on other actors. It infuriated Olivier, and the more it infuriated Olivier, the less discipline Monroe showed. Although Monroe had a hulking bodyguard (nicely played by Philip Jackson, Clark seemed to understand her, and she liked him, seeing how love-stricken he was, and how young and cute. Williams is perfect as she plays the young man like a saxophone, or like a hungry trout.

Kenneth Branagh is glorious and dead-on as Olivier, though they do not bear much resemblance to one another. Still, he's witty and wonderful. Julia Ormond plays Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh, who's not at all confident when Monroe is around. But Ormond wears the role like someone donning a coat and unable to find the armhole for the second sleeve, lurching around offering nothing. However, there's splendid work, as always, from Judi Dench, the only cast member to be at all pleasant to Monroe. Dench is portraying the great Dame Sybil Thorndike, who was the dowager queen in the 1957 film.

And another member of the I-Hate-Marilyn club is Emma Watson, who is in the wardrobe department of the movie and Clark's girl friend, perhaps on the rebound from Harry Potter. She resents the time Clark is spending with the American actress.

As usual in English movies, lots of fine actors show up in parts that are little more than walk-on. The English seem to love acting, and if proof is necessary, watch the great Derek Jacobi as the Windsor Court librarian. It's a minuscule part, but Jacobi does it with beautiful style. Michael Kitchen, Simon Russell Beale and Toby Jones are other first-rate actors whose presence gives the film grace and solidity.

It's an enjoyable romp, not to be taken seriously, and Clark, always the proper English gentleman, draws a veil over what might have happened -- or did happen -- during that magical week.

My Week With Marilyn opens today at numerous theaters

-- Joe