Popster Picks for Saturday, Sept. 24

Popster Picks for Saturday, Sept. 24

By Lynn Venhaus
What’s Poppin’ this Saturday? Here are our Popster Picks for the Bi-State Area (and beyond):

Live Theater: “Winds of Change” in Bevo Mill, presented by St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. Free. LAST NIGHT.

One of my favorite things to do every September, Shake in the Streets this year is in my old stomping grounds. This year’s show is a delightful mix of music and comedy, performed with humor and heart.
It starts at 8 p.m. and will end about 9:20 p.m., without an intermission. There is local food and drink around the area, and it’s recommended that you come early. This is the last night, for it was performed Sept. 22 and 23 too.
The play, written by Deanna Jent, uses The Bard’s “The Comedy of Errors” as a foundation for a story on Bosnian immigrants’ contributions to St. Louis, is part of the “Shakespeare in the Streets” annual program. Come to the intersection of Gravois and Morganford, bring a lawn chair, and enjoy the spirited neighbors who love the transformed south city enclave. Lots of laughs and whoops from appreciative crowd (300 on opening night Thursday!)
Directed by Adam Flores, it features Ashwini Arora, Milly Burris, Hannah Geisz, Noah Later, Hady Matta, Youssef Matta, Colin McLaughlin, Brenda Morrison, Christina Rios, Rosario Rios-Kelley, Carly Uding and local denizens Father Mitch (Doyen, pastor of St. John the Baptist and Mark and Joani Akers of Oasis International. Edo Maajka plays the accordion and Nadja Kapetanovich performs a lullaby, “Nini Sine, Spavaj Sine.”
KTK Productions humorously explains the history of the Bevo Mill — Bill Bush, Aileen Kidwell, Chris Kidwell, Matthew Lewis, Jake Singer and Mike Singer III.
It took an army of folks to make the outdoor presentation happen. Kudos to producing artistic director Tom Ridgely, music direction and composition by Colin McLaughlin, music composition by Noah Laster, stage manager Kathryn Ballard, KTK Productions chair Joe McKenna, assistant director Miranda Jagels Felix, producer Colin O’Brien, set designer Dunsi Dai, costume designer Michele Friedman Siler, and lighting designer M. Bryant Powell.

Natalie Wood and James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause”

TV: “Rebel Without a Cause” on PBS Ch. 9, 9 p.m.
James Dean, Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood gained stature for their roles as conflicted suburban middle-class teenagers in this 1955 American coming-of-age drama directed by Nicholas Ray, shot in the recently introduced CinemaScope format. It opened on Oct. 27, almost a month after top-billed Dean’s tragic death in a car accident on Sept. 30. It’s his most celebrated role, and followed his Oscar nominated performance in “East of Eden.”

Offering social commentary, it was considered groundbreaking for depiction of moral decay, delinquents, parenting and generational gaps. After all, it was adapted from Robert M. Lindner’s 1944 book, “Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath.”

Mineo, Wood and Ray all received Oscar nominations. In 1998, it was ranked #59 on AFI’s Hundred Years…Hundred Movies.

Fun Fact: The most famous line: “You’re tearing me apart” was lifted by writer-director-actor Tommy Wiseau for his 2003 cult film “The Room” (the worst movie I have ever seen, and also one of the most unintentionally funny movies).

Movie: “Sidney” streaming on Apple TV Plus.
The 2022 documentary “Sidney” on the great Sidney Poitier, directed by East St. Louis native Reginald Hudlin and produced by Oprah Winfrey. You’ll hear from Sidney, his family, friends, filmmakers and fans for an indelible portrait of the artist — as a movie star, mentor and activist.
I reviewed the film on KTRS (“Mueller Furniture Presents Lynn Venhaus Goes to the Movies”) Thursday with St. Louis In the Know host Ray Hartmann. Here’s the audio: https://soundcloud.com/550ktrs/itk-lynn-venhaus-gttm-9-22-22?in=550ktrs/sets/rayhartmann

Stay tuned for an interview with Reginald Hudlin, coming soon in Belleville News-Democrat. I talked to the filmmaker Friday via Zoom.

Fun Fact: “In the Heat of the Night” was partially filmed in Sparta, Ill., which subbed for Sparta, Miss., and both Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger stayed in Belleville during the film of the 1967 film, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture (and Best Actor Steiger) in 1968.

Happening: Taste of St. Louis, Sept. 23-25, Ballpark Village, Free and open to the public.
Want to try Boardwalk Ice Cream and Waffles, Chicken Out, Hi-Pointe Drive-In, Kimchi Guys, Mission Taco Joint, Salt + Smoke, Steve’s Hot Dogs and Under the Sun SnoCones? Locally based brick and mortar food establishments can participate in Sauce Magazine’s Restaurant Row. There’s live music and other vendors that are part of the festivities. More info: https://tastestl.com

Fun Fact: On this day in 1952, Kentucky Fried Chicken opened its first franchise in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Machine, El Hombre, Uncle Albert.

ICYMI Cardinals Nation: No. 5

Can’t get enough of Albert Pujols‘ magical night Sept. 23? Check out coverage on the St. Louis Cardinals MLB site: https://www.mlb.com/cardinals (and a wrap-up article on this website).

Fun Fact: On this day in 1922, St Louis Cardinals future Baseball Hall of Fame infielder Rogers Hornsby set the National League Home Run mark at 42. That season, he also had 52 RBI’s, a .401 average and 450 total bases.

Millie Bobby Brown

Latest Trailer to Watch: “Enola Holmes 2”
Millie Bobby Brown is back in another adventure as Sherlock Holmes’ teenager sister in the sequel dropping on Netflix Nov. 4. Enola takes on her first case as a detective, but to unravel the mystery of a missing girl, she’ll need some help from friends — and her brother.

Also starring Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter, Louis Partridge, Adeel Akhtar, David Thewlis, Susan Wokoma and Sharon Duncan-Brewster.


https://youtu.be/KKXNmYoPkx0

Playlist: Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Listen on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/smells-like-teen-spirit/1440783617?i=1440783625
On this day in 1991, Nirvana released its second album, “Nevermind.”
A critical and commercial success, by January 1992, it had reached no. 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart and this lead single has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The album garnered three Grammy Awards nominations and has sold more than 30 million copies, considered one of the best albums of all-time.
Frontman Kurt Cobain was dubbed “voice of his generation,” and the album brought grunge and alternative rock to the mainstream.


Sightlines: My All-Time Favorite, Robert Redford, at 85

Sightlines: My All-Time Favorite, Robert Redford, at 85

By Lynn Venhaus
Actor-filmmaker-founder of Sundance Film Institute Robert Redford turned 85 today! (Aug. 18).

He has been a major part of my film-going life, first as an actor, then making smart movies, and then deciding storytelling would be his life’s work through honoring independent films in Utah.

“Storytellers broaden our minds: engage, provoke, inspire, and ultimately, connect us,” he once said.

He has changed the film industry and changed lives.

Early on, he broke the mold in Hollywood and carved out a career on his own terms, living far from the celebrity life in Utah, raising a family and becoming an environmental activist.

He turned the perception of a ‘golden boy’ into an exploration of culture and society’s roles/expectations. (His movie, “Quiz Show” is rarely mentioned, but go back, and what he says about the American Dream — great work by Ralph Fiennes and John Turturro).

My sister Julie and I rushed to every one of his film openings in the 1970s after “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (when I was in high school), then hit after hit — “The Sting,” “The Way We Were,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “The Candidate” and “Jeremiah Johnson,” among them.

He was born to play the tortured hero Jay in “The Great Gatsby,” starring opposite Mia Farrow in the 1974 adaptation that did not measure up to expectations.

My boys used to give me DVDs of his work for Mother’s Days (and paired “The Natural” one time with “Serial Mom” — yep, that’s my John Waters’ loving son Tim’s idea of humor).

Hubbell Gardiner in “The Way We Were”

He gave us the definitive investigative journalism movie “All the President’s Men,” one of my all-time favorites and inspirations, explaining how the press changed the course of history in our country’s politics.

For his only competitive Oscar, he turned the bestselling book “Ordinary People” into an honest and painful study on families and grief in 1980.

I watched it again a couple months ago, and wow, does it resonate. Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton turn in some of their finest work. I will argue its value to anyone who wants to fight me on this.

His intelligence behind the baby blues, his sharp observations on human behavior — obvious early on in a remarkable filmography.

He only works sparingly in front of the camera these days, but I think he still has it – particularly in “The Old Man and the Gun” with Sissy Spacek,” “A Walk in the Woods” with Nick Nolte, and his solo tour de force “All is Lost.”

Robert Redford and Paul Newman

He has never been afraid to be a flawed anti-hero (“Downhill Racer”) or an all-out bad guy (spoiler alert: “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”)

The on-screen pairings have been high points — so memorable as Denys with Meryl Streep in “Out of Africa.”

A good move was working with Brad Pitt in “Spy Game,” and he coaxed a career-best performance (at the time) from Pitt in “A River Runs Through It,” which he directed and narrated.

Of course, the pinnacle was his work with Paul Newman, and thus, the buddy movie was born.

And three films with Jane Fonda, They both started out on stage in the late 1950s and worked early together on film when he reprised his role as Paul in “Barefoot in the Park.” Then, reunited in “The Electric Horseman” in 1979 and “Our Souls at Night” in 2017.

In the Natalie Wood documentary, “What Remains Behind,” he is one of the commentators and remained a close friend, after they made two films together (“Inside Daisy Clover” and “This Property is Condemned” in the ’60s), before he exploded as a superstar. She, in turn, showed up in a cameo in “The Candidate.”

Roy Hobbs in “The Natural”

For a while in the 1990s, he experienced a screen ‘renaissance’ — “The Horse Whisperer,” “Indecent Proposal,” “Up Close and Personal” and “Sneakers.”

He will always be Hubbell Gardiner and Roy Hobbs to me, masterful screen portraits of complicated guys.

Cases in point:
Hubbell’s college writing: “In a way he was like the country he lived in — everything came to easily to him. But at least he knew it.

“Roy in hospital: “God, I love baseball.”
“There goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game.”

Meryl’s Karen in “Out of Africa”: “When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers.”

And this:(Robert Redford) “You’ve ruined it for me, you know.”(Meryl Streep) “Ruined what?”(Robert Redford) “Being alone.”

You see all these being said, don’t you?

And of course, the “Be a Beacon” speech in “Sneakers.”
https://youtu.be/2q2iQC-4wbA

What great timing!

Thank you, Mr. Redford, for the memories and your lasting impact.

(On a Related Note: In January 2011, my two sons and I made the cut to be volunteer ushers at the Sundance Film Festival. It was a highlight of my life, and sharing it with my movie-loving boys was very special. Tim described it as the greatest two weeks of his life, and he saw something like 23-24 movies in 11 days).

Charlie, Lynn and Tim Venhaus, Sundance 2011