'Hunger Games' hype hits MOA

"Hunger Games" fan Jaymie Kelley of south Minneapolis stood in line outside the Mall of America for 12 hours to see six stars of the upcoming film. Although the night was chilly last week, she had no complaints.

"I feel perfect," said Kelley, 61, who by her own estimate was the oldest person in a crowd of about 8,000. "Hey, I was at the original Woodstock. I can take this." She read Suzanne Collins' "Hunger Games" books with her daughter.

The film, opening March 23, is expected to launch a franchise on par with "Twilight" or "Harry Potter."

The movie's young cast, led by "Winter's Bone" Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence, launched a nationwide mall tour to greet fans and sign autographs. Bloomington was the penultimate stop.

If the fan frenzy at the mall is any predictor, the film's success seems assured. An overwhelmingly young and female crowd thronged the rotunda. The bedlam notched even higher as the cast took the stage for a question-and-answer session. Asked how Minnesota struck her, Lawrence said, "It's loud."

Joining her onstage were Alexander Ludwig, Isabelle Fuhrman, Amandla Stenberg, Jacqueline Emerson and Josh Hutcherson.

When the mall's south entrance opened around 5 a.m. Friday to admit fans who'd camped outside all night, those farther back in line "started storming the front, screaming and running, bombarding the front," said Susan Long of Minocqua, Wis., who watched her husband and daughters from her car parked near the entrance. Long feared that someone might be trampled, she said.

• Colin Covert

Thom Pham planning Azia 2.0

The rumors are true: Thom Pham is returning to the south Minneapolis location he made famous.

For Pham, the corner of 26th and Nicollet brings back memories both bold and bittersweet. He launched his most successful restaurant, Azia, on this block. He also got beat up in the alleyway during a terrible business year. In 2010, he left the corner following a dispute with his landlord and opened Wondrous Azian Kitchen in downtown.

Now he's back and ready to reopen a new version of Azia, possibly by late April. He's calling it Azia Market Bar & Restaurant, a neighborhood joint that will look much different than the hot spot he held from 2003 to 2010.

"I never wanted to leave this space," Pham said on Tuesday. "That was a tough decision. It broke my heart."

His bar will join a bustling corner, home to several new businesses, including Eat Street Social, Vertical Endeavors and Dunn Bros. He's going through the liquor-license process now. I toured the construction Tuesday.

The layout is basically Azia in reverse: The dining room is now dominated by a massive central bar. The old bar area will be an intimate dining room. Sticking with his neighborhood theme, Pham said his Asian menu will be stocked with small plates ($9-$14) meant for sharing. He seemed most proud of his raw bar.

Wondrous will remain open, but it's going through some changes (lower prices, restricting the dining room to private parties). Pham wants to focus his energy on the busier bar side. He plans to operate both restaurants (plus Thanh Do in St. Louis Park) simultaneously.

• Tom Horgen

Tarr's 'Horse' plays at the Walker

"The Turin Horse," the final film by legendary Hungarian director Béla Tarr, will have its area premiere and theatrical run at Walker Art Center for four days, starting March 22. The film, produced by the Minneapolis-based Werc Werk Works, was Hungary's official entry in the 2012 Academy Awards. Tarr's work has rarely been screened outside of film festivals, art museum retrospectives and other one-off events, yet he has earned a reputation as a master filmmaker.

"The Turin Horse," his last project before his announced retirement from filmmaking, was inspired by an anecdote about philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In 1889, reportedly after he saw a coachman violently thrashing his horse in a piazza in Turin, Nietzsche threw his arms around the animal and collapsed in tears. Afterward, Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown and spent the final decade of his life in silence. Tarr's film imagines what happened to the horse.

• Colin Covert

Poliça packs 'em in

Minnesota pride, take 1: Poliça's first of eight gigs this week at South by Southwest (this one at the Bat Bar) had fans crammed near the front of the stage and more of a crowd watching from outside the club's window on Sixth Street. Perhaps because the typical SXSW time-crunch clock was ticking, the electronic soul-thumping band seemed to speed up its songs just a tad, resulting in extra feisty versions of "Dark Star" and "Leading to Death."

• Chris Riemenschneider

Local recording engineer remembered

At the memorial service for longtime Twin Cities recording engineer Tom Tucker, 63, at St. Joan of Arc church in south Minneapolis on Saturday, churchgoers clapped after every reading and remembrance (by his ex-wife, current partner, children, best friend's wife, etc.) and every musical performance (by Mary Jane Alm, Pamela McNeill, others). The mourners roared with laughter after Jevetta Steele expressed her trepidation when she first met Tucker about a white man recording black church music. Then after the Steeles family quintet performed the stirring gospel tune "I Go to the Rock" in memory of Tucker, they received a standing ovation.

• Jon Bream

Graywolf nabs award

The National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of its annual awards, and whaddya know, there's Minneapolis' Graywolf Press front and center once again. Geoff Dyer's essay collection, "Otherwise Known as the Human Condition," published by Graywolf, took top honors in the criticism category. The NBCC judges said that Dyer is a "critic par excellence who showed his love of his various subjects in tour-de-force language."

• Laurie Hertzel

MN audiences: so special

When the cameras were rolling during his State Theatre show last May, Lewis Black had to think of a way to convince audience members that heckling him was strictly forbidden. "We do a special thing in these cases where we take you downstairs to a room where you have to listen to Michele Bachmann for 24 hours," the comedian and "Daily Show" contributor threatened. It must've worked: The performance was heckle-free enough to be turned into his newest special, "In God We Rust," which premieres Saturday at 9 p.m. via EpixHD. This is Black's second time using Minneapolis audiences (his "Rules of Enragement" album was recorded at Acme Comedy Club).

• Chris Riemenschneider