“I hate musicals. Nobody sings in real life.”

“Maybe they should.”

These words are spoken by the main characters of the latest rendition of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” in which two men in a brutal Argentine prison distract themselves from horrors by bonding over memories of a vintage movie musical. The source material has had a remarkable journey over nearly five decades: from novel (by Manuel Puig, published in 1976) to stage play to movie to stage musical to, finally, movie musical. And, surprisingly, it holds up beautifully. Writer/director Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls,” “Gods and Monsters”) understands the power of song and dance, of the way a musical can capture our dreams, suddenly transporting us out of darkness into a lighter, happier place. It’s not real life; it’s not meant to be.

Marxist revolutionary Valentín (Diego Luna) and gay window dresser Molina (Tonatiuh) share a filthy cell in 1983 Buenos Aires, the former imprisoned for his political views, the latter for his sexuality. Molina, who quickly decorates his half of the room with bead curtains and movie photos, deals with his fear by narrating his favorite movie, the Technicolor musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” which stars actress Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez, who also plays the movie-within-the-movie Spider Woman). Valentín is at first dismissive, but soon gets intrigued in spite of himself, whispering conspiratorially to Molina, “Let’s go to the movies.”

So we watch the movie that plays out in their heads, in a Technicolor so bright it seems to sear the screen. In his memory, Molina casts himself and his cellmate in key roles, singing and dancing alongside the beautiful Ingrid, seemingly made of light. He’s a young man, obsessed with movies and beauty (looking at a picture of Ingrid, Molina pulls his robe off his shoulder and gives a come-hither gaze to an invisible camera), and Tonatiuh, a real find, plays him with an almost unbearably poignant sweetness, his enormous eyes seeming to illuminate the screen. Luna’s Valentín has made himself far less vulnerable — it’s a performance of almost uncanny stillness, as if Valentín copes with his hellish situation by carefully controlling every motion, however small. Lopez, her singing splendid and her dancing good enough, oozes movie-star glamour, gloriously larger than life in Colleen Atwood and Christine Cantella’s dazzling costumes.

Condon doesn’t shy away from the violence and tragedy at the heart of this story, but he lets us see the tender, hard-forged connection between Molina and Valentín, and also lets us disappear into a world of tinselly Hollywood beauty, just as they do. Only once does the veil between reality and fantasy drop: when a hauntingly lovely song is performed by fellow inmates on the prison yard, with Valentín softly singing along. Music, as “Kiss of the Spider Woman” reminds us, can break our hearts; it can also, like a hand grasped in the darkness, give us strength.

‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’

3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language, sexual content and some violence)

Running time: 2:08

How to watch: In theaters Oct. 10

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DAVIDSON, N.C. — Andy Peters, Amari Powell and Ryan Jackson each threw for a touchdown, Joseph Koch rushed for three scores, and St. Thomas routed Davidson 57-13 on Saturday.

Powell’s touchdown throw went to Quentin Cobb-Butler for an 85-yard score on the first play of the second half for a 36-0 lead. Koch’s third touchdown run gave the Tommies a 50-0 lead with 7:24 remaining in the third quarter.

It was the first time St. Thomas scored 50-plus points in a game since 2021, its first season of Division I play.

Peters, Powell and Jackson, who was making his collegiate debut, combined to go 18 of 23 — with at least three completions each — for 367 yards and three touchdowns and no interceptions. Koch had 10 carries for 53 yards and Patrick Bowen added 62 yards rushing and two scores.

Quentin Cobb-Butler led the Tommies (3-3, 1-2 Pioneer) with 137 yards receiving and a touchdown. Bowen and Stefano Giovannelli also had a touchdown on their only catches of the game.

Coulter Cleland threw two touchdown passes for Davidson (1-5, 0-2), both to Brody Reina. Cleland was 22 of 33 for 252 yards with an interception.

Each team had 20 first downs, but the Wildcats turned it over four times, three on fumbles.

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For years, First Lutheran Church in St. Paul’s Dayton’s Bluff rented its education building at 461 Maria Ave. to a handful of nonprofits like the East Side Elders program and Urban Roots.

Over the past year or more, the social service organization CLUES has gradually outfitted the former school building for new uses, including parenting classes, a weekly food shelf and privately run family child care rooms that will soon be operated by Spanish-speaking providers.

CLUES’ newly expanded business-incubation program arrived at just the right time for Evelyn Polanco, one of the four providers getting ready to hang their own shingle and open their own child care shop.

”It’s a dream I presented to God,” said Polanco on Monday, in Spanish. To offer child care, “the place where I live, it’s too small.”

‘Story of many immigrants’

After obtaining a degree in preschool education in Guatemala 20 years ago, Polanco went on to become a licensed nurse in her home country, which would take seven more years of schooling and hospital work.

She would then spend another seven years caring for small children in child care centers throughout the Twin Cities metro, where she was arguably overqualified for her jobs but held back by a language barrier. She speaks Spanish, not English.

Undeterred, Polanco never gave up her dream of opening her own Spanish-immersion child care program — an effort that is paying off this month in the Maria Avenue building.

Ruby Lee, president and chief executive officer at CLUES, said barriers like language, licensing, startup space and starting capital hold back many worthy entrepreneurs in the Latin community.

“It’s the story of many immigrants,” Lee said. “She doesn’t own a home where she could run a child care center. She’s the type of family child care provider we had in mind, where they live in a site that cannot be certified.”

A prayer answered

For years, the Rev. Chris Olson Bingea and her partner, Brenda Olson Bingea, prayed for an opportunity to transition First Lutheran Church to the 21st century. For the couple, that meant more than just a little tender loving care and some minor construction improvements.

It meant selling off the church’s former Maria Avenue school building for a variety of new uses geared toward a growing immigrant population.

Funds from the sale have gone to renovate First Lutheran for three culturally specific congregations that will soon outfit the church with new services targeted to their own communities.

“It feels like outreach is continuing through better and more prepared hands,” said Brenda Olson Bingea, First Lutheran’s development director. “This neighborhood is changing. Now this (education building) is going to be Latin-owned. Our work continues through the business incubator and the food basket, which draws volunteers from the church.”

Programs outgrew E. 7th Street site

Spanning more than 27,000 square feet and located directly across from First Lutheran, the two-story building at 461 Maria Ave. was built in 1964. It was sold in September of last year for $1.5 million to CLUES, or Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (Latin Communities United in Service), which is based a half-mile up the road on East Seventh Street.

Administrators with CLUES found that their healthy food program, family services and parenting classes had outgrown their headquarters at 797 E. Seventh St., which still hosts economic development initiatives, a “teen tech” room, arts, educational enrichment and youth programs, and also rents spaces to the Mexican consulate.

The nonprofit also has partnered with a behavioral health clinic to offer a variety of mental health and substance abuse services in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

With funding from the Bush Foundation, the child care businesses — three of them run by Latinas — will have a year to find their footing before monthly rents kick in. CLUES will provide help with marketing and other “wrap-around” micro-business development training over the life of the three-year incubation program, said Lee, with the expectation they’ll each relocate to community spaces down the line and make room for the next cohort.

For the three-year program, four child care providers were selected from about 15 applicants.

“The second year, they’re able to start paying us rent,” Lee said.

Mental health services, food access

The Maria Avenue building also hosts Canasta Familiar, a weekly food shelf organized like a natural foods store, which offers regularly scheduled hours in St. Paul, Minneapolis and at Riverland Community College in Austin, Minn. Canasta Familiar arrived in late July.

Neighborhood surveys conducted by nonprofit partners and the church itself identified mental health services and food access as widespread community needs.

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“CLUES has been at the heart and center of that work,” Lee said. “People from this ZIP code were driving to get food in Stillwater at a food shelf.”

Working with cohorts of 15 providers at a time, CLUES has trained upwards of 110 family child care providers in CPR, marketing and meeting state and county licensing requirements, she said. Many other entrepreneurs — some of them retired and looking to finally hang their own shingle — have learned how to launch gardening, construction and culinary businesses.

There was very little to nit-pick about the Wild’s season debut, as they handled the Blues in both ends of the ice, and skated out of St. Louis on Thursday with a convincing 5-0 win.

But improving health on defense allowed coach John Hynes to make one notable change in the lineup for the home opener, with veteran Jonas Brodin replacing work-in-progress David Jiricek on the blue line.

Brodin, 32, missed the season opener following offseason surgery for an upper body ailment but is back in action sooner than expected. Hynes admits they didn’t anticipate Brodin would be available in October.

“I’m really excited. It’s been a good rehab over the summer, and I’ve been working hard and I feel ready to play now,” said Brodin, who has been skating with the team in practice while wearing a bright gold jersey to indicate limited contact.

After missing 32 regular season games last season, Brodin returned for all six playoff games and skated for Team Sweden in May at the World Championships.

“I felt good in the World Championships, and then something happened in one of those games there,” Brodin said. “It’s good to get it fixed so I’m 100 percent this year.”

Jiricek, the former first-round draft pick acquired by the Wild in a trade last season, had some visible struggles in St. Louis.

Minnesota survived a bad first period turnover, when Jiricek’s attempted touch pass went right to the stick of dangerous Blues forward Robert Thomas, forcing Filip Gustavsson’s point-blank save. In the second period, he took the Wild’s first penalty after getting caught for an extended stretch in the defensive zone.

The Wild coach said they will continue to work with Jiricek on his skating and on his decision-making.

“He continues to be a work in progress,” Hynes said of Jiricek. “The thing I like about it is there’s some mistakes, it’s nice when you can make a mistake and it doesn’t wind up in the back of the net. But I do see some of the things that we’re talking about with him about, that there’s progress there.”

With the Wild currently carrying eight defensemen on the roster, the coach anticipates healthy competition for the final game-night spots.

“It’s going to be competitive to get in. We feel like we’ve got eight guys that can play,” Hynes said.

Haight welcomed

Wild rookie forward Hunter Haight had his girlfriend and his parents, who live near London, Ontario, make it to St. Louis to see the 21-year-old’s solo lap around Enterprise Center prior to the season opener.

“That’s something you dream of as a kid, and have it happen in real life,” Haight said.

While all of it was a thrill, Haight admits one of the more special moments came from a foe in the faceoff circle when he matched up versus Blues veteran center Brayden Schenn in the first period.

“It was actually really classy from Schenn,” Haight recalled. “In my first faceoff against him, he just welcomed me to the league and asked who was there. It was a class act from him, and that was really cool for me.”

Without Nico Sturm, the faceoff specialist acquired by the Wild over the summer and now out of the lineup indefinitely, the Wild are looking to other sources to win draws. Haight won five of the eight faceoffs he took in the debut.

“As a centerman, you’ve got to win draws if you want to stick,” Haight said. “That’s something that’s super crucial to my game, and that will certainly help me out.”

Haight made his home debut on Saturday, centering the team’s fourth line.

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