The Twin Cities may have escaped the severe weather forecast by meteorologists earlier this week, but the metro wasn’t so lucky 60 years ago.

An outbreak of five tornadoes tore through the western and northern suburbs on the evening of May 6, 1965, killing 13 people and injuring hundreds more in what the St. Paul Dispatch described on its front page as a “night of terror.”

A sixth twister struck the area between Glencoe and Lester Prairie, just west of the metro.

The storm’s path of destruction stretched from Sibley County northeast to Anoka County, laying waste to entire neighborhoods in Mounds View, Fridley, Blaine and the area around Lake Minnetonka. Minneapolis and St. Paul were virtually untouched.

The most destructive storm in the metro’s recorded history, it left an estimated $51 million in damage in its wake — more than $500 million after adjusting for inflation.

The tornadoes were spun up by a line of supercell thunderstorms that rolled through the metro that evening, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The terror lasted three hours, from the time the first twister touched down shortly after 6 p.m. until the last one dissipated about 9 p.m.

Winds exceeding 200 mph leveled houses, tore trees from the ground and tossed automobiles around like toys, the Pioneer Press and Dispatch reported. About 1,700 people were left homeless, according to the DNR.

In Mounds View, which was among the hardest hit communities, entire blocks along Lois Lane were reduced to kindling.

Area hospitals were inundated with injured people. Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, which received about 100 tornado victims, issued an urgent call for surgeons from across the metro. Fifty responded, working until 4 a.m. treating patients.

“The call went out and people came immediately,” assistant administrator Thomas Mattson told the Dispatch. “It goes to show that when tragedy strikes, people do care.”

The death toll likely would have been much higher if not for warnings issued by Civil Defense officials, who for the first time used air raid sirens to alert metro residents to tornadoes in the area, according to the DNR.

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By LINDSEY BAHR, Associated Press

“Top Gun: Maverick” filmmaker Joseph Kosinski came to Formula One like many Americans: “Drive to Survive.”

In that popular Netflix series, he saw the potential for a cinematic event, full of immersive thrills, the high stakes of the competitive racing world and the idea that your teammate could be your greatest rival.

“I don’t think there’s any other sport that’s quite like that,” Kosinski said. “It’s ripe for drama.”

FILE – Actors Brad Pitt, left, and Damson Idris appear on the grid before the British Formula One Grand Prix race at the Silverstone racetrack, Silverstone, England, on July 9, 2023, for the filming of “F1.” (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

The movies have loved car racing since their earliest days, and the popularity of F1 has exploded in recent years. Giving it the “Top Gun” treatment made sense. But it would take nearly four years for that dream to become “F1,” which is speeding into movie theaters on June 27.

It was a complex operation that would involve unprecedented coordination with the league, groundbreaking innovation in camera technology, and letting one of the biggest movie stars in the world, Brad Pitt, drive a real race car at 180 miles an hour on film. Many, many times.

Getting F1 on board

Hollywood, it turned out, was a little easier to convince to make the film than the league. By the time Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer approached them, Pitt had already agreed to star and they’d decided to go with Apple to help make the movie at the level they needed, with the guarantee of a robust theatrical release (which Warner Bros. is handling). Then came the Formula One meeting.

“When you come in, the first thing they think is you’re going to make them look bad,” Bruckheimer said. “I went through this with when I went to the Navy the first time on ‘Top Gun.’”

FILE – Actor Brad Pitt appears on the grid before the British Formula One Grand Prix race at the Silverstone racetrack, Silverstone, England on July 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

There were many concerns: About anything going wrong, accidents, and the question of the villain. But, the filmmakers explained, this story wasn’t about a villain. It’s a competition between two drivers — a younger driver (Damson Idris) and an older driver (Pitt) trying to make him better.

Bruckheimer said it took almost a year to get the league on board, and then they had to go around to the individual teams to explain it to them as well. But once everyone bought in, they committed and opened their world to the filmmakers.

“The amount of, let’s say, conversations regarding things not related to the actual filmmaking has been massive just from a coordination point of view,” Kosinski said. “But there’s no way we could have made this film without that partnership with Formula One.”

An image of actor Brad Pitt from the upcoming film “F1” is reflected in an advertisement for Tom Cruise’s new film “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” on the opening day of CinemaCon, the official convention of Cinema United, on Monday, March 31, 2025, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Among the things they got to do: Build a garage at the Grand Prix for their fictional team; Drive on the track during Grand Prix weekends in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators; Put their Formula One cars on the track with the film’s cars (and drivers); Have Pitt and Idris stand at the end of the national anthem in both Silverstone and Abu Dhabi; And sit in on drivers meetings and technical briefings.

“It was full-on integration of these two worlds coming together,” Kosinski said. “There’s no way the film could have happened or look like it does without that partnership. I think you’ll see the result of that on screen because you couldn’t recreate what we were able to capture by doing it for real.”

“We’re going to need a smaller camera”

In true “Top Gun” spirit, part of “doing it for real” meant trying to create the experience in the driver seat for the audience. Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, who was involved in the film from the earliest days, told Kosinski that he’d never seen a film that had really captured what it felt like to be in one of those cars.

“These Formula One cars, they deal in grams,” Kosinski said. “Adding 100 pounds of camera equipment works against the very thing you’re trying to capture. It became a technical engineering project for a year to figure out how to get very tiny cameras that are IMAX quality onto one of these cars.”

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain steers his car during the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, April 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

During “Top Gun: Maverick,” they had six Sony cameras inside the cockpit. Here, engineers were able to slim those down to about a quarter of the size (he estimates a 10×10 cm cube). Panavision also developed a remote control that allowed director of photography Claudio Miranda to pivot the cameras left and right, which they didn’t have on “Maverick.”

They had 15 camera mounts built into the cars and were able to run up to four at a time keeping the weight penalty to a minimum, and the close-ups real.

“Every time you see Brad or Damson’s face, they’re really driving that car,” Kosinski said. “It’s not being driven for them.”

And once it was go-time on the tracks, it was a race against the clock.

“It was a technical feat and an organizational feat,” Bruckheimer said. “You get limited access and we’d get in there between some of their qualifying laps and have eight minutes to get on the track and off the track. It’s precision, you can’t be at nine minutes.”

F1 driver Lewis Hamilton reacts during the official opening of the brand-new flagship Fanatics Collectibles store on Regent Street in London, Friday April 25, 2025. (Bradley Collyer/PA via AP)

When Hamilton first saw some of their racing footage cut together, Kosinski got a confidence boost.

“He smiled and said, ‘It looks fast,’” Kosinski said. “I was like, ‘Oh, thank God.’ If Lewis says that we’re in a good place.”

The Brad Pitt factor

“This movie needed an icon kind of at the center of it,” Kosinski said. “It’s a big, complicated, expensive film. And I needed one of our, you know, top, top movie stars.”

Kosinski knew Pitt liked cars. About a decade ago he, Tom Cruise and Pitt actually developed a car movie that never came to be. Plus, he said, “I just felt like it was a role that I always wanted to see him play.”

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Brad Pitt in a scene from “F1.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

The character is fictional driver named Sonny Hayes who was “the greatest who never was.” A phenomenon in the 1990s, he was destined to be the next world champion before an accident at a Grand Prix ends his Formula One career.

“Now he drives in every type of racing league you could imagine, but not Formula 1,” Kosinski said, from Le Mans to swamp trucks. “He likes to challenge himself to a new racing league and master it, but then he walks away.”

The audience meets him driving the midnight shift at the Daytona 24 hour race where he meets his old teammate and now Formula One team owner (Javier Bardem) who asks him to come back to help them win one race to save them from being sold.

“It’s a story about a last place team, a group of underdogs, and Sonny Hayes in his later years having one more chance to do something he was never able to, which is win a race in F1,” Kosinski said.

After the pitch, they went to the racetrack with Hamilton and Pitt “was hooked.”

Pitt trained for three months before cameras started rolling to get used to the physical demands of the precision vehicles. He and his co-star really drove the cars at speeds up to 180 mph, and sometimes in front of a couple hundred thousand people.

“The happiest day was when they said, ‘OK, it’s a wrap on driving,’ and he (Brad) climbed out of the car,” Bruckheimer said. “That was the best day for me because it is dangerous, it really is.”

The perfect summer blockbuster?

The film, everyone has acknowledged, was enormously expensive. They had the advantage of advertising on the cars, which helped offset some of the costs, but the operation was akin to building a real F1 team, Bruckheimer said. They built six cars, which they transported all around the world along with production.

“It’s like an army exercise moving vast groups of people and machinery around the world,” Bruckheimer said.

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But it was much less than the $300 million figure going around, both Kosinski and Bruckheimer said.

“It’s expensive, don’t get me wrong. It’s an expensive movie. But it was substantially lower than that number,” Bruckheimer said. “Hollywood is a very competitive place, and our friends sometimes inflate our budgets to make them look better.”

The biggest question is whether audiences will turn out in blockbuster numbers. So far, test scores have been very high across genders. And they promise you don’t need to be an expert or even a fan of the sport to enjoy the film, which will teach you everything you need to know.

“It’s emotional, it’s exciting, it has humor. It’s got great music with a Hans Zimmer score and a bunch of phenomenal artists,” Bruckheimer said. “We hope it’s a perfect summer movie.”

By LINDSEY BAHR, Associated Press

Superman already has a lot on his shoulders. It seems unfair to add the fate of the summer movie season to his list. But he’s not alone — Marvel Studios is also returning to theaters in a big way with two movies this summer, “Thunderbolts” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the movie business to a halt, and two years after the strikes, the industry has yet to fully recover. Critics may have complained of superhero fatigue, but after several summers of depleted offerings, it’s clear that they’re a vital part of the mix.

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows David Corenswet in a scene from “Superman.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

Superheroes alone don’t make for a healthy marketplace, however, and this year studios have set a full slate for every kind of moviegoer, with over 40 wide releases spanning genres.

“This is the summer where all this product that we’ve all been working on for the last few years is finally coming into the marketplace, so I’m very optimistic,” says Joseph Kosinski, who directed “F1” with Brad Pitt.

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Damson Idris, left, and Brad Pitt in a scene from “F1.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

Key movies in the summer 2025 lineup

Summer begins early in Hollywood, on the first weekend in May and that kick-off can make or break that pivotal 123 day corridor that has historically accounted for around 40% of the annual box office.

This image released by Disney shows the character Stitch, left, and Maia Kealoha, as Lilo, in a scene from “Lilo & Stitch.” (Disney via AP)

After the strikes upended the 2024 summer calendar, this year Disney is back in that familiar first weekend spot with “Thunderbolts.” Memorial Day weekend could also be a behemoth with the live action “Lilo & Stitch” and “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” With a new “Jurassic World,” a live action “How to Train Your Dragon” and the Formula One movie also on the schedule through June and July, the summer season has the potential to be the biggest in the post-COVID era.

There are also family pics (“Smurfs,” “Elio”); action and adventures (“Ballerina,” “The Karate Kid: Legends”); horrors, thrillers and slashers (“28 Years Later,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “M3GAN 2.0″); romances (“Materialists,” “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life”); dramas (“Sorry, Baby,” “The Life of Chuck”); a new Wes Anderson movie (“The Phonecian Scheme”); and comedies (“Freakier Friday,” “Bride Hard,” “The Naked Gun”).

This image released by Marvel Studios shows, from left, Hannah John-Kamen, Olga Kurylenko, Wyatt Russell, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour and Florence Pugh in a scene from “Thunderbolts.” (Disney-Marvel Studios via AP)

“Draw me a blueprint of a perfect summer lineup: 2025 is it,” says Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore.

What this summer’s big directors are saying

“It’s a fun twist on what a movie like this could be,” says “Thunderbolts” director Jake Schreier.

This image released by Netflix shows Christopher McDonald, left, and Adam Sandler in a scene from “Happy Gilmore 2.” (Scott Yamano/Netflix via AP)

“It’s a personal journey for Superman that’s entirely new,” says “Superman” director James Gunn. “But it’s also about the robots and the flying dogs and all that stuff. It’s taking a very real person and putting them in the middle of this outrageous situation and outrageous world and playing with that. I think it’s a lot of fun because of that.”

“It’s working on an incredibly large scale in terms of world building, but it’s also no different from all of the great comedies and dramas that I’ve done,” says “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” director Matt Shakman. “In the end, it comes down to character, it comes down to relationships, it comes down to heart and humor.”

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Mason Thames in a scene from “How to Train Your Dragon.”, (Universal Pictures via AP)

“People say, like, do you feel pressure and the most pressure I feel is from myself as a fan and to Steven Spielberg, to not disappoint him,” says “Jurassic World Rebirth” director Gareth Edwards. “Weirdly what’s great about doing a Jurassic movie is that everybody knows deep down that like half the reason they’re in this business is because of that film and Steven’s work.”

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Before the pandemic, all but one summer since 2007 broke the $4 billion mark. Since 2020, only one has: 2023, led by “Barbie.”

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The unstable economy might work in the industry’s favor, at least when it comes to moviegoing. Even with increased ticket prices, theatrical movies remain the most affordable entertainment outside of the home and attendance tends to increase during recession years. The annual domestic box office crossed $10 billion for the first time in 2009.

“By the end of this summer, hopefully people aren’t talking about being in a funk anymore and it feels like we got our mojo back and we’re off to the races,” Kosinski, who directed the pandemic-era hit “Top Gun: Maverick,” says.

When oil painter Richard Abraham was growing up on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, he’d spend time in his local library’s art section.

Books on illustration and painting, he recalled, were right next to the section containing books about movies. As he worked his way through the shelves, he was struck by moody, mysterious stills of classic film actors like James Cagney and Greta Garbo.

At the time, he assumed he’d never actually watch many of the movies themselves; this was before VHS tapes were widely available, he said, and certainly before digital restoration techniques that now help old films look and sound better than they have in decades. But even as Abraham’s interests led him in other directions — including his mid-life career change about 25 years ago toward oil painting — he was still fascinated by Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Three paintings by Lowertown artist Richard Abraham hang at Lost Fox on April 8, 2025. The works depict, from right to left, mid-century actors Robert Mitchum, Anita Ekberg and Peter Lorre. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)

Emotional, close-up portraits of vintage movie actors comprise Abraham’s current exhibition, “Framing Film: Painting Cinema’s Shadows,” on view through the end of the month at Lost Fox, the Lowertown cafe at 213 E. 4th St., just a few blocks from Abraham’s loft studio.

When Abraham decided to move to the Twin Cities and become a painter in the late ’90s, he pursued a classical path in visual arts, studying oil painting and focusing on traditional subjects like still life and outdoor landscapes. He’s won plenty of awards for this work and regularly teaches classes in his studio, too.

And meanwhile, he has watched and rewatched dozens of the vintage films that once eluded him. Especially during the early pandemic, he said, black-and-white movies from the 1920s and ’30s became his “comfort food.”

The current old-Hollywood series was initially a personal pet project during that time period, he said, but he came to realize that, in depicting “these sweaty, desperate, film noir types,” he was able to convey the same sense of restrained drama and emotional resonance that characterizes his other work.

“I went away from just, ‘Oh, that’s a nice shot of Bette Davis’ to something where it feels like there’s consequences in the painting,” he said.

When Abraham is planning a painting, he’ll first watch the inspiration film a number of times, taking notes on well-composed scenes. He’ll then narrow down a list of a dozen or so still-frame shots before choosing his ultimate subject. The best frames to paint, he finds, are ones where harsh lighting creates deep contrasts, especially in faces — a visual sense of tension, secrecy, high stakes.

“It’s all about value, about depth, and finding images that accentuate that; that have a lot of shadow play on the face, so you have something to sink into,” he said. “And when it’s going well, you can really get lost in it. Like Robert Mitchum’s trenchcoat becomes its own world. You’re just in all the valleys and the buttons and the reflected light and deep shadows.”

(Interestingly, he said, male actors are more commonly shown this way than women, even in equally emotionally pivotal moments. Hard lighting and tight zoom accentuates facial wrinkles and creases, perhaps desirable for a rugged male character; women were more frequently shot in softer light or from wider angles to hide those features and appear glamorous.)

On view at Lost Fox is just a selection of the dozens of portraits Abraham has painted: There’s Giulietta Masina in “La Strada” and Anita Ekberg in “La Dolce Vita,” there’s Peter Lorre and Robert Ryan. He has about 20 more in the studio that didn’t make the show, including the first color portrait in the series — of Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz,” of course.

“One thing leads to another, and sometimes you can’t predict where that’s going to lead to and why,” he said. “You just follow it. I think you can drive yourself crazy justifying why you’re doing what, but I think just enthusiasm is justification enough. You follow what gets you excited to go to the easel.”

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