February 12th, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
One of the most buzzed-about movies at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival was “Magazine Dreams,” the sophomore feature from writer-director Elijah Bynum. The film, starring Jonathan Majors as a rage-prone bodybuilder, is not a home run, but it is a significant improvement over the filmmaker’s 2017 debut “Hot Summer Nights,” a disappointing neo-noir thriller.
“Magazine Dreams” owes a heavy debt to “Taxi Driver,” but Bynum flips the…
February 5th, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
The unbelievable fate of one of the world’s largest collections of physical movie media is the subject of “Kim’s Video,” a fizzy and entertaining nonfiction cocktail mixing essay-like asides on the power of cinephilia with an oddball odyssey involving the Italian Mafia.
Directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, the feature premiered as part of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
In some ways, the timing is always right for a consideration of…
January 29th, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
Beth de Araújo’s stunning “Soft & Quiet” plays out in real time, moving swiftly from its carefully calculated opening section to pick up speed as it rockets from one deeply unsettling sequence to the next. It is as terrifying as any film of 2022, a gripping thriller exposing grotesque anger and the jaw-dropping gears of the persecution complex embraced by the far-right. The first-time feature filmmaker wrote the screenplay after being inspired…
January 22nd, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage” reinterprets the historical biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the Bavarian royal assassinated in 1898. Popularly known as Sisi or Sissi, she married Emperor Franz Joseph I when she was 16 and has attracted ongoing attention in multiple theater, film and television productions over the years, including fiction and nonfiction, animation, operetta, and ballet.
This past September, Netflix released the…
January 15th, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
With co-director Paul Sng, Celeste Bell celebrates the legacy of her mother Marianne Elliott-Said – known better to the world as the inimitable X-Ray Spex leader Poly Styrene – in an intimate documentary that is part memoir and part biography.
Balancing the private and the public sides of the musician’s complex and complicated life, the filmmakers use their unprecedented access to cover both well-known and lesser-known dimensions of Poly…
January 8th, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
Just as “Aftersun” explores the contours of a father-daughter relationship, Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter” laser-focuses on the particulars of a parent-child bond. In this case, Hogg’s longtime friend, collaborator, and all-around force of nature Tilda Swinton plays both mother and daughter in a film linked to Hogg’s “Souvenir” series as a kind of spiritual/spirited sequel.
In an interview with David Sims in which the notion…
January 7th, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
Shimmering like a mirage that retreats and dematerializes the closer one gets, “Aftersun” may just be the best movie of 2022. The self-described “emotionally autobiographical” feature debut of Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells, the film is a treasure for those viewers who prefer ambiguity and understatement.
The deceptively straightforward story follows the low-key father-daughter holiday of 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and…
January 7th, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
Noah Baumbach’s ambitious, hysterical adaptation of Don DeLillo’s famously “unfilmable” modern classic “White Noise” is – given the bona fides of the source material – certain to divide opinion. For the supporters, the director’s cinephilia sparks and shimmers from one giddy moment to the next. Nobody will overlook the homage to Godard’s “Weekend,” but the filmmaker just as enthusiastically embraces the 1980s-era Spielbergian…
January 7th, 2023
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
Few reviews of Maria Schrader’s sturdy “She Said” go without mentioning “All the President's Men” and “Spotlight.” The new film, in line to pick up some award season recognition on the basis of its subject matter alone, follows the work of Pulitzer-winning New York Times reporters Megan Twohey (played by Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (played by Zoe Kazan) as they doggedly pursue on-the-record confirmation of the sexual misconduct,…
December 18th, 2022
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
How many “Babylon” reviews and essays will at some point use the words orgiastic and overlong to describe Damien Chazelle’s raucous Hollywood fable? To date, the filmmaker remains the youngest winner of the Oscar for Best Director, which he received for “La La Land” during a ceremony enshrined in Academy legend for the embarrassing Best Picture envelope gaffe at the end of the telecast. That film, which also mines movie-mad dreamscapes,…
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By Bryce Vincent HaugenFor the first nine months, the dysfunction of the Trump administration and Congress was a four-time-zone-away abstraction for a Moorhead native living in Alaska’s interior. But it became all too real when…
By Michael M. Millermichael.miller@ndsu.edu I would like to recognize some of the scholarly Germans from Russia from Canada and USA shared on the GRHC website. There are additional names not included here. If you have suggestions…
December 17-21, 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and SundayThe Fargo Theatre, 314 N. Broadway, FargoCould this be the end of an era? After 26 years of doing the Holiday Soul Tour and 35 years together as a band, The…
By Sabrina Hornungsabina@hpr1.com I scroll through comment threads on the news stories in my social media feed and come across the retort, “You voted for this.” Sure the vote’s in…but when someone’s livelihood is at stake,…
By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comDemocrats have MAGA, MAHA, MAWF, and Trumplicans to fight My favorite analyst of things religious and political is Finton O’Toole who uses plain English, curses, temper, and knowledge to make a…
By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…
By Mandy Dolneymandy@ksbsyndicate.com This cake will be on the menu at Nova Eatery through Thanksgiving served with maple crème anglaise Ice cream. It uses pumpkin pie pumpkins grown locally at Ladybug Acres and local apples grown…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Dakotah Faye is a hip-hop artist from Minot, North Dakota, and he’s had a busy year. He’s released two albums. This summer he opened for Tech N9ne in Sturgis and will be opening for Bone…
By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Japanese director Hikari, born in Osaka and originally named Mitsuyo Miyazaki, is poised for a significant stateside breakthrough with “Rental Family,” the new film she co-wrote with…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Gallery 4 downtown recently celebrated its 50 year anniversary, making it one of the longest consecutively running galleries in the country. With different membership tiers, there are 17 primary…
Press release“Shakespeare with a sharpened edge.” To launch its 2025 – 2026 season, Theatre NDSU is thrilled to team up with Moorhead-based organization Theatre B to perform a co-production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and…
By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…
By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…
sBy Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com The holidays are supposed to be magical: party, presents, fancy food, lights and sparks. You are looking forward to it. You work very hard, you put in long hours at work as well as at…
By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…
By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson.nd7@gmail.comPersonal background and historical perspective My deep concern about tariffs stems from my background as a fourth generation North Dakota farmer. Having lived through the 1980s farm crisis…
