Cinema

​Ver Linden Debuts ‘Alice’

March 21st, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Krystin Ver Linden's feature debut "Alice" premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and arrived in theaters March 18.

The Sundance press notes described the movie as "equal parts earthy Southern Gothic and soulful Blaxploitation," but critical reactions since its January debut have been decidedly mixed. The imaginative genre-mashup works in fits and starts, but there is no question about the quality of…

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​Smokler and Boone Invite Viewers to Visit ‘Vinyl Nation’

March 13th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Filmmakers Kevin Smokler and Christopher Boone have added a worthwhile document to the group of movies devoted in one way or another to the world of record collecting. “Vinyl Nation” will appeal principally to those already familiar with the activity, but the directors make clear a desire to reach beyond the hobby’s traditional demographic of middle-age white men by including the voices of those who have been marginalized for a long time.…

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​Horror Fans Will Devour Mimi Cave’s ‘Fresh’

February 27th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Director Mimi Cave’s feature debut “Fresh” was one of the highlights of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival’s Midnight section. Working from a wicked screenplay by Lauryn Kahn, Cave’s jet-black satire lands exclusively on Hulu starting March 4. Most definitely not for the faint of heart, “Fresh” joins a handful of classic cannibal films that tiptoe along the edges of the comic and the horrific. Echoes of wide-ranging precedents like…

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​W. Kamau Bell Shows Why ‘We Need to Talk About Cosby’

February 27th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

The complexities and contradictions of Bill Cosby are the very essence of W. Kamau Bell’s incredible “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” a four-part meditation, examination, and true deep dive on the decades-long saga of the fallen icon that pulls off the nearly impossible task of bearing witness to the power and joy of so many of the performer’s artistic milestones and achievements while reckoning with the legacy of a credibly-accused serial…

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​Time Machine: Bianca Stigter’s ‘Three Minutes: A Lengthening’

February 23rd, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

The only nonfiction film to be selected for the 2022 Sundance Film Festival’s Spotlight section – a prestige category highlighting movies that have already premiered to acclaim elsewhere – Bianca Stigter’s feature-length directorial debut “Three Minutes: A Lengthening” is an inspired piece of cinematic archaeology. Stigter does exactly what the title of the piece invitingly and enigmatically implies: she examines a short section of 16mm…

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​Collecting Movies with Nicole Rodenburg

February 19th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Nicole Rodenburg is the New York-based actor, writer and director. She’s known for her work developing new plays with our most groundbreaking and lauded contemporary playwrights, starring in Annie Baker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Flick,” Samuel D. Hunter’s “The Whale,” and Ming Peiffer’s “Usual Girls” at the Roundabout Theatre Company.

“Glob Lessons,” written with longtime collaborator Colin Froeber, received the Prairie…

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​After Two Years of Online-Only Streaming, the Fargo Film Festival Is Back

February 16th, 2022

This March, the 22nd Fargo Film Festival will be in person at the Fargo Theatre, after two years of virtual screenings and events. The celebration of independent film begins March 15 and will conclude March 19.

By Dominic Erickson

dominicerickson00@gmail.com

FFF22 is once again coordinated by Emily Beck, who has been the executive director at the Fargo Theatre since 2011. “I think that for most movie fans, nothing can replace the experience of seeing films in a cinema with an…

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​Almodovar: Eternally Maternal in ‘Parallel Mothers’

January 31st, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

In “Parallel Mothers,” the excellent melodrama from master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, Penelope Cruz’s Janis Martinez wears a Dior shirt emblazoned with the hopeful thought that “We should all be feminists.” Grouches might say the touch is too on-the-nose, but fans know it’s on-brand and heartfelt. The director, now in his early 70s, has built one of the great bodies of work over the past decades by making so many films that take a deep…

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​Sara Dosa Shares the Light and the Heat in Volcanology Doc ‘Fire of Love’

January 23rd, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

No doubt many cinephiles first encountered the tale of the charismatic French volcanologist couple Katia and Maurice Krafft in Werner Herzog’s 2016 “Into the Inferno,” itself a spectacular meditation on the terrible wonders of pyroclastic flow. Another group would have made the acquaintance of the scientist-adventurers through the 1987 ”Nature” episode “Volcano Watchers,” broadcast just four years before their deaths on June 3, 1991 in…

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​Sciamma Finds Magic in ‘Petite Maman’

January 20th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Céline Sciamma follows “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” – arguably her best film in an already sensational career – with “Petite Maman,” a lovely reminder of the filmmaker’s interest in themes of childhood, transitions, and liminality. At a perfect 72 minutes, “Petite Maman” is Sciamma’s shortest feature to date. A number of observers, as well as the filmmaker herself, have pointed out the movie’s thematic similarities to the work…

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