Cinema

​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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​Sean Baker’s ‘Red Rocket’ Is Go for Launch

January 20th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Multiple observers have pointed to filmmaker Sean Baker’s practice of extending radical empathy to the characters who inhabit his fascinating, colorful film world. In “Red Rocket,” Baker continues to explore this territory with a high-wire balancing act that has energized critical debate and sparked conversation about the fictional depiction of reprehensible, immoral, and illegal behavior as demonstrated by the charming, the clever, and the…

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​Sean Baker’s ‘Red Rocket’ Is Go for Launch

January 20th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Multiple observers have pointed to filmmaker Sean Baker’s practice of extending radical empathy to the characters who inhabit his fascinating, colorful film world. In “Red Rocket,” Baker continues to explore this territory with a high-wire balancing act that has energized critical debate and sparked conversation about the fictional depiction of reprehensible, immoral, and illegal behavior as demonstrated by the charming, the clever, and the…

Read more...


​Joachim Trier Introduces ‘The Worst Person in the World’

January 3rd, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

The final film in Joachim Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, “The Worst Person in the World” is one of the best films of 2021. Despite several erroneous descriptions from critics tagging the movie as a romantic comedy, the film most assuredly belongs in the more temperamental sibling genre of romantic drama. Trier’s latest is not without humor, warmth, and wit, but its concerns stretch toward darkness, transience and melancholia. Told in a dozen chapters…

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​‘Drive My Car’: Hamaguchi Takes the Wheel

December 30th, 2021

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

The first Japanese winners of the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe expand “Drive My Car,” the short story of the same name in Haruki Murakami’s 2014 collection “Men Without Women,” to great success. And although the film lost the Palme d’Or to Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” director Hamaguchi’s heavy-duty drama has emerged as one of 2021’s most admired features, collecting a…

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This Is the Sound: Apichatpong Weerasethakul Contemplates ‘Memoria’

December 20th, 2021

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

In one of the best scenes of the year, Tilda Swinton’s Jessica Holland sits with audio engineer Hernan Bedoya (Juan Pablo Urrego) behind a massive mixing console in a recording studio in Colombia, working to recreate a mysterious sound that she has been hearing intermittently. Drawing initially from a collection of stock effects, Jessica and Hernan take their time as they methodically narrow down the possibilities, closing in on the particular…

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​Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Licorice Pizza’ Has All the Best Toppings

December 15th, 2021

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Since his big-screen debut in 1996, Paul Thomas Anderson has made a series of rewarding movies as identifiable by their director’s gift for dazzling cinematics as they are by bravura performances and exhilarating ensembles. Anderson has noted that there is nothing quite as exciting as watching a movie star at work, but unknown actors bring an altogether different kind of energy to the mix. In his ninth feature film, “Licorice Pizza,” the…

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