by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | June 15th, 2020
Brady Daley does UI/UX design, data visualization, and media production in Seattle, where he lives with his girlfriend Erika, dog Phinneas (Finn), and his girlfriend’s cat Annie, who hates him. He primarily collects horror but also rescues and archives special interest, conspiracy theory, and instructional titles he fears will be lost to time.
Greg Carlson: Erika worries she will find you crushed beneath the collection in your office. How do you keep your movies organized?
Brady Daley:…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | June 7th, 2020
Natasha Gregson Wagner, known to David Lynch fans for her performance in “Lost Highway,” guides viewers through an intimate but tightly controlled portrait of her iconic mother in “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind.” Available on HBO following a Sundance premiere in January, the biographical documentary is directed by veteran “making of” maestro Laurent Bouzereau, frequent chronicler of Steven Spielberg projects and architect of dozens of other behind-the-scenes shorts.…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 31st, 2020
Another significant 2020 title skipping theatrical release for digital platforms, Josephine Decker’s “Shirley” premiered at Sundance in January, where Decker received a U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Auteur Filmmaking. “Shirley” marks yet another career milestone for the dynamic filmmaker as she moves in the direction of wider accessibility and potentially larger audiences without abandoning the sharpest hallmarks of her breathtakingly personal storytelling techniques.…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 23rd, 2020
The most compelling and powerful idea in Kitty Green’s compelling and powerful film “The Assistant” resides in the network of complicity protecting the predator/stand-in for Harvey Weinstein and those like him. Green expresses, in the microcosmic minutiae of office-life orbit, a detailed picture of institutionalized harassment and mistreatment. Even though the movie’s particular events are set within the film industry, Green’s message is universal: for every man in a position…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 19th, 2020
Caity Birmingham is a production designer who lives in Los Angeles. We have been friends for a long time, and originally bonded over our mutual appreciation of teen movies. In addition to that genre, she also loves costume dramas and apocalyptic sci-fi. Caity works on feature films, and also does a lot of funny television, including “Comedy Bang! Bang!,” “Documentary Now!” and “Joe Pera Talks with You.”
Greg Carlson: Movies are not necessarily attractive as objects on a…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 10th, 2020
Cinematic depictions of the creative process are as common as they are usually unconvincing. Whether encapsulated in a montage or stretched out over several scenes, images of painters painting, composers composing, writers writing, and rockers rocking are regularly meant to convey to the viewer a sense of awe or accomplishment when the final product is revealed. Frustration and failure can also factor in some of the best films about the struggles of making something out of nothing.…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 2nd, 2020
As alternative viewing strategies for avid moviegoers seeking fresh content continue, the South by Southwest filmmakers who opted to join the Amazon Prime collection have benefited this week from attention that would have otherwise been more limited by the in-person version of the Austin, Texas showcase. One of the best films in the lineup is Rachel Harrison Gordon’s narrative short “Broken Bird.” Crafted with a level of sophistication and storytelling acumen rarely seen in…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | April 26th, 2020
Carlo Mirabella-Davis’s noteworthy feature debut as writer-director examines, with a degree of precision and deliberateness that would impress Alfred Hitchcock, the actions of a young woman who consumes inedible objects as a way to attain some measure of control in her suffocating marriage to a wealthy man. The disorder, identified in the DSM-V as pica, includes subtypes categorized by the eating of specific non-nutritional items ranging from glass to stones to soil to sharp objects.…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | April 17th, 2020
Future Activists Meet at Newnham and LeBrecht’s “Crip Camp”
Sundance 2020 opening night selection and audience award winner “Crip Camp” -- now streaming on Netflix -- recounts the incredible grassroots movement that ultimately led to the passage and implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law on July 26, 1990. But before that ceremonial milestone, which appears late in Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht’s terrific documentary, audiences are…
by Greg Carlson | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | April 14th, 2020
My friend Mike Scholtz, the director of “Riplist” and many other fantastic documentaries, collects movies when he’s not making them. He especially likes VHS and once rescued the children of Pine City, Minnesota by purchasing tapes of “Fritz the Cat” and “Flesh Gordon” that had been shelved in the local thrift store’s kid video section.
GC: Are you format agnostic?
MS: It never bothers me when I watch a movie on VHS, even if I know I could be watching it on 4K. It…
By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.comFargo, ND – Mayor Mahoney issued a city-wide mask mandate on Oct. 19th, shortly after North Dakota became the state with the largest number of new cases per capita in the US, a record it…
Shawnee Kaseman of Wishek, ND was awarded the title of Miss North Dakota for America 2020 this past September, but instead of preparing to hit the stage in a glittering gown under sparkling lights,she addressed pageant judges from…
Thursday, March 19, 4:30- 8 pm1609 19th Ave N, FargoCass County Soil Conservation District is hosting their annual Ladies’ Ag Night supper event. This event has a goal of bringing together multiple generations of women involved…
In a news cycle where it’s tough to discern fact from fiction, you may have noticed that a number of conservative media consumers are announcing their dramatic exit from Facebook and Twitter. After Twitter labeled a number of…
Is There Personal Liberty? When Does It Begin And End?It was bound to happen to an inquiring mind. Scientists around the world are monitoring sewage for outbreaks of COVID-19 because victims of the virus have had the very…
To say that this year’s Bartenders Battle was the best display of talent in the six years since its creation would be an understatement and a disservice to not only the bartenders who made it into the competition, but also the…
Reviving Rural Grocery Stores in North DakotaBy Annie PrafckeFargo, ND – On October 7th, Gov. Doug Burgum awarded Milnor Market and the Forman grocery store project Main Street Awards, as part of an initiative led by the Office…
By John Showalterjohn.d.showalter@gmail.comMusicians and concertgoers alike unexpectedly found their plans disrupted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Artists and venues have been facing a situation that is unprecedented for most…
Sofia Coppola’s delightful distraction from national affairs sees the writer-director returning to her sweet spot: the tiniest whiff of autobiography in a story that, to paraphrase James Stewart’s Macaulay “Mike” Connor in…
By Jill FinkelsonWe’ve been hearing the word Unrest a lot lately. Unrest in the streets. Unrest in the capital. Unrest in our own homes as we struggle to hunker down in the face of the unseen pandemic. People are restless. They…
By Kris Gruberperriex1@gmail.comEloise Breikjern has been the Executive Director of Fargo Moorhead Community Theatre since 2013. She will retire in December.High Plains Reader spoke to her about the strength of her staff, the…
by Kris Gruberperriex1@gmail.comAdam Quesnell's last show at The Cellar beneath the Front Street Taproom in Fargo was in early September of 2018. He was embarking on a seminal move from Minneapolis to LA. As always, his comedy was…
by Jill Finkelsonjsfinkelson99@gmail.comFar North Spirits, located up in Hallock, MN, is the northernmost distillery in the lower 48. They may be young in the distillery world but the farm and the spirit reach far into the past.…
by Laurie J Bakeremsdatter@gmail.com Part of modern yoga is participating in the world around us. We live in a time of upheaval in society and nature, and of great suffering in humans of all ages. Most of us perceive this suffering…
By Ashlee Nordquisthpr@hpr1.comI've come to the conclusion that not everyone understands why my brother and I went on ventilators for covid and what that means. As I survived and my brother SO FAR is improving, I can make jokes and…
By Marc de Cellemarcdecelle@midco.netAs someone who has voted for both Republicans and Democrats in the last decade, and who has participated as both a poll worker and an absentee vote counter in the last five years, I feel it's my…
