Cinema

​Diwan Adapts a Timely ‘Happening’

August 17th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Audrey Diwan’s “Happening,” which premiered at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival and screened in the Spotlight section of Sundance earlier this year, feels contemporary and immediate despite being set in 1963.

The story of Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) – a promising student of literature seeking an illegal abortion – unfolds with meticulous craft and exacting rhythm. Using the weeks of Anne’s pregnancy like chapter markers, an…

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​‘Nope’: Peele Goes West in Imaginative Genre Mash-Up

August 17th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

In addition to boasting one of the year’s best titles, Jordan Peele’s mind- and genre-bending mash-up “Nope” is big and bold and willing to take risks, even if those wild gambits don’t always pay dividends. The filmmaker’s third feature as writer/producer/director pokes and prods at all kinds of fascinating text and subtext, once again suggesting that there is much more to his stories than what may only be observable on a superficial…

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​Collecting Movies With Raymond Rea

August 17th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Filmmaker and educator Raymond Rea, who recently retired from Minnesota State University Moorhead, made an indelible impact on the Fargo-Moorhead film community.

In 2008, Rea arrived in Minnesota following years in San Francisco, where he taught at City College and San Francisco State University. Rea made his way to the West Coast from New York – where he studied with cinematographer Beda Bakta at NYU – by way of Ann Arbor. He also took classes…

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​‘Nope’: Peele Goes West in Imaginative Genre Mash-Up

August 1st, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

In addition to boasting one of the year’s best titles, Jordan Peele’s mind- and genre-bending mash-up “Nope” is big and bold and willing to take risks, even if those wild gambits don’t always pay dividends. The filmmaker’s third feature as writer/producer/director pokes and prods at all kinds of fascinating text and subtext, once again suggesting that there is much more to his stories than what may only be observable on a superficial…

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​Brand and Hyde Make Sex Work in ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’

July 24th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Available on Hulu and in a limited theatrical engagement following its premiere as part of the Sundance Film Festival in January, “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” spins what might easily have been a much darker examination of sexuality, aging, generational and gender-based expectations, and the ethics of prostitution into a primarily fluffy corona of pink cotton candy.

Many, myself included, will concede that is precisely the intention of…

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​Women Helping Women: Lessin and Pildes Meet ‘The Janes’

July 20th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, anticipating the recent Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade, began work on their documentary “The Janes” in 2019. The movie, now available to view on HBO Max following a January premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival (which also hosted Phyllis Nagy’s “Call Jane” and Audrey Diwan’s “Happening”), chronicles an important moment in the still-unfolding history of abortion rights…

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​Raiff Asks Johnson to Dance in ‘Cha Cha Real Smooth’

July 20th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” is writer/director/actor Cooper Raiff’s follow-up to “Shithouse,” and the titles of both films disguise, or at least misdirect, the earnest and heartfelt positivity of Raiff’s hip-to-be-square worldview.

“Cha Cha Real Smooth,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January prior to a limited theatrical run and a streaming home on Apple+ this June, feels a lot like a spiritual sequel to “Shithouse.”…

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​Decker Adapts YA Novel ‘The Sky Is Everywhere’

July 3rd, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

While some Josephine Decker fans have decided to turn up their noses at her adaptation of Jandy Nelson’s 2010 YA novel “The Sky Is Everywhere,” I was delighted by the filmmaker’s impossibly beautiful, candy-colored vision of grief and love.

Nelson prepared her own book for the screen, making a few key changes to the story of teenage Lennie Walker (Grace Kaufman) as the heroine who figures out how to cope following the unexpected death of…

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​A Parent Suffering From Mental Illness: Dolan’s ‘You Are Not My Mother’

June 25th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Kate Dolan’s dark and atmospheric feature debut “You Are Not My Mother” lives at the fringes of folk horror, but the underlying family melodrama drives a story more interested in generational trauma than supernatural fairytale.

In significant ways a thematic companion piece to Natalie Erika James’s intense “Relic,” Dolan’s movie carefully locates the sweet spot between creepy Celtic lore and the equally troubling responsibilities that…

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​Talia Osteen’s Feature Debut ‘Sex Appeal’ Sends Positive Message

June 20th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Talia Osteen’s high-concept “Sex Appeal” is more charming than it has any right to be. Osteen’s feature directorial debut, which can be seen in the United States on Hulu, takes turns embracing formulaic conventions and subverting them.

Fortunately, some chemistry between appealing lead Mika Abdalla (as brainiac Avery Hansen-White) and Jake Short (as longtime torch-bearer Larson) offsets the predictability of both the biggest story beats and…

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