April 10th, 2019
Following a world premiere as one of the opening night selections of the Sundance Film Festival in January, conceptual visual artist Rashid Johnson’s adaptation of Richard Wright’s venerable “Native Son” debuts April 6 on HBO. The third big screen version of the story of Bigger Thomas, Wright’s film retains many of the book’s central plot points and its ideological critique of institutional racism. The screenplay, by Pulitzer-winner Suzan-Lori Parks, updates sparingly and,…
April 3rd, 2019
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With enough mirrors, doublings, and doppelgangers to make Hitchcock, Kubrick and Welles proud, Jordan Peele’s “Us” cements the filmmaker’s reputation as a master craftsman and visual stylist. Creepy, funny, and wicked sharp, the film’s genre is horror, the ideas are expansive and the execution clean. An ominous text prologue alludes to the networks of unused and abandoned tunnels snaking underneath the streets and communities of the United States (shortly, a glimpse of the VHS…
March 27th, 2019
Set in the fictional Little Woods, North Dakota -- a small town in the western oil patch not too far from the Canadian border -- Nia DaCosta’s first feature film as writer-director marks an auspicious and confident debut. Recalling some of the same issues explored in Courtney Hunt’s memorable “Frozen River,” “Little Woods” also shares its point of view through the harrowing day-to-day of two working-class women pushed to break the law to survive. While “Frozen River”…
March 21st, 2019
FARGO – Most people know the Trail of Tears that followed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The U.S. government – under the direction of President Andrew Jackson – forcibly removed tens of thousands of Natives from their ancestral homes.
Thousands were murdered or died along the way west of the Mississippi River.
Less well known is that in 1869 the Xoshga Hidatsa People under the leadership of Crow Flies High and Bobtail Bull, fled persecution and lived along the Missouri River near…
March 20th, 2019
The 19th Fargo Festival begins on Tuesday, March 19th and runs until Saturday, March 23. Continuing a tradition of excellence in local arts programming, the event provides both casual moviegoers and cinephiles with multiple opportunities to see remarkable shorts and features on the two big screens of the Fargo Theatre. Guided by Fargo Theatre Executive Director Emily Beck, organizers work year-round to prepare for the largest annual moving image event in the state of North Dakota.
Many…
March 20th, 2019
Early 1960s Oklahoma is an ideal setting for classic coming of age themes in Martha Stephens’s “To the Stars.” Richer in characterization and emotion than it is in plotting, “To the Stars” capitalizes on Andrew Reed’s beautiful monochromatic cinematography, with inky blacks and shimmering silvers aspiring to the same kind of nostalgia conjured by the legendary director of photography Robert Surtees in “The Last Picture Show.” Shannon Bradley-Colleary’s screenplay…
March 20th, 2019
With the 19th annual Fargo Film Festival underway this week, film lovers and filmmakers are flocking to the Fargo Theatre to catch screenings. One local filmmaker, Steven Warkel, got to see the short film that he wrote and directed, “Small Talk,” come to life on the big screen.
“Small Talk,” which was produced last spring as a student film for MSUM’s film production program, follows a young man through turbulent emotions as he processes the hospitalization and potential death…
March 13th, 2019
Bonafide modern classic “Napoleon Dynamite” celebrates fifteen years of sweet jumps with a victory tour featuring stars Jon Heder and Efren Ramirez. As part of the 2019 Fargo Film Festival, Jade Presents will bring the film to the Fargo Theatre on Thursday, March 21. Heder and Ramirez will participate in an on-stage discussion following the movie.
Ramirez spoke to High Plains Reader film editor Greg Carlson about becoming an accidental icon.
HPR: You were born in Los Angeles and got…
March 6th, 2019
Almost relegated to the trashcan of history and the file drawer marked for popular cultural ephemera, the audio and/or video recordings of the industrial musical are properly dusted off and polished to a state of splendor in Dava Whisenant’s “Bathtubs Over Broadway.” The first-time feature director, who earned the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Filmmaker at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, follows longtime David Letterman staff writer Steve Young on his dogged…
February 13th, 2019
Documentarian Penny Lane adds another entertaining movie to her filmography with an inside look at the recent rise of the Satanic Temple. As a movie experience, “Hail Satan?” often lives deliciously. The film might even turn out to be a prime recruitment video for the organization co-founded in 2013 by onscreen imp/spokesperson Lucien Greaves. TST is the perfect subject for the witty and insightful Lane, who detonates truth bomb after truth bomb in a campaign to highlight the…
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By Bryce Vincent Haugen More than 300 people gathered at Trinity Lutheran Church in central Moorhead on Jan. 27 for “constitutional observer” training. Led by the Immigrant Defense Network and supported locally by the West Area…
By Kooper Shagena Just off of I-94 and Highway 83 on State Street in Bismarck, an abandoned Kmart sits behind an empty parking lot, watching the cars roll on and off the interstate exchange. It has been standing there quietly since…
Saturday, January 31, mingling at 6:15 p.m. and program at 7 p.m.Fine Arts Club, 601 4th St. S., FargoThe FM Symphony is getting intimate by launching a “Small Stages” chamber music series and it's bringing folks together via…
By John Strand If you are reading this editorial and you too are worried sick about the state of our country, keep reading. Maybe we can inspire each other. It was near closing time. We were discussing our values crisis. So this…
By Ed RaymondA mind that snapped, cracked, and popped at one hundredI wasn’t going to read a long column called “Centenarian: A Diary of a Hundredth Year” by Calvin Tomkins celebrating his birthday on December 17 of 2025…
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 Rick GionSince the much-dreaded Covid years, there has been much ebb and flow in the Fargo-Moorhead restaurant scene. In 2025, that trend continued with some major additions and closings. Let’s start the New Year on a positive…
Saturday, January 17, doors at 7:30 p.m.The Aquarium above Dempsey’s, 226 N. Broadway, FargoThe Slow Death is a punk supergroup led by Jesse Thorson, with members and collaborators that include members of The Ergs!, Dillinger…
By Greg Carlson The versatile Nia DaCosta follows her underseen and underappreciated “Hedda” (one of my 2025 favorites) with the first female-helmed entry in the 28 Days/Weeks/Years Later series, a fascinating and grisly…
By Jacinta ZensThe Guerrilla Girls, an internationally renowned anonymous feminist art collective, have been bringing attention to the gender and racial imbalances in contemporary art institutions for the last 40 years. They have…
Saturday, January 31, 6:30-9 p.m.Transfiguration Fitness, 764 34th St. N., Unit P, FargoAn enchanting evening celebrating movement and creativity in a staff-student showcase. This is a family-friendly event showcasing pole, aerial…
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…
By Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com At the beginning of the movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas," the Grinch is introduced as having a smaller than average heart, but as the movie progresses, his heart increases three…
January 31, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.Viking Ship Park, 202 1st Ave. N., Moorhead2026 marks 10 years of frosty fun! Enjoy sauna sessions with Log the Sauna, try Snowga (yoga in the snow), take a guided snowshoe nature hike, listen to live…
By Vern Thompson Benjamin Franklin offered one of the most sobering warnings in American history. When asked what kind of government the framers had created in 1787, he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Few words…
