October 12th, 2016
By Greg Carlson
gregcarlson1@gmail.com
An intuitive and energetic coming of age drama that trades the Val Melaina neighborhood of Vittorio De Sica’s Rome in “Bicycle Thieves” for current day Richmond in the Bay Area, Justin Tipping’s “Kicks” marks one of the year’s most memorable features. Tipping’s directorial debut, “Kicks” hovers over the shoulder of teenager Brandon (Jahking Guillory) through an incident that quickly escalates to a series of choices that lead to…
October 5th, 2016
Based on Ron Suskind’s 2014 book “Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism,” the documentary feature “Life, Animated” tells the story of Suskind’s son Owen, who at the age of three withdrew into a nonverbal world that devastated his family.
Diagnosed with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Owen speaks only what his parents describe as “gibberish” until a viewing of “The Little Mermaid” reveals that Owen is capable of cognitively sophisticated…
October 5th, 2016
October is well-known as the Halloween season, inspiring numerous screenings of horror films or films with horror-fantasy elements. Last week I reviewed “Chandu the Magician” (1932), a kind of off-beat semi-horror film with Bela Lugosi, new to Blu-ray. This week I’ll continue the horror theme with a low-budget obscurity from the late 1950s that deserves a second look.
But October is more than horror movie month. It’s also the end of the major league baseball season and the…
September 28th, 2016
By Greg Carlson
Winner of the grand jury prize for best documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s “Weiner” is one of 2016’s must-see features.
Following the unbelievable NYC mayoral campaign of disgraced politician Anthony D. Weiner from the inside, Kriegman and Steinberg’s movie boasts a compelling up-close-and-personal take on high stakes elections and higher risk narcissism.
Granted incredible all-access passes to Weiner’s…
September 28th, 2016
There are plenty of more artistic, edifying, or thought-provoking films to watch, but genre films tend to be the cinematic equivalent of comfort food, that can be returned to repeatedly for an entertaining hour or two.
The crisp clarity of a high-definition image makes the attraction to revisit favorites even stronger. Genres may be westerns, musicals, action-adventures, mystery-thrillers, or others, but this time of year tends to inspire watching horror/sci-fi movies, and especially…
September 21st, 2016
Legendary Hollywood icon Clark Gable is best-remembered as Rhett Butler opposite Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara in the epic “Gone With the Wind” (1939), and as Fletcher Christian opposite Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh in MGM’s “Mutiny On the Bounty” (1935), both of which won Academy Awards for Best Picture (and both on excellent Blu-ray editions from Warner Home Video). He won the Best Actor Oscar opposite Claudette Colbert’s Best Actress performance in Frank…
September 21st, 2016
Longtime admirers of filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan will celebrate his third effort as writer-director when “Manchester by the Sea” moves into theaters, bringing with it plenty of buzz surrounding the performances of Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams.
Extending his reputation for astonishing voices and unforgettable characters, Lonergan also continues his unflinching affair with the darkness. Affleck’s morose, taciturn loner Lee Chandler faces a deeply buried personal tragedy when…
September 14th, 2016
Building his narrative around a pair of onstage conversations between directors and friends Mike Nichols and Jack O’Brien just four months before the death of Nichols in 2014, Douglas McGrath creates an intimate, pleasurable portrait of the early years and first two movies of the emergent filmmaker and future EGOT collector.
While several critics, including Guy Lodge in “Variety,” have cited the film’s abbreviated 72-minute length as a liability, McGrath’s sharp focus on the…
September 14th, 2016
Last month Kino Lorber released a pair of Randolph Scott westerns to Blu-ray, recently restored with some difficulty to their original Cinecolor hues. Cinecolor was a less-costly alternative to Technicolor, based upon two complementary colors instead of three primary colors. It was still relatively rare for lower-budget movies to shoot in color 65 and more years ago, and later reissues by other distributors were often in black-and-white. The camera negatives had been lost over the years…
September 7th, 2016
Race relations have been hot topics in the news lately, as have problems concerning economic class, sexual abuse, drugs, and alcohol, often all interrelated. Hollywood movies tend to avoid such themes as anything other than secondary plot points in mainstream action-adventures, except for a few instances of self-consciously serious films hoping for Academy Award recognition.
This was even more true during the heyday of the classic studio system from the 1920s through the 1940s. Seventy…
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By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.comNorth Dakota communities will join a “nationwide day of defiance” against authoritarianism and President Donald Trump’s policies on Saturday, June 14. A range of "No Kings" events…
From concerts and car shows to Japanese art and Juneteenth celebrations, there's so much going on around the region this summer. This year's High Plains Reader Summer Events Calendar is back and bigger than ever. It's packed with…
June 21, 11 a.m. - 11 p.m.Fargo Theatre, 314 Broadway N., Fargo“We Watch Shudder,” Fargo’s favorite horror podcasters, bring on the darkness during the longest day of the year. The Darkest Day of Horror Film Festival features…
By John Strandjas@hpr1.com One description that perhaps aptly describes the mental state of many lately is that they feel they are attached to a string. Or several strings. Call it the notion that people are played like puppets,…
By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comThe Fiddler on the roof was taking a big chance after two thousand years of hate Cal Thomas, who seems to hate a lot in a journalistic and broadcasting career where he expresses his conservative…
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 Gionrickgion@gmail.com After a very inspiring conversation with Kayla Houchin of Sonder Bakehouse a few weeks ago, I decided that it’s an appropriate time to write a column about some of the sweet people who are involved…
By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.comThe Moorhead Public Library will offer three free, all-ages outdoor concerts featuring regional bands this summer. The series begins on June 12 with the Meat Rabbits, a group that blends…
By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Wes Anderson’s twelfth full-length feature, “The Phoenician Scheme,” sees the idiosyncratic auteur pull back from the elaborate storytelling scaffolding and structures of “The Grand…
By Raul Gomezraul@hpr1.com Minutes before Modern’s Celebration of Life opened its door at the Sons of Norway, I was fiddling with the bar computer, trying to pull up the playlists of Modern’s work I had set aside for the…
By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.comAct Up Theatre, in partnership with Minnesota State University Moorhead, will present “The Sound of Music” on June 10-14. All shows are at 7:30 p.m. at the Minnesota State Moorhead’s…
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 There appear to be differences in the incidence of mental illnesses between men and women. For example, women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, post-traumatic stress…
By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…
By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson.nd7@gmail.com Our trucking business has me driving almost daily from gas plants in western North Dakota's oil patch to Canada. I haul natural gas liquids (NGLs) products we used to see flared off at…
