Cinema

​Foster Returns to Director’s Chair with “Money Monster”

May 20th, 2016

“Money Monster” is Jodie Foster’s first feature directorial effort since 2011’s curiosity “The Beaver,” blending elements of social satire, bomb vest thriller, and conspiracy drama – all of it unfolding in close to real time. Stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts, reuniting in roles they can manage while asleep, play cable TV host Lee Gates and director Patty Fenn of the titular investment/infotainment spectacle. The two, along with the rest of their crew, are forced to…

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​Addiction and Artists

May 19th, 2016

“We Are the Only People We Know” is a documentary film project, helmed by former Fargo resident, Ella Rowe. The documentary will provide intimate portraits of artists battling addiction. According to the project web site, viewers will be “invited into the lives of select individuals, who will allow us to take a very real look at the day to day realities of the creative mind in recovery. We will travel with them, holding their hand through the painful recollections, crying with…

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SCI-FI A STAPLE OF 1950s DRIVE-IN FARE

May 11th, 2016

May (sometimes April or June, depending on the weather) is traditionally the month that drive-in movie theatres reopen for the season in towns still lucky enough to have one. Fargo-Moorhead and Grand Forks have been without drive-in theatres for over a quarter-century, and the final remaining North Dakota drive-in closed four years ago in Williston. However, there are still a few surviving in Minnesota and South Dakota.

Their heyday was the 1950s and 60s and their most popular programs…

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Some Kind of Friend: “Purple Rain” Returns to Cinemas

May 11th, 2016

Following the death of Prince on April 21, 2016, televised and theatrical screenings of “Purple Rain” were among the first and most potent opportunities for public expressions of grief. While unavailable on Netflix and HBO Go, the movie was scheduled by MTV and VH1 immediately, and several multiplex chains, including AMC, Carmike and Marcus, booked limited engagements of the cinematic phenomenon.

Originally produced on a budget of 7.2 million dollars with no guarantee of full studio…

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​VINTAGE 3-D SCI-FI/HORROR NOW ON 3-D BLU-RAY

May 7th, 2016

Three-dimensional movies remain a significant portion of today’s Hollywood releases, but younger viewers may need to be reminded that 3-D was both popular and effective well over half a century ago.

Fans of 3-D can rejoice that within the past six months two restorations of vintage 3-D science-fiction/horror films have come out on feature-packed 3-D Blu-ray editions. While neither is particularly a “classic” film, both have excellent 3-D and fine picture quality, as well as a…

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​SAULNIER’S ‘GREEN ROOM’ LOCKS DOWN SMART HORROR

May 6th, 2016

“Green Room,” writer-director Jeremy Saulnier’s follow-up to the taut and terrific revenge thriller “Blue Ruin,” is one of the year’s best, an elegantly crafted nightmare directed with savvy and smarts.

The simple logline – a touring punk quartet runs afoul of a gang of murderous, racist skinheads – belies the level of craft Saulnier brings to what could so easily be another Old Dark House/And Then There Were None genre exercise. In my 2014 review of “Blue Ruin,” I…

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​REMEMBERING PRINCE

April 29th, 2016

The first words I wrote for the High Plains Reader covered Prince’s December 8, 1997 Fargodome concert. Editor John Lamb knew I was a big fan, and asked me to say something about the show. John’s gesture meant a great deal to me, and my work for HPR has been an important part of my life ever since that memorable winter.

Purple-blooded followers of the Minnesota Vikings know that their devotion is anything but easy, and after the Revolution disbanded and especially into the new…

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​SURVIVAL ADVENTURES ON BLU-RAY

April 27th, 2016


While students prepare to survive final exams and end-of-semester projects over the next few weeks, two underrated films dealing with more extreme types of survival just came out on Blu-ray this April 5 and 19.

A British film released in the U.S. in 1955, “The Purple Plain” (1954) is a well-produced and often-moving J. Arthur Rank production starring Gregory Peck as a Canadian pilot serving with the British in Burma during World War II. None of his fellow flyers want to fly with him…

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​BARK AND BITE: SOLONDZ GETS A “WIENER DOG”

April 20th, 2016

At the Sundance Film Festival, writer-director Todd Solondz described drawing his inspiration for “Wiener-Dog” from an unlikely pair of cinematic hallmarks: Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar” (1966) and Joe Camp’s “Benji” (1974). Solondz’s movie, as dark, hilarious, and observant as any of the features in his deeply impressive filmography, does indeed borrow from those two movies, aligning with Bresson’s unflinching examination of life’s cruelties and Camp’s…

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​AKERMAN BIDS ADIEU: ‘NO HOME MOVIE’

April 13th, 2016

Following its Locarno Film Festival premiere in August of 2015, the great Chantal Akerman’s final work, “No Home Movie,” now makes its way to limited theatrical release and digital platforms in the United States.

Currently viewable on Fandor – a fitting small-screen residence – the nonfiction meditation featuring Akerman’s mother Natalia in her twilight takes on new shades of meaning and acute pangs of melancholy in light of Akerman’s October 2015 suicide. Natalia died in…

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