Cinema

​Three-time documentary challenge finalists make “A Perfect Record”

January 21st, 2016

For the third consecutive year, local filmmakers Greg Carlson and Tucker Lucas have made the top 12 of the International Documentary/Film Fusion Challenge (IDC), an annual contest for short format documentary films. This year, they placed for their seven-minute documentary, “A Perfect Record,” featuring Fargo Record Fair founder Dean Sime.

Carlson is an associate professor in the Communication Studies and Theatre Art department at Concordia College and is also the director of film…

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Haynes Takes “Carol” On the Road

January 18th, 2016

by Greg Carlson

The meticulous Todd Haynes shares another engrossing 1950s tale of forbidden romance with “Carol,” a thematic sibling to the director’s career high point “Far from Heaven.” Adapted by Phyllis Nagy from Patricia Highsmith’s bracing novel “The Price of Salt,” “Carol” is every bit as feverish as the legendary anecdote describing the book’s origin. In the title role, Cate Blanchett is a well-to-do woman who might possibly be pursuing the distractions of…

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Brando Comes Back in “Listen to Me Marlon”

January 14th, 2016

By Greg Carlson

Fans and admirers of Marlon Brando won’t require any coaxing to see Stevan Riley’s hugely entertaining documentary “Listen to Me Marlon,” but the film is compelling enough to transcend its status as “mere” Hollywood biography. A visual and aural odyssey that explores the actor’s well-known career highlights as well as intimacies selected from hundreds of hours of previously private personal recordings narrated by Brando, the movie delights in showcasing a…

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The year in Blu-ray

December 28th, 2015

After nearly a decade on the market, the Blu-ray home video format has been relatively slow to capture the imagination (and wallets) of the general public. Nevertheless, it has built a solid collector base and has become the medium of choice for discriminating viewers, especially those with home theatres.

Many people may be switching to online streaming options for watching movies while others continue to remain satisfied with DVD quality, but just as in 2014 the year 2015 has seen an…

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The bladder-slapping magic of “The Forbidden Room”

December 25th, 2015


Global treasure Guy Maddin detonates a cinematic depth charge in “The Forbidden Room,” a stunning cascade of images so gorgeous you might think you’ve stumbled upon some long-lost Yma Sumac record sleeve photo shoot leftovers as lensed by Willy Hameister. Bearing all the filmmaker’s signature stylistic fetishes and then some, “The Forbidden Room” was co-directed by Evan Johnson, who also co-scripted along with Maddin and Robert Kotyk. Additional, hilarious “How to Take a…

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Obscure thriller lives again on Blu-ray

December 22nd, 2015

Obscure thriller lives again on Blu-ray

By Christopher P. Jacobs

It is not all that unusual to find some good acting and talented craftsmanship hidden away in otherwise forgettable movies that were made primarily to fill a movie screen for a week until the next release came out. Such a film is the moderately diverting crime thriller “Hell’s Five Hours” (1958), released to Blu-ray this past summer.

The low budget often shows through in this production from Allied Artists, which…

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Lee’s “Chi-Raq” Looks to Increase the Peace

December 18th, 2015

Following the honorary Oscar he received last month at the Governors Awards (along with the blistering truth-to-power acceptance speech he made), Spike Lee doesn’t seem likely to pick up many competitive Academy Award nominations for “Chi-Raq,” even though he should.

Co-written with Kevin Willmott, whose diabolically good “C.S.A.: Confederate States of America” is an inspiration to every college professor who dreams of making it in the movies, “Chi-Raq” bears all the…

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Cult star Louise Brooks: classic late German silent now on Blu-ray

December 12th, 2015

American film actress Louise Brooks had a fairly minor career in Hollywood and is best remembered today for two films she made in Germany for noted director Georg Wilhelm Pabst, “Pandora’s Box” and “Diary of a Lost Girl,” both from 1929. Pabst also made “The White Hell of Pitz Palu” with Leni Riefenstahl the same year, and he is noted for “The Joyless Street” (1925) and “Secrets of a Soul” (1926), among others.

These films have been available on DVD for some time,…

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Two countries, one heart

December 10th, 2015

Ronan goes to “Brooklyn”

John Crowley’s film of Colm Toibin’s popular novel “Brooklyn” features a tremendous Saoirse Ronan – whose thoughtful and inviting presence is more than enough to recommend the movie, despite some of its easy calculations.

As Eilis Lacey, a young woman who leaves her home and family in Enniscorthy, Ireland for the promise of a bigger life in America, Ronan adds another noteworthy performance to her already impressive filmography.

Set in the early…

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Thoughtful, artistic approach to filming reality seen in early documentary now on Blu-ray

December 9th, 2015

It may not yet seem like a North Dakota winter, but as winter weather sets in with its cold and snow it will be easier to relate to the incidents depicted in films like the 1924 British documentary “The Epic of Everest.”

Various cable TV channels these days frequently broadcast stories of mountain climbers in their “extreme sports” coverage, typically with lots of quick hand-held closeups and helicopter shots over a soundtrack of loud, edgy rock music and an excited narrator.…

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