January 13th, 2025
By Greg Carlson
The Paris-born filmmaker Mati Diop made a major splash in 2019 with the fascinating feature “Atlantics,” which received the Grand Prix at Cannes. A supernatural reimagining inspired by her 2009 nonfiction short, Diop’s movie also marked the first time a film directed by a Black woman played in competition at the famous festival. Diop’s father is the Senegalese musician Wasis Diop and her late uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty directed the landmark…
January 6th, 2025
By Greg Carlson
Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s narrative fiction feature debut “All We Imagine as Light” is, among other things, a cinematic consideration of place. The movie begins but does not end in Mumbai, and the viewer hears multiple languages spoken throughout the deceptively simple and seductive story. Like Varda’s Paris in “Cléo From 5 to 7” (1962), Wong’s Hong Kong in “Chungking Express” (1994), and the titular Rio suburb in Meirelles…
December 30th, 2024
By Greg Carlson
Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn’s previous feature, “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” was a dizzy, snarky riff on the Old Dark House motif and one of 2022’s most slept-on cinematic treats. Now, with a major Oscar-winning star in Nicole Kidman and a high-visibility Christmas Day release, the director — who also wrote the screenplay and produced — is poised to raise her profile with “Babygirl.” A throwback to the era of psychologically-motivated…
December 23rd, 2024
By Greg Carlson
Essential viewing for cinephiles of any generation, director David Hinton’s engrossing documentary, “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger,” celebrates one of cinema’s most fruitful partnerships. Hosted by on-screen narrator Martin Scorsese, whose personal relationship with Powell is addressed in the film, “Made in England” is a heartfelt tribute to the uncompromising vision of a pair of remarkable artists. Like previous…
December 17th, 2024
By Greg Carlson
Brady Corbet, the American screen actor turned auteur, is only 36 years old. He doesn’t enjoy the same level of fan adoration that accompanies the projects of Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan and the like, but one imagines that the filmmaker hopes that his third feature film could change that status. Alexandra Schwartz’s fresh profile of Corbet and “The Brutalist” in The New Yorker acknowledges the risks of old-fashioned…
December 9th, 2024
By Greg Carlson
For the better part of a decade, filmmaker Robert Eggers has worked toward the realization of an adaptation of “Nosferatu,” the genre-defining horror masterpiece originally brought to the screen by F. W. Murnau in 1922. The wait, as it turns out, has been well worth it. Murnau’s German Expressionist creepshow, still commanding attention more than a century after its unholy birth, previously inspired Werner Herzog’s 1979 stab featuring…
December 2nd, 2024
By Greg Carlson
The Oscar-winning writer-director Andrea Arnold returns to scripted, feature-length fiction filmmaking with the quintessentially Arnoldian “Bird,” an unsettling coming-of-age tale set in the hard-edged environs of northern Kent. Arnold’s own personal history, which includes teenage parents and a council estate residency during childhood, has previously inspired the autobiographical impulse in her filmmaking. The fantasy elements that govern…
November 25th, 2024
By Greg Carlson
For many years, Mark Cousins has been one of the most ambitious chroniclers of movie culture. The indefatigable documentarian might be best known for his 2011 project “The Story of Film: An Odyssey.” That 930-minute epic was programmed in America on Turner Classic Movies and is now available on physical media along with its 2021 sequel, “The Story of Film: A New Generation.” “My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock,” running a “mere” 120…
November 18th, 2024
By Greg Carlson
Certain to be included on a sizable number of 2024 best-of lists, Johan Grimonprez’s striking “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” is essential viewing for political history and jazz music aficionados. The ambitious essay-style documentary experience, clocking in at a hefty (but never dull) 150 minutes, connects the dots linking the 1961 assassination of Congolese politician Patrice Lumumba to a grand narrative pulling together race, power,…
November 13th, 2024
By Greg Carlson
Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner “Anora” is one of the year’s best. Fans of the formidable filmmaker might not claim that the beautifully crafted melodrama, which can turn on a dime between outrageous comic farce and heartbreaking humanist plea, is necessarily a better movie than “The Florida Project,” but “Anora” is of a piece with the grand thematic arc of Baker’s filmography. Memorably, the director dedicated the Cannes honor to…
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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…
Friday, February 13, 7-10 p.m.Sanctuary Events Center, 670 4th Ave. N., FargoIn a world reshaped by the fall of Roe v. Wade, the commitment of The Prairie Abortion Fund (PAF) hasn’t faltered, but continues to evolve. This is…
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 RaymondTrump, White House, cabinet and advisors are documented criminal liars who should be deported to Mars on Musk’s rockets So, our Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) police are out in the country arresting the…
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 For the Generation X members obsessed with the incredible 90s music scene that gave us everything from the DIY exuberance of riot grrrl founding mothers Bikini Kill, to the noisy NYC no wave of Sonic Youth, to the…
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…
