Cinema

Speaking Evil: ‘The Tribe’ tells a dark tale

April 15th, 2015

Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy engineers a jaw-dropping feature debut in “The Tribe,” a stylistic tour de force that juxtaposes the gorgeousness of cinematic execution against the horror of the narrative’s unrelentingly grim subject matter.

Set in a Ukrainian boarding school for the deaf, “The Tribe” follows new student Sergey (Grygoriy Fesenko) as he receives an education in the institution’s real subjects: theft, assault, prostitution, exploitation and murder. Unbroken,…

Godard as audacious as ever in latest movie

April 15th, 2015

Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave filmmaking movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is now in his 80s, but still making movies that are no less daring in “breaking the rules” of traditional cinematic techniques to express his ideas in new ways.

His “Adieu au langage” (“Goodbye to Language”) won him his first Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and earlier this year it won the U.S. National Society of Film Critics Award for Best…

Polsky’s hockey doc shoots and scores

April 8th, 2015

Gabe Polsky’s “Red Army” skates by as swiftly and forcefully as the larger-than-life hockey personalities it closely examines.

Flipping the American “Miracle on Ice” narrative on its head, Polsky’s sharp, attentive documentary invites viewers to see the dominant Cold War rink soldiers of the Soviet Union’s national team not as Ivan Drago-esque automatons, but rather as hard-working young men just as proud of their country as the kids who played for Herb Brooks on Team USA.…

Classic sci-fi gets restoration and Blu-ray release

April 8th, 2015

A recently-restored version of a beloved science-fiction classic came out on Blu-ray last month from Twilight Time in a limited release of 5,000 units.

“First Men in the Moon” (1964) was a groundbreaking film based on a groundbreaking book by H. G. Wells written more than six decades before men finally did walk on the moon.

Historian-philosopher-author Herbert George Wells is best remembered for writing five sci-fi novels, or “scientific romances,” as they were called when…

All downhill: “Force Majeure”

April 3rd, 2015

Gender, class, marriage and parenthood receive a good working over in Ruben Östlund’s hilarious “Force Majeure,” a gorgeously photographed dream/nightmare vacation travelogue that smartly deploys a human-versus-nature leitmotif to situate the First World problems of its protagonists within a conversation about control, self-control and our lack thereof. More preoccupied with the variety of ways in which males can come undone when their sense of masculinity is challenged than it…

‘Welcome to Leith’ Q&A

April 1st, 2015

Film documents a white supremacist’s attempt to take over a small North Dakota town

“Welcome to Leith” is a new documentary, which premiered at the Sundance and SXSW film festivals, that shows the story of white supremacist Craig Cobb moving to Leith, N.D. and the town’s subsequent attempts to removed him, in real time. Directors Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker received incredible access to the situation as it unfolded. Cobb’s most explosive moments were caught…

Fictionalized Civil War drama is entertaining feminist western

April 1st, 2015

Next week is the 150th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War. For over a century, numerous films have treated various dramatic aspects of the subject, some of the more famous ranging from “The Birth of a Nation,” “Gone With the Wind,” “The Red Badge of Courage,” “Glory,” “Gettysburg” and the recent “Lincoln.” Several have also fictionalized to various degrees the exploits of notorious Confederate guerilla William Quantrill and his raiders. One of the…

Watching You: ‘Citizenfour’ shares real-life terror

March 25th, 2015

Oscar-winning documentary feature “Citizenfour” is a you-are-there record of the National Security Agency’s global and domestic surveillance program revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, and what it lacks in cinematic panache it more than makes up for in jaw-dropping urgency and bomb-blast power.

Alan Scherstuhl astutely points out that the movie is “a must-see piece of work even if, in its totality, it's underwhelming as argument or cinema.” The movie earns its…

Final Cinefest features rare and classic films

March 25th, 2015

From March 19 through 22, I attended the 35th, and final, annual Cinefest convention of film lovers in Syracuse, NY, along with over 700 other people. Specializing in films hard to find outside of archives and private collections, it has become increasingly difficult to find theatres that can run archival 35mm film prints, and new digital restorations rarely have copies made on the 16mm film format that has been the festival’s mainstay since it started in 1981.

The festival still…

Toby Jones’ cartoon reality

March 18th, 2015

AJ's Infinite Summer

From Fargo South High to Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network’s Toby Jones sat down with the High Plains Reader over coffee amid his Fargo Film Festival visit.

Jones, a Fargo native and graduate of Fargo South High, is an Emmy-nominated writer and storyboard artist for “Regular Show.” The show reaches an estimated 2 to 2.5 million viewers per week and even features the voice of Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) as Skips, one of its regular characters.

Madeline Queripel and Toby Jones at Fargo Film Festival / Photo by Kensie Wallner