Cinema

​Triet Dissects the Life and Death of a Marriage in “Anatomy of a Fall”

January 18th, 2024

Now playing at the Fargo Theatre.

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Palme d’Or recipient “Anatomy of a Fall” is now enjoying an award-season victory tour, recently picking up Golden Globe wins for both screenplay and foreign language film as well as the National Board of Review’s prize for Best International Film. Oscar nominations should be forthcoming. Filmmaker Justine Triet, who wrote the script with partner and collaborator Arthur Harari, expertly uses the framework of…

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‘How to Have Sex:’ Molly Manning Walker’s Provocatively-Titled Debut Feature Arrives

January 18th, 2024

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

The rough UK equivalent of America’s hedonistic spring break rite of passage, the annual descent of sun-seeking young people on tourist-friendly coastal resorts in Greece, Spain, and other spots following stressful academic exams conjures up youthquake fantasies and parental nightmares in equal measure. The provocative title of filmmaker Molly Manning Walker’s feature directorial debut “How to Have Sex” partially obscures the layered meanings…

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Oren’s Horse Sense: The Charms of ‘Piaffe’

January 11th, 2024

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

  The combination of biographical information and artist statement found under the “about” tab at Ann Oren’s website partly reads, “By dissolving distinctions between plant, animal and human, she asks what it is to be human in an ecosystem immersed in digital culture. Questions about intimacy and identity keep emerging through various audio-visual approaches, while exploring gender, fictosexuality, animality, interspecies and other hybrid…

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She’s Alive: Stone and Lanthimos Bring ‘Poor Things’ to Life

December 22nd, 2023

By Greg Carlson 

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

In a movie year that brought to life an iconic plastic fashion doll and a theoretical physicist who ushered in the Atomic Age, there was no shortage of memorable characters.

But for my money, the crown for the most remarkable cinematic creation of 2023 sits atop the head of reanimated adventurer Bella Baxter. Brought to life (after death) by Emma…

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Garden of Evil: Jonathan Glazer Goes to ‘The Zone of Interest’

December 18th, 2023

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Loosely based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis, Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of “The Zone of Interest” makes a perfect visual companion to the great political thinker Hannah Arendt’s most quoted concept.

Introduced in her 1961 work for “The New Yorker” and then incorporated into the title of the 1963 book “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” Arendt’s argument that the Nazi bureaucrat fulfilled his duties…

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Stealing Time: Moreno’s ‘The Delinquents’

December 10th, 2023

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Bubbling up on multiple 2023 best-of lists and qualified for a possible Oscar nomination as Argentina’s international feature entry (prior to the eventual finalists, the fifteen shortlisted titles will be announced on December 21, 2023), Rodrigo Moreno’s excellent “The Delinquents” is a thoroughly satisfying slice of contemplative slow cinema.

A simmering heist movie (in the loosest sense), the film uses the basic premise of an inside job as…

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Green Checks In to ‘The Royal Hotel’

December 3rd, 2023

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Australian filmmaker Kitty Green’s brilliant nonfiction movies, including the superb “Casting JonBenet,” laid the groundwork for the director’s recent interest in narrative features.

In “The Royal Hotel,” Green reteams with Julia Garner (who starred in Green’s “The Assistant”) for another searing depiction of the ways in which women must carefully navigate a world filled with what one character almost offhandedly refers to as…

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​Secrets, Lies, and Shiny Things: Fennell Invites Us to ‘Saltburn’

November 27th, 2023

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

“Saltburn,” the highly anticipated follow-up to “Promising Young Woman” – which earned Oscar gold for Best Original Screenplay – doesn’t quite equal the bite and sting of writer-director Emerald Fennell’s feature debut, but not for lack of trying. The deafening buzz isn’t likely to translate into its predecessor’s award season accolades, but the curious will be drawn to Fennell’s wicked sense of bleak and black comedy, the…

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A Disturbance in the Force: The Star Wars Holiday Special Gets Feature Documentary

November 19th, 2023

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Aired just one time on CBS the evening of November 17, 1978, “The Star Wars Holiday Special” was the first sanctioned, long-form Luscasfilm media extending the cultural phenomenon of the blockbuster movie directed by George Lucas.

Over the years, the show’s reputation spread through word of mouth and bootleg VHS dubs sold at sci-fi conventions until the internet made access easier.

Filmmakers Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak celebrate the 45th…

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Payne and Giamatti Reunite for ‘The Holdovers’

November 12th, 2023

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Focus Features gets a nifty opening credits layout as part of a throwback sequence capitalizing on the heavy New Hollywood nostalgia that suffuses Alexander Payne’s comic melodrama “The Holdovers.”

Reuniting with “Sideways” star Paul Giamatti, Payne’s new movie is his first feature since the bizarre 2017 sci-fi misfire “Downsizing.” Closer in spirit to the more intimate emotional nakedness of “Nebraska,” “The Holdovers” lacks…

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