Fargo Film Fest

Wednesday was a mixed night on the big screen at the Fargo Theatre. The first full day of the 8th Annual Fargo Film Festival wound down with one experimental movie (Imissed it) and three documentaries.

The best by far was "The Children of Leningradsky," by Polish director Hanna Polak. Her unflinching look at the homeless children who roam and make their home in railroad stations of Moscow is one of the most upsetting movies I've seen in a long time. While the style isn't flashy and the story is straightforward, what's so powerful is just how much we see of these kids' hard times. And how hard it's been for so many so young.

Many of the children say they've left homes where adults were alcoholics, sexually abusive or just emotionally absent. And things just keep getting worse. After hearing their stories, we see how they turn to drinking and huffing glue and even turn on each other. It's unrelentingly and at times hard to watch, but so moving, you'll want to get involved. That's exactly what Polak wants. Though I wanted some mindless comedy.

On a local level, "Plain Art" was a more uplifting piece. Director Mary Trunk followed Fargo painter Marjorie Schlossman as she lined up six area architects to construct mobile mini-chapels in which she would paint.

It's a great artistic idea - one creative person gives another $25,000 to design and construct a space many will find spiritual. Great ideas don't always translate into easy application, however and you see how two creative people can view things so differently.

After she lines up the architects, Schlossman waits to get to work inthe spaces. And waits. And waits. As a number of architects confess, their profession is one drawn to procratination. Richard Moorhead seems a pretty monotone guy, but some of his quips are the best.

Schlossman doesn't always take the missed due dates in great stride and you feel the tension building. After the project is complete, she talks about billing some for damages to the chaplets.

Likewise a rift seems to develop between the painter and Laurel Reuter at the North Dakota Museum of Art. After agreeing to accept the six chaplets and to bring them to spots around the state, Reuter bills Schlossman $10,000 for the man-hours and mileage it took to take down and reconstruct the structures.

It would be easy to assume the whole movie is a vanity project for the painter, but Trunk exposes the cracks in what was a good-natured agreement. Too bad she didn't go back to Reuter and the architects after Schlossman airs her grievances for a more even-handed approach. The film could've also used time stamps as the whole idea is to document a creative period and a looming deadline. And speaking of deadline, the movie could've been trimmed by at least 10 minutes, an hour and a half is just too long.

Also a bit disturbing was Margie Bailly's glowing reccomendation about this film and her friend Schlossman before the screening, then seeing her glowing on the screen at the NDMOA opening. Bailly was also a sponsor of the Ruth Landfield Award, which the film received. A little seperation may have been a good idea.

The movie could have a good life on Prairie Public TV and touring with the chaplets, but I can't imagine many outside the area would have too much interest.

What's not much worth seeing is "Rising: Portrait of an Artist," a look at a mediocre Minnesota landscape artist and how she overcame an absent alcoholic father and a divorce to blossom from a painter of cowboys drinking coffee in the snow and woofs into a disciple of the Bob Ross school of painting "happy little trees."

Her landscapes were interesting at first, but after a few, you get it - she like painting dusk and the dark. It's mysterious. Right. I was really more interested in what she used to paint her lips that bright red. Does she really pack makeup when she's roughing it outdoors?

Oh well, everyone's a critic.

Posted by: johnlamb on 3/6/2008 at 5:54 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink

Up, up and Sanjay

As some of you know, I flew with the Blue Angels in June of 2007. And since the Blue Angels are a recruiting tool of the Navy, I think that entitles me to a full military funeral when (if) I die.

That little trip put me in the esteemed ranks of actors James Franco (the "Spider-Man" series) Wilmer Valderrama (Fez from "That '70s Show," also known as Lindsey Lohan's ex-boyfriend) and Michael Irby (from something), a bunch of NASCAR drivers and Forum reporters Andrea Domaskin and Gerry Gilmour.

Today I saw that CNN medical correspondant Sanjay Gupta also took the Blues' cruise. I think it's worh noting that while I held myself together, he experienced the two Ps - passing out and puking. He understands and explains better than I did how the gravity strains affect your body. It's a quick, interesting read. And you get to see him puke!

Posted by: johnlamb on 2/21/2008 at 6:07 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink

Marty's Baldies boy band

Old school Fargo scenesters can see a familiar face if they look at the Twin Cities alternative weekly newspaper, City Pages online.

In a story about 20 years of Baldies (an anti-racist skinhead group) activity in the Twin Cities, Fargo's favorite bone dome, Martin O'Connor is featured. OK, he actually only gets a line, and is referred to only by first name, but the reporter picks up on his rapid-fire patter. (I seem to remember him starting and ending every sentence with the exclamation, "DUDE!" but maybe he's grown out of it.)

The story is an intersting read, but the picture gallery is maybe more telling. The Baldies have obviously grown up (by my accounts Marty is 35, married, the father of two and living in Guadalajara, Mexico), so the studio setting make the shots look like an ad for Gap Dads, even if the boys are flashing tattoos. Or maybe even a Baldies Boy Band on a reunion tour called Skin Again.

Actually, looking at pictures of Marty got me thinking how much he looked like "The Office" creator, Ricky Gervais. Minus the tats, of course.

Posted by: johnlamb on 2/20/2008 at 4:31 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

New airline lands in Fargo - Schmidt Beer Air!

Last week's news (yes, I know it was last week already, but a luddite like me trying to fugure out this whole blogging thing doesn't just happen) that Frontier Airlines will start service between Fargo and Denver on May 12 comes just in time for party-hearty Democrats making travel plans for the Democratic National Convention Aug. 25-28.

Not only can you fly direct, you can fly the fizzy skies in a plane that looks like a Schmidt Beer can.

Apparently Frontier's "trademark" is putting pictures of furry woodland and prairie critters on the tail. It's like Terry Redlin tagged each plane one night when no one was looking.

Is Mark Trail the spokesman for Frontier?

Posted by: johnlamb on 2/20/2008 at 2:53 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink