Author: Dan Seeger

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Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Four

Dan Seeger

It is a pleasing irony that the year’s most accomplished film that looks to otherworldly being to drive its story is so beautifully, wisely attuned to humanity. Arrival is centered on visitors from across the universe who park their skipping stone spaceships in a perpetual hover a few stories about the terra firma of Earth, but the primary commitment is to the people who struggle through daunting communication barriers to understand the planet’s new acquaintances. As linguist Louise Banks, Amy Adams gives one of those performances that perhaps only she can: grounded deeply in qualities that are equal parts charisma, approachability, … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Four

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Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Five

Dan Seeger

At this point in the life cycle of Damien Chazelle’s La La Land — a winding excursion from celebration to backlash to the backlash’s backlash to the backlash’s backlash’s backlash and points beyond — it’s almost impossible to write about this modern musical without ending up with an insufferable think piece. So I’m going to lean into it. As the signature films of 2016 are bandied about, few feel more detached from our current perilous moment as La La Land. There are no shadows of social and political preoccupations to found in the story of young cultural artists falling in … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Five

Music2 Comments

CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 82 – 80

Dan Seeger

82. R.E.M., “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” R.E.M. made their U.S. network television debut on Late Night with David Letterman, in October 1983. The band’s debut album, Murmur, had been in stores for about six months, and it naturally made sense for them to play “Radio Free Europe,” the single that became a smash on college radio and even managed to — somewhat inexplicably — cross over into the Billboard Hot 100. They did, but there was time for them to run through another song. After Letterman briefly interviewed the band about their hometown music scene (“Why all of sudden Athens, … Continue reading CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 82 – 80

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From the Archive: Hot Shots!

Dan Seeger

This review was written for our old movie review radio show during a stretch of the summer of 1991 dire enough that one of the other films covered on the same episode was Return to the Blue Lagoon. While I’m already fairly down on the film in this review, I suspect Hot Shots! is one of those films that aged particularly poorly.  It may seem a little late for a parody of the Tom Cruise smash hit Top Gun. After all, it has been five years since Cruise squeezed his smug grin into a navy fighter plane and soared to … Continue reading From the Archive: Hot Shots!

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One for Friday: All, “She’s My Ex”

Dan Seeger

As is probably evident by now, the number of songs from my college radio days that I consider worthy of filing under the category of “favorites” could fill a full programming day. There are those that were clear peaks of beloved bands and there are those that snuck up on me over time, snuggling into my psyche following the discovery and championing of my valued cohorts. Then there are those songs that arrived as fully-formed, undeniable (to me) triumphs. From the moment the needle first hit the vinyl or the laser first struck the disc, the song was clearly, thrillingly … Continue reading One for Friday: All, “She’s My Ex”

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Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Six

Dan Seeger

Grief is easy in the movies. For filmmakers, it’s a shortcut, imbuing characters with emotions that can be grasped quickly. Beyond stating the simplest narrative fact that explains what has brought the character to sorrowful place, there’s not much internal layering that’s required. And any emergence from that aching state can feel so cathartic for an audience that trite turns of character outlook are often accepted gratefully by audiences, even if the progression doesn’t really play plausibly. But Kenneth Lonergan doesn’t do easy. With Manchester by the Sea, the writer-director doesn’t treat grief as a gloss of emotional profundity. Instead, it’s … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Six

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My Writers: Chris Claremont

Dan Seeger

Though all of my instincts — meticulously steeped in self-consciousness and boomeranging snobbery — prod me to reserve this particular feature for scribes who convey a veneer of intellectual credibility to my reading selections, there are times when I am compelled that many of the most formative writers in my life primarily tapped out words for comic book adventures. When I was rolling my eyes at whatever English class drudgery I was assigned (my school wasn’t astute enough to realize that maybe teenagers would respond positively to the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and J.D. Salinger), I was rushing eagerly back the … Continue reading My Writers: Chris Claremont

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Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Seven

Dan Seeger

Hell or High Water is sharp and funny and wise. The longer it sits with me, though, the more one quality it holds grows more resonant and true. Hell or High Water is forlorn. Taylor Sheridan’s finely honed screenplay tells the story of two brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) who embark on a bank robbing spree across the dry, aching expanse of Texas. It also follows the Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) who wearily pursue the criminals. This, then, is a cops and robbers tale, bleached with the starkness of a modernized Hollywood Western. But it moves past … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Seven

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The Art of the Sell: Coca-Cola, “It’s Beautiful”

Dan Seeger

These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art.  As the fragile flowers who cluster on the rightward side of the political spectrum spend today mulling over their precise naughty list rankings of companies who supposedly made unforgivable insinuations about the politics and character of noted second-place finisher Donald J. Trump, I will use this space to call attention to the artistry of an commercial that raised their collective ire, though it first aired three years ago and have been brought back plenty of instances ever … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: Coca-Cola, “It’s Beautiful”