Author: Dan Seeger

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 73 – 71

Dan Seeger

73. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, “Two Tribes” When Frankie Goes to Hollywood released their second single, in 1984, they faced the burden of following up a major smash. “Relax,” their debut, was one of those songs that grabbed pop culture by the shoulders and gave it a good shake, topping the charts in the U.K. despite (or maybe in part because of) its status as a track banned by the BBC. It just barely crossed into the Top 10 on the other side of the Atlantic, but it certainly seemed more ever-present than that peak suggests. For the next single, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 73 – 71

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One for Friday: Martini Ranch, “World Without Walls”

Dan Seeger

There’s a long strange history of actors moonlighting in the music biz, from Robert Mitchum’s bizarre shimmy with calypso music to Ryan Gosling’s membership in the indie goth outfit Dead Man’s Bones. Things got especially weird during the nineteen-eighties, the wildest of musical decades. Only on that cultural roller coaster could Eddie Murphy nearly top the charts and Bruce Willis absolutely redefine the scope of vanity project by roping major stars into a fictional rock god history to accompany a record of appalling R&B covers. And only in the nineteen-eighties could character actor Bill Paxton be one-half of a new … Continue reading One for Friday: Martini Ranch, “World Without Walls”

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Greatish Performances #30

Dan Seeger

#30 — Bill Paxton as Dale “Hurricane” Dixon in One False Move (Carl Franklin, 1992) Bill Paxton’s most iconic performances tend toward emotive intensity. To a degree, that’s simply a product of the films that crossed over into broader public consciousness, especially since Paxton was one of director James Cameron’s go-to supporting actors, briefly playing a punk with a hair-trigger temper in The Terminator and famously wailing, “Game over, man!” in Aliens. (The one time Paxton got to try out understatement in a Cameron film, in Titanic, he was saddled with some of the most leaden exposition dialogue in the … Continue reading Greatish Performances #30

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Now Playing: Get Out

Dan Seeger

Sometimes the instinctual filing of a film into a single genre proves woefully inadequate. Get Out, the feature directorial debut of Jordan Peele, is a horror film. On the surface of it, that is clear and almost indisputable. It moves with rhythms familiar from a fleet of jolting predecessors, down to the particulars of a long drive down a highway book-ended by dense forest and a comic relief best pal who seems poised to somehow save the day.  There’s a haunted past and a slow accumulation of menace. As a horror film, Get Out is proficient and engaging. It is … Continue reading Now Playing: Get Out

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Laughing Matters: Key & Peele, “‘Gremlins 2’ Brainstorm

Dan Seeger

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. I am sharing this today because at the moment I find something highly appealing about Jordan Peele — excuse me, I mean Star Magic Jackson, Jr. — engaging in a freewheeling brainstorming session for a movie, celebrating narrative elements that shouldn’t quite work but somehow do. As if, say, someone pitched a cross between Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Stepford Wives that was … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Key & Peele, “‘Gremlins 2’ Brainstorm

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La La Lapse: The Do-Over Oscars

Dan Seeger

  Going into last night’s Academy Awards ceremony, I thought there was a good chance we’d all see something historic. But I surely never believed I would anything like that in my lifetime of devoted Oscar-watching. By now, even those who went to bed early know about the unprecedented blunder that saw an incorrect winner announced for the night’s biggest prize. After pulling the card that was supposed to have the Best Picture winner printed on it, presenter Warren Beatty fumbled around in what initially seemed like schtick (Faye Dunaway, by his side, even playfully chastises him), double-checking the empty … Continue reading La La Lapse: The Do-Over Oscars

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CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 76 – 74

Dan Seeger

76. Fine Young Cannibals, “Johnny Come Home” In the early nineteen-eighties, Roland Gift was filling up some of his evening hours performing as the lead singer for a ska group called Akrylix, schlepping through the clubs of Northern England. When the Birmingham band the Beat (known as the English Beat between U.S. shores) broke up, in 1983, guitarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele were in need of a vocalist for the new outfit they were looking to start up, carrying over the punchy ska-tinged rock of their previously band while adding a hearty swirl of soul. By some accounts, … Continue reading CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 76 – 74

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From the Archive: My Ballot, 2006

Dan Seeger

The other day, I provide my list of the twenty performances from 2016 films that I would have submitted on an Oscar ballot had I been given the opportunity to do so. This is an exercise is wishcasting that I have been indulging in for an absurdly long time. In online platforms alone, it has been over ten years of offering my haughty views of which performers were most deserving of awards consideration in any given year. Since ten is a nice round number, I thought I’d drag out my anointed score of acting titans from the film year 2006, … Continue reading From the Archive: My Ballot, 2006

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One for Friday: Michelle Pfeiffer, “Cool Rider”

Dan Seeger

Michelle Pfeiffer has been nominated for an Academy Award on three occasions, losing to Geena Davis, Jessica Tandy, and Emma Thompson. Best as I can tell, her first experience missing out on an acting award came in late 1982, when her turn as Stephanie Zinone in the misbegotten sequel Grease 2 made her a contender in the category of Best Young Motion Picture Actress at the 4th Youth in Film Awards. The winner was Aileen Quinn in the title role of John Huston’s film version of the musical Annie. (That same year, Nancy McKeon absolutely cleaned up at the Youth … Continue reading One for Friday: Michelle Pfeiffer, “Cool Rider”