Author: Dan Seeger

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The Art of the Sell: “Lamp”

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.  I’ve taught a college-level film class, but I didn’t have the time to really dig into examining the mechanics of cinema with the students. Being me, I can’t help but spend my time thinking about exactly which clips I would use to illustrate exactly how movies work, how specific shot and editing choices carry narrative and convey emotion. There’s a passage in Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express, for example, involving an automobile’s gas gauge dipping towards “E,” … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: “Lamp”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 184 – 182

Dan Seeger

184. Los Lobos, “Shakin’, Shakin’, Shakes” “Shakin’, Shakin’, Shakes” was the first single Los Lobos released in the calendar year 1987. Then it was totally eclipsed by a very different song they issued a few months later. By most accounts, the recording of their sophomore major label effort, By the Light of the Moon, was an arduous process. There was undoubtedly some pressure to deliver a strong follow-up to How Will the Wolf Survive?, the band’s 1984 album, which enjoyed only modest success but firmly established Los Lobos as a critical favorite. Just as importantly, some of that adulation stemmed … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 184 – 182

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From the Archive: Hero and Mr. Baseball

Dan Seeger

When I wrote reviews for The Pointer, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, I typically focused on a pair of films, doing my level best to thematically tie them together. As my rudimentary explanation of auteur theory here makes clear, there were plenty of instances when my attempts yielded strained results. The artistic success or failure of a film is often attributed chiefly to the director. Despite the acknowledged importance of fine writing and convincing acting, the director shoulders the majority of criticism because it is their job to tie everything together and strengthen the weak spots. … Continue reading From the Archive: Hero and Mr. Baseball

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One for Friday: The The, “This Is the Day”

Dan Seeger

Whenever major life changes are upon me, the soundtrack inside my head consistently leads with the same song. The last two lines of the chorus echo: “This is the day your life will surely change/ This is the day when things fall into place.” After fifteen years working in higher education — the experiences of which are peppered throughout the writings in this space, albeit judiciously — I began a brand new chapter on Monday. For now, I’ll leave it at that and make this one of the weeks that I step aside after a minimal number of words and let … Continue reading One for Friday: The The, “This Is the Day”

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Greatish Performances #25

Dan Seeger

#25 — Kate Beckinsale as Charlotte Pingress in The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman, 1998) I tend to think of The Last Days of Disco as the film that helped Whit Stillman loosen up, as if the propulsive beats of the titular musical genre sent his creative techniques into spinning, swirling revelry. Much as I admire his two preceding films, Metropolitan and Barcelona, their intense refinement can play like reticence. While fully maintaining his capacity for smart, careful, telling language, Stillman brings a little more sweat and glitter to his storytelling, a probing quality that carries the film deeper into the characters’ faults … Continue reading Greatish Performances #25

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Laughing Matters: Jim Jefferies, “Guns Are Not Protection”

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 lived in the Orlando metropolitan area for six years. While I was there, I worked for Rollins College, which was located around seven miles from Pulse, which has tragically become the most famous gay night club in the state of Florida. My chief responsibility there was General Manager and advisor to student-run radio station WPRK-FM. When I arrived, in 2001, one of the … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Jim Jefferies, “Guns Are Not Protection”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 187 – 185

Dan Seeger

187. X, “4th of July” As a band, X were in a state of flux when they went to record their sixth album, See How We Are, which was released in 1987. They were coming off of one of the strongest commercial successes, with 1985’s Ain’t Love Grand and its hit single, “Burning House of Love” (though “hit” is a decidedly relative term in this instance). But they were also continuing the process of figuring out how to persevere as a unit following the breakup of key band members John Doe and Exene Cervenka, a situation that was only complicated by … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 187 – 185