Author: Dan Seeger

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Four

Dan Seeger

#34 — His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) According to Hollywood lore, the simple and brilliant notion that changed His Girl Friday from a straight adaptation of the play The Front Page, which had been filmed within the preceding decade, was hit upon largely by accident. Howard Hawks had his female secretary read the lines of male character Hildy Johnson while auditioning actors to play the other lead, Walter Burns. Something about the back-and-forth made Hawks realize that the film could be bolstered by carrying that gender switch into the production proper, which also opened up the possibility of incorporating a fractious … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Four

Music3 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Angel”

Dan Seeger

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. There are at least three waves to Rod Stewart’s solo career: the early years, when he was still an amazing belter with spotty but acceptable taste in material; the middle years, when he was desperately singing any schlocky song he (or his people) thought might become a hit; and the later years, when he lazily crooned standards, knowing that a cushy, lucrative spot … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Angel”

Everything Else12 Comments

Beers I Have Known: Point Bock

Dan Seeger

This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. There was a legend around Point Bock, the seasonal offering from the longtime brewery in my beloved college town. It was the common fallacy surrounding bock beers, that they were fashioned from the muck dredged up from the bottom of the regular yearly cleaning. The bock’s dark color and muddy fulsomeness — completely the opposite of Point Brewery’s usual crisp lager — fed the myth nicely, as did the constant storytelling of those who insisted … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Point Bock

Music24 Comments

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 44-42

Dan Seeger

44. Elastica, Elastica I owe the 1995 on-air lineup of 90FM an apology. Down around #67 on our chart, I groused that the self-titled debut of Elastica didn’t show up anywhere on this list. Turns out my research methods were highly faulty, because the post-punk sensation out of London is right here, very respectably taking up territory right around the midpoint of the year-end tally. If the attention heaped on Elastica almost makes this placement seem modest, they were also one of those bands that endured one of those rapid-fire turn-arounds from hyped adoration to snippy backlash. Part of what … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 44-42

Film1 Comment

From the Archive: Frankie and Johnny and The Player

Dan Seeger

One week ago, I helped bring the school year to an end at the college generous enough to employ me, thanks to my leadership role with the annual commencement ceremony for graduating students. This made me think back to my own college graduation, two decades (and change) ago. Part of my long goodbye from school involved writing one last movie review column for the student newspaper. I explain what I chose to do in the actual piece I’m transcribing, so I won’t get into the choice here. I will note, however, that I’ve written about both these films in this … Continue reading From the Archive: Frankie and Johnny and The Player

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One for Friday: Ed Haynes, “I Want to Kill Everybody”

Dan Seeger

I’ve written about Ed Haynes’s debut album, Ed Haynes Sings Ed Haynes, in this space previously, bit it’s been a while. In my recollection, this was one of those albums that arrived during the late winter/early spring of 1989, a blessed time that I’ve only partially elevated in grandeur because it coincided with my first semester in a leadership role at my college radio station. Though Haynes had mighty competition in our new music rotation, this album was one that I and my fellow deejays returned to repeatedly, the comic-tinged, upbeat folk songs provided a nice little breather in the … Continue reading One for Friday: Ed Haynes, “I Want to Kill Everybody”

Music4 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “In the Mood”

Dan Seeger

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Thanks to K-tel comedy music collections that would probably strike me as a form of torture if I tried to sit through one of them now, I probably knew Ray Stevens before just about any other artist included in this series. His various Top 40 hits from the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies took up a lot of the vinyl on those compilations that I obsessively … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “In the Mood”

TelevisionLeave a comment

More fun than humans should be allowed to have

Dan Seeger

I was just about the ideal age for Late Night with David Letterman. The program was there for me throughout my teenaged years, providing absurdist, anarchic, highly ironic comedy at the exact point that my swarming hormones made me inclined to reject staid sincerity and childish silliness. Letterman operated his show with a thin undercoating of hostility for the very showbiz conventions he was charged with upholding, and yet his jagged view of the proceedings was tempered by a Midwestern decency that was very familiar to me as I watched in my small town Wisconsin home. It was this latter quality that his bookers … Continue reading More fun than humans should be allowed to have

Film2 Comments

And someone said, “Live fast, die young,” but the time runs always faster, son

Dan Seeger

It has been almost exactly thirty years since George Miller released what all presumed to be the final film in the saga of a post-apocalyptic anti-hero named Max. Miller hasn’t exactly been prolific in the decades since, but his filmmaking journey has definitely been interesting. He helmed a fairly unlikely John Updike adaptation and demonstrated that a movie about disease could bypass typical dewy-eyed piousness and instead be shaped by uncompromising emotional brutality. Maybe most surprisingly, he took a turn towards family fare with a deceptively dark sequel to Babe and a couple of computer animated efforts featuring dancing penguins. … Continue reading And someone said, “Live fast, die young,” but the time runs always faster, son