Author: Dan Seeger

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 82 – 80

Dan Seeger

82. Oasis, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? In the mid-nineteen-nineties, there was no shortage of music critics who were ready to declare Oasis the next major band, the one that would endure for years and years, delivering one masterpiece after another. This was somewhat driven by the ever-excitable U.K. music press, although authoritative co-signers rushed in from all quarters. Oasis were enormously successful in their homeland, basically from the very beginning (their first single, “Supersonic,” charted in the Top 40 on the British charts, although peaking at a surprisingly modest #31). Songs from their debut album, Definitely Maybe, garnered healthy modern … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 82 – 80

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From the Archive: Born Yesterday

Dan Seeger

Melanie Griffith was one of the more trying performers during my time as a film reviewer in college. It’s not simply that she wasn’t a very strong actress. She also had the clout, coming off a flare to stardom and an Oscar nomination for 1988’s Working Girl, to get cast in a healthy number of movies that were high-profile enough to land in our little Midwestern town. So unlike some others whose work I found wanting, I couldn’t avoid Griffith through the early nineties. The weariness shows up towards the end of review when I list other recent affronts to … Continue reading From the Archive: Born Yesterday

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One for Friday: Lily Allen, “Don’t Get Me Wrong”

Dan Seeger

I believe I’ve used this exact phrasing previously in a One for Friday post, but it’s useful enough to be worth repeating: some days you just need a damn good cover. Even as I acknowledge covers can be cheesy and overly opportunistic, devoid of any evident meaningful connection between the appropriation artist and the original song, I have a level of helplessness when confronted with one. This is especially true when it’s a song for which I have an outsized fondness (like, say, the Pretenders single “Don’t Get Me Wrong”) performed by an artist at at time when they are … Continue reading One for Friday: Lily Allen, “Don’t Get Me Wrong”

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Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Eight

Dan Seeger

The feature debut from writer-director Gillian Robespierre was much more than a single word. Quickly reduced by most of the entertainment press to a work with the primary significance of dealing with the topic of abortion more frankly, more fearlessly, and frankly more honestly than most other films that have cause to incorporate acknowledgement of the fully legal and not especially uncommon medical procedure, Obvious Child was a deeply insightful and beautifully funny creation. As Donna Stern, a low-level stand-up comic and struggling young woman approaching the age when unsettled directionless is no longer charming to herself or others, Jenny Slate works … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Eight

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Fifty

Dan Seeger

#50 — Mighty Joe Young (Ernest B. Shoedsack, 1949) There was really no pretense to originality with Mighty Joe Young. “Mightier than King Kong,” the trailer shouted, and similarities to the colossal primate who scaled the Empire State Building in the prior decade were more than superficial. Mighty Joe Young director Ernest B. Schoedsack shared that same title on the earlier film. His King Kong co-director, Merian C. Cooper, was a producer on Mighty Joe Young, and Ruth Rose worked on both scripts. While the oversized gorilla named Joe Young is different enough from his predecessor that it’s not reasonable to … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Fifty

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — An Introduction

Dan Seeger

Well, we can’t stop now, can we? Not when I’ve reached the decade that contains my reflexive answer to the impossible question, “What’s the best movie ever made?” (Don’t expend too much effort on puzzling out the identity of that film. It’s such an obvious, consensus-approved pick that it doesn’t just border on cliche, it resides in the city center.) Roughly six years ago, when I decided I wanted in on the proliferation of countdowns wrapping up a decade’s worth of films as different numeral moved into the third slot on the old year odometer, I genuinely didn’t anticipate the road before … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — An Introduction

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Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Nine

Dan Seeger

With these pieces tracking through the ten best films of the year, I prefer to focus entirely on the positive. The purpose is celebratory, after all. Why digress into minor flaws in individual films or more regrettable earlier efforts by filmmakers? In the case of Birdman, however, I think it will be helpful to elucidate my previous view on the work of director Alejandro González Iñárritu. To be blunt, I detest most of it. 21 Grams, Babel (which nabbed him an Oscar nomination in the Best Achievement in Directing category), and Biutiful are all manipulative exercises that revel in the easy drama … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Nine

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 84 and 83

Dan Seeger

84. Letters to Cleo, Wholesale Meats and Fish About the only things that’s really worth knowing about Letters to Cleo these days is that fictional municipal executive Ben Wyatt is a fan. The band, fronted by Kay Hanley, had a solid radio hit with “Here and Now,” a song that appeared on their debut release, the unfortunately-titled Aurora Gory Alice. The band and their label clearly hoped to leverage that tantalizing taste of success with the release of their sophomore album, Wholesale Meats and Fish, and it initially seemed they might be able to develop some reasonable longevity. “Awake,” the … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 84 and 83

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Ernie Banks, 1931 – 2015

Dan Seeger

I never got to see Ernie Banks play. Less than three weeks before I was born, Banks became the ninth Major League Baseball player and first who logged significant time at shortstop to hit his five-hundredth career home run. He retired as a player after the following season, announcing it in December, 1971. There was no march of adulation through the league, no expectation that other teams would pay their respects in pre-game ceremonies or groove him easy pitches in the All-Star Game. At the age of forty, he simply decided he’d spent enough time with a mitt on his … Continue reading Ernie Banks, 1931 – 2015

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One for Friday: The Del Fuegos, “Don’t Run Wild”

Dan Seeger

The Del Fuegos was one of the important band names I carried with me when I first started at my beloved college radio station in the fall of 1988. I’m not precisely sure how I’d heard of them. Since I don’t believe I’d actually heard a note of their music by that point in time, it was probably through some effusive praise printed in the pages of Rolling Stone, my deeply imperfect but still useful peephole through the fence that held me apart from the realm of better, bolder music than what was being played on local radio stations where … Continue reading One for Friday: The Del Fuegos, “Don’t Run Wild”