Author: Dan Seeger

FilmLeave a comment

Edwards, Ficarra and Requa, Levy, Stoller, Wyatt

Dan Seeger

Focus (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, 2015). There are a whole lot of film folks trying to pivot their careers with this strangely aspirational con job drama. Star Will Smith is clearly trying to put After Earth completely behind him by staking a claim on the territory of smart movies for adults that George Clooney has made his whole grain bread and artisan butter. At the same time, filmmaking partners Ficarra and Requa endeavor to demonstrate they can do more than comedies with a slightly twisty edge. Everyone fails in their attempt to stretch. The film is notably tepid, even as … Continue reading Edwards, Ficarra and Requa, Levy, Stoller, Wyatt

Music6 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’m Movin’ On” and “Sticks and Stones”

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. Ray Charles is one of the few figures in the history of American popular music who deserves the descriptor “legend.” With well over one hundred singles to his credit, tallying up his total entries into the Billboard Top 40 is beyond my current mental energy, so let’s concentrate strictly on the two songs that qualify for this feature. “I’m Movin’ On” was the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’m Movin’ On” and “Sticks and Stones”

Music25 Comments

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 51-49

Dan Seeger

51. King Crimson, Thrak It’s so bizarre to me that the 90FM charts from around this time are peppered with the sort of improbably enduring prog rock bands that I thought I and my cohorts had swept out of the main airplay times with an aggressive recalibration of the stacks a couple years earlier (the 1996 list previously counted down had a Rush album in it, which I think is at least partially explained by the fervent fandom of a good friend who graduated that particular year). Thrak was the first full-length studio album by King Crimson in over ten years. Multi-instrumentalist … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 51-49

FilmLeave a comment

From the Archive: Serenity

Dan Seeger

I don’t feel obligated to sync this backward-looking weekly post to some current media offering, but this weekend seems to call for it. Much as I was a Joss Whedon disciple, I wouldn’t have tagged him at the likely future impresario of the biggest blockbuster franchise going, but then I also wouldn’t have imagined that my boyhood comic book collection would provide such lucrative fodder for moviemaking. If the Make Mine Marvel aesthetic is going to be the defining quality of the current cinematic age, then Whedon is an excellent choice to be a primary creative force behind it. His television … Continue reading From the Archive: Serenity

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Kimya Dawson, “I Like Giants (live)”

Dan Seeger

This is a extremely busy time for me at work. Not only am I basically in charge of the fast approaching graduation ceremony at the small, liberal arts college that cuts me a monthly paycheck, but the biggest program of the year, a spectacle we simply call Circus, takes place this weekend and has been properly exhausting me during the extensive lead-up to it. Plus, next week we’re bringing the extraordinary Nikki Giovanni to campus, and I’ve got a lot of heavy lifting associated with that event. I barely have time to blink, much less tap out a little flurry … Continue reading One for Friday: Kimya Dawson, “I Like Giants (live)”

FilmLeave a comment

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

Dan Seeger

#38 — Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) Rebecca holds a unique place in Oscar lore as the sole Alfred Hitchcock film to nab the Best Picture trophy (or Outstanding Production, as it was still called at the time). The famously unrewarded filmmaker lost out to John Ford (for The Grapes of Wrath) the second of four Best Director awards Ford collected in his career. Of course, naming Rebecca Best Picture without similarly honoring Hitchcock is patently absurd, given the director’s always distinctive stamp characterized by a nearly unparalleled skill at the interlocking of the mechanics of narrative with a striking visual sense (to be … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Eight

Comics14 Comments

My Misspent Youth: Avengers #202 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie and George Pérez

Dan Seeger

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. I can pinpoint my very first comic book that featured Ultron. Avengers was one of those titles I picked up during my ravenous first feast on superhero comics in the summer of 1980. With limited resources to spread around — even with comics at a mere fifty cents a pop — the title that boasted the inclusion of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” was ideal, given the presence of a bevy of Marvel … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Avengers #202 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie and George Pérez

Books, ComicsLeave a comment

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“While he was watching, Polly walked the length of the porch and bent over to scrape something out of a bucket — lye soap, it looked like. She was a pretty woman, light of step; he had always fancied women who were light of step. The sight of her made him all the more anxious to get the gunplay over with, so he could take her on home.” –Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Zeke and Ned, 1997   “DAWN CREEPS OVER MANHATTAN, PAINTING AVENGERS MANSION IN BLOODY HUES.  INSIDE, STRIDING PURPOSEFULLY DOWN A PLUSH-CARPETED HALL IS A LONE FIGURE…A QUIET, … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

FilmLeave a comment

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

Dan Seeger

#39 — Without Love (Harold S. Bucquet, 1945) Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made nine films together. It is without a doubt one of the great screen partnerships in American film history, practically defining what that elusive quality chemistry looks like for every generation to follow. Of course, there was an off-screen pairing between the two of them, officially secret but widely known, that added turbo to the fuel, but the real life twinkle of romance does explain everything. It’s entirely possible that the splendid contrasts of their acting styles — she strident, he relaxed, she crisply intelligent, he scruffily … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Nine

Music26 Comments

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 54-52

Dan Seeger

Now where were we? Ah, yes…. 54. Suddenly, Tammy!, We Get There When We Do I originally intended to tap out a longer review of this particular release, but getting my ears on it proved as elusive now as it was for me then. I read a review of We Get There When We Do somewhere — most likely CMJ New Music Monthly — and immediate decided it was likely in my aural taste wheelhouse, probably because of comparisons with Juliana Hatfield (lead singer Beth Sorrentino sometimes sounds like a vocal twin) and a weakness for piano-based pop that compelled me … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 54-52