Author: Dan Seeger

FilmLeave a comment

Twenty Performances, or The Unexpected Virtue of Birdman

Dan Seeger

As per usual, the capper to the staggered countdown of the best films of the year is a listing of the names I would have scratched into an Academy Award nominating ballot for the acting branch had it somehow landed in my hands. Obviously I think these are all terrific performances, but I feel a little less fervor for the acting this year than is typical for me. Interestingly, the film represented most across these four categories didn’t make my top ten for the year (though it was a strong runner-up). With resolute honesty — about opposed to giving in … Continue reading Twenty Performances, or The Unexpected Virtue of Birdman

Film4 Comments

Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number One

Dan Seeger

I’m concerned that placing Richard Linklater’s Boyhood atop my list doesn’t truly convey just how impressive I find it. After all, in a tally such as this there’s no differentiating a close call from a blowout, no column of “Games Back” to illuminate the level of distance between the victor and the runner-up. So let me share a little mental exercise I’ve been performing almost from the moment Boyhood‘s closing credits start to roll. I’ve been trying to figure out the last movie that topped one of my year-end lists that I think might outrank Boyhood if chronology got jumbled … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number One

Film2 Comments

Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Two

Dan Seeger

There are a multitude of reasons for the outrage that greeted the omission of Selma from key categories in this year’s Academy Award nominations. While some of the most compelling involve taking issue with the willful and arguably cowardly disregarding of its current political pertinence, my personal fierce disappointment is inspired by a far simpler reason: Ava DuVernay’s depiction of a seminal moment in the Civil Rights movement is one of the great filmmaking achievements of the year, joined in my mind with only a couple other of releases as a pure triumph of directing. DuVernay delves into a portion … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Two

FilmLeave a comment

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

Dan Seeger

#48 — 3 Godfathers (John Ford, 1948) A common and entirely apt complaint about modern Hollywood filmmaking is the evident pronounced disinterest in the pursuit of originality in favor of figuring out ways to cram familiar brands into the CGI-shaped contours of self-perpetuating (and, increasingly, interlocking) blockbuster franchises. It’s not unreasonable to wish for more invention and less anxious opportunism in the creative choices of modern crafters of cinema, and yet any misty-eyed pining for more golden eras necessarily require a certain amount of willful amnesia. Back in the time before older movies hung around like atrophied specters on late … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Eight

Music35 Comments

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 76 – 74

Dan Seeger

#76. Various Artists, Gag Me with a Spoon This album practically seems like it was genetically designed to earn spins at my radio alma mater. Packed full of Wisconsin bands (label Don’t Records was, I believe, based in Milwaukee), the conceit of the release finds the group delivering reinventions of some of the most familiar songs of the nineteen-eighties. There’s also a nice hat tip to local heroes Violent Femmes with a cover of “I Held Her in My Arms,” hardly a smash hit but still a damn fine song. The compilation is spotted with bands not all that well known … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 76 – 74

FilmLeave a comment

From the Archive: Hudson Hawk

Dan Seeger

  When I wrote about critics attacking a film with malevolent glee earlier this week, I was reminded of an earlier instance when I employed the same term in a review of a similarly reviled film. If it seems odd that I so clearly recall two words from a review I penned nearly twenty-five years ago, the explanation is simple: I mispronounced the word “malevolent” on the air, spitting out something that sounded like “male-vahl-ent.” I had read the word many times over, but I don’t believe I’d ever heard it spoken. Luckily, my radio show partner corrected me in … Continue reading From the Archive: Hudson Hawk

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Hot Chip, “One Life Stand”

Dan Seeger

When this post goes up, I will be in a cart pointed southward, heading back to a state I once thought I’d abandoned forever. (Well, I didn’t really think that, but Im pleased to have an opportunity to link to that animated gif again). There’s good reason to cross into that land of ridiculousness, though. We have two great friends who are getting married, the blessed members of a sudden, surprising, and yet totally logical love affair, the sort of out of the blue announcement that prompts happy replies of “Well, of course.” Shortly after the wedding was announced and my household … Continue reading One for Friday: Hot Chip, “One Life Stand”

FilmLeave a comment

Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Three

Dan Seeger

Coherence takes place almost entirely within a single house, and yet it truly resides in an incredibly expansive existence. A group of friends gathers for a dinner party. The scene is filled with the sort of easygoing banter that carries with it a complicated shared history, include a few passing hints of resentments and conflicts previously addressed and bypassed but not quite forgiven. In the midst of all this chatter arises curious, largely unworried conversation about news stories about a comet passing through the night sky. Then the power goes out. From there, James Ward Byrkit’s feature directorial debut spins off … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Three

MusicLeave a comment

The New Releases Shelf: No Cities to Love

Dan Seeger

I believe I officially have to rethink my standing policy of greeting all band reunions with unyielding skepticism that extends to the point of preemptive dismissal. I’ll admit it’s been outdated for a while, a vestige of the time when I and many of my fellow college radio-reared music snob cohorts measured artistic credibility beginning with a consideration of distance from anything that could be termed selling out. Decisions seemingly made on the basis of readily available dollars rather than following some fictitious muse were commonly met with peak animosity, and getting the band back together was one of those … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: No Cities to Love

Film1 Comment

Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Four

Dan Seeger

Snowpiercer achieves remarkable narrative freedom precisely because director Bong Joon-ho believes in sticking to the rules. Other films that strive for thrill ride status, either in terms of vividly stirred intellect or full-throttled action (Snowpiercer is one of the rare beasts that goes for both), are all too quick to abandon internal logic when it serves the perceived need to set pulses pounding with clockwork regularity. Bong understands the value of setting parameters — maybe your own wonderfully gonzo parameters, but parameters nonetheless — and then honoring them. A movie doesn’t have to be believable to be plausible. It can … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Four