Author: Dan Seeger

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It’s my turn to see what I can see, I hope you’ll understand, this time’s just for me

Dan Seeger

Upon further reflection, it’s not actually that difficult to figure out why Darren Aronofsky chose to follow up Black Swan by presiding over the latest cinematic adventures of Marvel Comics mainstay Wolverine. The similarities between Nina Sayers and Logan are legion. He may be able to recycle whole pages of the Swan script. Continue reading It’s my turn to see what I can see, I hope you’ll understand, this time’s just for me

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Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Eight

Dan Seeger

#48 — Roxanne (Fred Schepisi, 1987) No matter what snap judgments observers may have made about him when he rose to fame in the nineteen-seventies by making balloon animals and wearing arrow-through-the-head apparatuses, Steve Martin has classic, refined tastes. It’s not just in the acquisition of art–a topic in which Martin is extremely well-versed, although New York City audiences apparently have no interest in his insights. For example, when penning his first solo screenplay after serving as one of the contributing writers on most of his prior comedies, Martin looked to a work no less venerable than the 1897 Edmond … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Eight

FilmLeave a comment

Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson

Dan Seeger

Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962). This beloved film classic only had its notoriety bolstered when Martin Scorsese remade it in 1991. Though my helpless affection for Scorsese is well-documented by now, I must concede that the the original is far superior, largely due to the performance of spectacularly relaxed menace by Robert Mitchum as recently sprung convict Max Cady, who decides to terrorize the prosecutor whose testimony was instrumental to his incarceration. Mitchum is so good developing a fearsome quality out of little more than the way he glares across a room or strolls into a scene that the … Continue reading Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week at Spectrum Culture, I reviewed a new documentary about Phil Ochs, who I honestly first heard about when Billy Bragg released a song about him. Appropriately enough, Bragg is one of the people offerings his opinions on the late folk singer in the film. I also reviewed a new documentary about the way plastic has become an overwhelming presence, and potentially dangerous presence, in modern society. Continue reading Spectrum Check

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Buffalo Tom, “Taillights Fade”

Dan Seeger

When I was at the college radio station, there were several bands I loved, those that seemed to sing my thoughts with every song. Then there were those bands that I admired. They didn’t necessarily hit me in my gut in the same way, but something about their passion, their intensity, their readily apparent ethic in each and every one of their songs stirred me differently. I didn’t become devoted to them in the same way, but I was always glad–even oddly proud–to play their music on the radio. Buffalo Tom was one of tho It’s hardly an unorthodox choice, … Continue reading One for Friday: Buffalo Tom, “Taillights Fade”

FilmLeave a comment

Audiard, Curtiz, Elliot, Polanski, Vaughn

Dan Seeger

Mary and Max (Adam Elliot, 2009). A beautifully downbeat stop-motion animation feature about unlikely penpals on the opposite side of the Atlantic who correspond over a number of years, developing a moving, warm, fragile and occasionally fractured relationship. Despite the distance–or, arguably, because of it–they drawn strength and even courage from one another, muddling through the unique challenges of their respective lives in part because they’ve got a lifeline out there somewhere in the world, someone who may not understand them, but at least takes the time to try. Max, voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is an especially wonderful creation, … Continue reading Audiard, Curtiz, Elliot, Polanski, Vaughn