Author: Dan Seeger

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Demme, Frears, Hooper, Lee, Wang

Dan Seeger

Swimming to Cambodia (Jonathan Demme, 1987). Jonathan Demme may not have been the best filmmaker of the nineteen-eighties, but I think there’s an argument to be made that he was the most interesting. This film is a good illustration of that point. It’s a film version of one of Spalding Gray’s monologues, a meandering but always focused act of storytelling that springs from his involvement in the film The Killing Fields. Gray’s approach was simplicity itself, sitting behind a small wooden table with his spiral notebook before him and little more than a couple of maps to help fill out … Continue reading Demme, Frears, Hooper, Lee, Wang

Comics17 Comments

Mighty Marvel Checklist HyperboleCheck: Thor #186

Dan Seeger

Once again we bring a scholarly scrutiny to the bygone breathless boasts used to promote Marvel Comics titles backed in the age when the House of Ideas truly reigned supreme. The tantalizing teasers typeset and tucked into the monthly Mighty Marvel Checklist always guaranteed staggering surprises and jaw-dropping jolts, but how often did the individual issues live up to the hype? This time out, the monumental mythmaking moving under the microscope comes from Thor #186, which was touted as follows: “Even the title, ‘Worlds at War,’ can’t begin to describe the excitement and wonder of this one. What happens to … Continue reading Mighty Marvel Checklist HyperboleCheck: Thor #186

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Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Fifteen

Dan Seeger

#15 — The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997) I should probably start by acknowledging that any film which uses an old issue of the Marvel Comics series The Fantastic Four to illustrate how dysfunction can envelop and cripple a family is playing directly to my soft spot. The idea is introduced via voiceover narration by the character Paul Carver as he sits on a stalled train bound for New Canaan, Connecticut. He goes to school in Manhattan, but it’s Thanksgiving weekend and he’s headed home, a place that’s held by a chill as deep as the one produced by the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Fifteen

Music51 Comments

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, An Introduction

Dan Seeger

In the summer of 1989, I had a goofy idea. It was the end of June, half the year gone. I was in my office at the campus radio station, having just called CMJ to report our weekly Top 35 list of albums receiving the most airplay. I retrieved the file folder that had all the charts from previous weeks and prepared to add this latest sheet to its contents. Instead, I emptied the folder onto my desk and started playing around. When I was a kid, I loved countdown shows, whether on the radio or on television, and I … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, An Introduction

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One for Friday: Dramarama, “Last Cigarette”

Dan Seeger

Usually a song appears in this space because I have some cause or desire to expound upon it at length. More accurately, I suppose, I have an old, nostalgic story to tell, a dusty nugget from the corners of my shady memory that may provide some amusing insight into my affection for the song or may simply be a bunch of words that people have to scroll past looking for the hyperlink that will take them to the uploaded MP3. I’m guessing it’s usually the latter. Regardless, I don’t really have any stories about Dramarama’s “Last Cigarette.” I know that … Continue reading One for Friday: Dramarama, “Last Cigarette”

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Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended, tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed

Dan Seeger

It takes no time at all for Restrepo to establish itself as a completely different breed of war documentary. The film follows an American platoon that’s been dispatched to Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, an area so fraught with danger that it’s … Continue reading Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended, tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed

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Acker, Cronenberg, Denis, Heckerling, Sturges

Dan Seeger

Clueless (Amy Heckerling, 1995). I’m prepared to concede that Heckerling’s gum-snap reworking of Jane Austen’s Emma is better than I would have said after seeing it upon its original release. It’s also, despite its reputation, not some glistening pop gem. It’s an agreeable bit of fluff with some charming moments, and a suitably bright performance from Alicia Silverstone, who’s more a beneficiary of shrewd casting than anything. Writer-director Amy Heckerling–here fresh from a couple dippy crowdpleasers about the inner monologues of babies, let’s not forget–is a sloppy, unfocused filmmaker. Just because her attention span may sync up with those of … Continue reading Acker, Cronenberg, Denis, Heckerling, Sturges