Author: Dan Seeger

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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

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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

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Benedek, Lang, Morris, Scorsese, Wilder

Dan Seeger

Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris, 2008). The Oscar-winning documentarian turns his attention (and his Interrotron) to the appalling abuse of prisoners inflicted by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. The resulting film is exhaustive and exhausting, laying out the ugly details of the matter with an appropriate relentlessness. Morris corrals interviews with most of the principals, and their collective testimony seems painfully honest if sometimes buffered down in the name of understandable self-preservation. Morris inserts a handful of subdued and yet entirely unnecessary recreations. It’s a tactic that he’s notably employed before, but this time out it’s just intrusive. The … Continue reading Benedek, Lang, Morris, Scorsese, Wilder