Category: Film

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The Art of the Sell: “The Silence of the Lambs” movie poster

Dan Seeger

These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art.  I could definitely be wrong, but this is how I remember it. There was a trip to Madison, an occasional necessity when attempting to generate content for a program filled with movie reviews on a radio station in a modest Central Wisconsin town. I was standing in the three screen bunker of a movie theater located in Westgate Mall, one of those ramshackle outposts of commerce that seemed to be on its last legs from the moment it … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: “The Silence of the Lambs” movie poster

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Greatish Performances #30

Dan Seeger

#30 — Bill Paxton as Dale “Hurricane” Dixon in One False Move (Carl Franklin, 1992) Bill Paxton’s most iconic performances tend toward emotive intensity. To a degree, that’s simply a product of the films that crossed over into broader public consciousness, especially since Paxton was one of director James Cameron’s go-to supporting actors, briefly playing a punk with a hair-trigger temper in The Terminator and famously wailing, “Game over, man!” in Aliens. (The one time Paxton got to try out understatement in a Cameron film, in Titanic, he was saddled with some of the most leaden exposition dialogue in the … Continue reading Greatish Performances #30

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Now Playing: Get Out

Dan Seeger

Sometimes the instinctual filing of a film into a single genre proves woefully inadequate. Get Out, the feature directorial debut of Jordan Peele, is a horror film. On the surface of it, that is clear and almost indisputable. It moves with rhythms familiar from a fleet of jolting predecessors, down to the particulars of a long drive down a highway book-ended by dense forest and a comic relief best pal who seems poised to somehow save the day.  There’s a haunted past and a slow accumulation of menace. As a horror film, Get Out is proficient and engaging. It is … Continue reading Now Playing: Get Out

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Laughing Matters: Key & Peele, “‘Gremlins 2’ Brainstorm

Dan Seeger

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. I am sharing this today because at the moment I find something highly appealing about Jordan Peele — excuse me, I mean Star Magic Jackson, Jr. — engaging in a freewheeling brainstorming session for a movie, celebrating narrative elements that shouldn’t quite work but somehow do. As if, say, someone pitched a cross between Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Stepford Wives that was … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Key & Peele, “‘Gremlins 2’ Brainstorm

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La La Lapse: The Do-Over Oscars

Dan Seeger

  Going into last night’s Academy Awards ceremony, I thought there was a good chance we’d all see something historic. But I surely never believed I would anything like that in my lifetime of devoted Oscar-watching. By now, even those who went to bed early know about the unprecedented blunder that saw an incorrect winner announced for the night’s biggest prize. After pulling the card that was supposed to have the Best Picture winner printed on it, presenter Warren Beatty fumbled around in what initially seemed like schtick (Faye Dunaway, by his side, even playfully chastises him), double-checking the empty … Continue reading La La Lapse: The Do-Over Oscars

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From the Archive: My Ballot, 2006

Dan Seeger

The other day, I provide my list of the twenty performances from 2016 films that I would have submitted on an Oscar ballot had I been given the opportunity to do so. This is an exercise is wishcasting that I have been indulging in for an absurdly long time. In online platforms alone, it has been over ten years of offering my haughty views of which performers were most deserving of awards consideration in any given year. Since ten is a nice round number, I thought I’d drag out my anointed score of acting titans from the film year 2006, … Continue reading From the Archive: My Ballot, 2006

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Twenty Performances, or The Folly of Working Without Annette

Dan Seeger

As per tradition, I follow my countdown of the top ten films of the year by turning my attention to the acting that most enthralled me while the previous calendar was still tacked to the wall. The guidelines I set for myself are simple: I draft up the version of a nominating ballot I would submit were I a member of the Academy’s Acting Branch, ranking the five performances in each category and forcing myself to be assiduously honest. That means setting my own sentimental preferences and occasionally ignoring the strategic category shifting that takes place. Both of those factor … Continue reading Twenty Performances, or The Folly of Working Without Annette

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Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number One

Dan Seeger

There is tremendous beauty and pain to be found in Moonlight. Written and directed by Barry Jenkins (based on the Tarell Alvin McCraney play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue), the film drops in at three points in the life of Chiron (played as a boy by Alex Hibbert, as a teen by Ashton Sanders, and as an adult by Trevante Rhodes). The film probes into the challenge of coming to terms with one’s identity while operating in a fraught society that brutally rejects the version of self that’s emerging. Growing up is difficult enough without the added strain of … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number One

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Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Two

Dan Seeger

I remember 1979, and I suspect that contributes mightily to my affection for 20th Century Women, written and directed by Mike Mills. I don’t mean to suggest that the film is some bland exercise in nudging nostalgia, resonating only because of echoes generated by its hollowed-out soul. This story of a young man (Jamie Fields) experiencing pivotal stretch of growing up while under the watchful eye of his mother (Annette Bening, plainly perfect) and feeling his personal shape change due the influence of a handful of other figures (including characters played by Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, and Billy Crudup) is built … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2016 — Number Two