Category: Film

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Now Playing: Jackie

Dan Seeger

Hardly a grizzled old soul at the age of thirty-five, Natalie Portman has nonetheless been working in film long enough — over twenty years — to have distinctive phases of her career. Without being precise about the timing of each shift (though I certainly could for anyone foolhardy and masochistic enough to ask me to), I’d say she’s already gone from child actor to precocious ingenue to adult actor. Presumptive as it might be to make too bold a declaration on the basis of a single performance, the new film Jackie could very mark the beginning of a convincing transformation into … Continue reading Now Playing: Jackie

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Carrie Fisher, 1956 – 2016

Dan Seeger

Generationally, my appreciation for Carrie Fisher is supposed to begin with Star Wars. Only her second feature film appearance, following a sharp debut in Hal Ashby’s Shampoo, her turn as Princess Leia Organa in George Lucas’s space saga earned her a permanent place in pop culture history. To the degree that I even thought about such things at the time, Fisher’s performance seemed a little perfunctory in Star Wars, filling out the damsel in distress role that Lucas simplistically typed out. Looking back now, with the helpful illumination of another few decades of Fisher’s spectacularly unguarded public persona, her performance … Continue reading Carrie Fisher, 1956 – 2016

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Now Playing: La La Land

Dan Seeger

Damien Chazelle wastes no time in establishing exactly what kind of movie he aims to deliver with La La Land. As opposed to many other modern screen musicals that are coy about their commitment to the genre, Chazelle’s film opens with a full-scale number staged in the midst of a Los Angeles traffic jam, blue sky above and pavement below. There’s no freeing cut to a soundstage or winking implication that the narrative is dipping into a character’s rousing imagination. Instead, there’s a fleet of performers adorned in bright colors singing and dancing and staring right at the audience with feral confidence. … Continue reading Now Playing: La La Land

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Now Playing: Manchester by the Sea

Dan Seeger

Michelle Williams recently reported that Kenneth Lonergan was in tears while directing at least one pivotal scene in Manchester by the Sea. The actress shared this detail with a touch of awe, noting that she’d never had that experience on a movie set before (and Williams is not exactly reticent to sign on for films that deliver emotional gut punches). Having watched the new film, I have a difficult time imagining any other reaction from Lonergan, and not only because he was watching the film’s most wrenching scene play out before his watering eyes. Overall, Manchester by the Sea betrays … Continue reading Now Playing: Manchester by the Sea

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Greatish Performances #29

Dan Seeger

#29 — Bill Murray as Frank Cross in Scrooged (Richard Donner, 1988) It is entirely reasonable to disagree about the pivot point that moved Bill Murray from an engaging presence to a shrewdly effective actor. Enjoyable as he is in the various onscreen turns in the first portion of his film career, Murray got by on attitude and scampish charm more than honest immersion in his roles. It was a fitting enough extension of his foundational work with Second City, The National Lampoon Radio Hour, and Saturday Night Live, but it also confined his talent. Rather than stretching, he was … Continue reading Greatish Performances #29

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Now Playing: Nocturnal Animals

Dan Seeger

There are many flares of ingenuity in the sophomore directorial effort of Tom Ford, but perhaps the most important and telling is the title he chose. In adapting the 1993 novel Tony and Susan, written by Austin Wright, Ford opted for the title of a work of fiction within the fiction: Nocturnal Animals. Not only is that a far more elegant name to hang on a film, it offers an intriguing insight into the darkness that exist in and around the characters that move across Ford’s meticulous images. The film stars Amy Adams as Susan Morrow, an art gallery director … Continue reading Now Playing: Nocturnal Animals

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Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok

Dan Seeger

Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016). And so we’ve reached the point in the superhero era of cinema that allows for a caustically deconstructionist take on the genre to become one of the biggest hits of the year. There might be no better methodology for tracing the chronology of the genre’s takeover than measuring the comparative impact of Mystery Men (a dud in 1999) to Kick-Ass (a solid hit in 2010) to Deadpool (a sensation in 2016). Technically, Ryan Reynolds first played Wade Wilson in the dismal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, release in 2009. Besides the smirking countenance of the actor, that iteration … Continue reading Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok

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From the Archive: Sleepwalkers and White Men Can’t Jump

Dan Seeger

Here’s another fine example of the strain and struggle I went through to link separate films when I wrote about them for The Pointer, the student newspaper where I attended college.  My only real recollection of this article involves being stopped in the hallway of the Communication Arts Center by a professor who skeptically grilled me on whether or not I’d actually seen Sunset Boulevard. I had. The academic should have given me grief over the ridiculous mixed metaphor in the last paragraph. Writers have long been the undervalued heroes of moviemaking. Films from Sunset Boulevard to last year’s Barton … Continue reading From the Archive: Sleepwalkers and White Men Can’t Jump

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Now Playing: Loving

Dan Seeger

It can be too much of a burden to put on a movie, to insist that it offer a cautionary alarm about the conflicts and risks swarming into modern society, doing so with clarity and firm intent. It is challenging enough to tell a story on screen, especially one based in fact, when the needs of drama and the moral obligation of accuracy can tug on different sleeves, without the pressure of winning a moral argument. And yet that is precisely what certain movies can do. It is not necessarily an obligation, but it is a gift, at least of … Continue reading Now Playing: Loving