Category: Film

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From the Archive: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

Dan Seeger

This review was written fairly early in the run of The Reel Thing, the movie review radio show I co-hosted from 1990 to 1993. I worked as hard on this piece as anything I wrote in those first months of the show, because I knew I was out of step with the broader critical community. More than that, I knew my partner on the program absolutely loved this film, so I had to make my case as sharp and compelling as possible. As soon as I was done, there was going to be an on-air fight. It wasn’t going to … Continue reading From the Archive: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

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Laughing Matters: Key & Peele, “Ray Parker, Jr. Theme Songs”

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. There’s obviously an admirable surplus of material from the sketch comedy series Key & Peele that is engaged in the most significant political and social concerns of the current era. Much as I admire that, my true weakness when it comes to the collaborative work of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele is for their jabs at the entertainment business. I find that material to be … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Key & Peele, “Ray Parker, Jr. Theme Songs”

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My Writers: Joss Whedon

Dan Seeger

I was dismissive of Joss Whedon at first, needlessly so. And I probably should have known better. My first exposure — knowingly anyway — to Whedon’s writing was with the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which arrived with the excited promise of flinty ingenuity. It delivered far less, and Whedon was easy to dismiss as another breathlessly celebrated Hollywood wunderkind who didn’t have that much to contribute beyond a couple hooky notions. The nineties were lousy with those. As opposed to now, there weren’t a fleet of entertainment reporters prepared to dutifully transcribe Whedon’s complaints about how his original conception … Continue reading My Writers: Joss Whedon

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From the Archive: Munich

Dan Seeger

I find it a little remarkable that I have no reviews of Steven Spielberg films from the time I cohosted the movie review show on college radio station WWSP-90FM. During the time our program was airing weekly, the prolific filmmaker signed his name to exactly one directorial effort: Hook, released in 1991. Given when it landed on the release calendar, it’s possible we didn’t even cover it on the show. (A December 11th release date means we could have already been off in correlation to the school’s winter break). Instead, in order to populate the “From the Archive” feature with … Continue reading From the Archive: Munich

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From the Archive: Waiting for the Light

Dan Seeger

This review showed up within the first few months of The Reel Thing, the movies reviews and news show I co-hosted on WWSP-90FM, from 1990 – 1993. I was clearly still adjusting my parameters on the star rating, since there are an awful lot of complaints leveled to land on the clear recommendation of three stars. In my modern fact-checking, I discovered I used the wrong name for the young actress Hillary Wolf, so it’s sort of a mess all around. That bit of research also brought me to the tidbit that Wolf went on to be a judo champion … Continue reading From the Archive: Waiting for the Light

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Programming Note

Dan Seeger

This week has been exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure. And I’ve barely progressed into the week as I write this. (Super secret DVD commentary back story: this post was not written on Thursday!) I am still figuring out how to balance my new vocation with the modest and yet relentless demands of Coffee for Two. (Note: I’m aware that the relentless aspect is is entirely self-imposed.) As I continue the extended process of figuring out how to balance all of this, I may cheat a bit. Here’s a cheat, but, I think, a worthwhile one. I want to use my … Continue reading Programming Note

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From the Archive: Hero and Mr. Baseball

Dan Seeger

When I wrote reviews for The Pointer, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, I typically focused on a pair of films, doing my level best to thematically tie them together. As my rudimentary explanation of auteur theory here makes clear, there were plenty of instances when my attempts yielded strained results. The artistic success or failure of a film is often attributed chiefly to the director. Despite the acknowledged importance of fine writing and convincing acting, the director shoulders the majority of criticism because it is their job to tie everything together and strengthen the weak spots. … Continue reading From the Archive: Hero and Mr. Baseball

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Greatish Performances #25

Dan Seeger

#25 — Kate Beckinsale as Charlotte Pingress in The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman, 1998) I tend to think of The Last Days of Disco as the film that helped Whit Stillman loosen up, as if the propulsive beats of the titular musical genre sent his creative techniques into spinning, swirling revelry. Much as I admire his two preceding films, Metropolitan and Barcelona, their intense refinement can play like reticence. While fully maintaining his capacity for smart, careful, telling language, Stillman brings a little more sweat and glitter to his storytelling, a probing quality that carries the film deeper into the characters’ faults … Continue reading Greatish Performances #25