Category: Film

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From the Archive: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Dan Seeger

Any movie review program circa 1990 practically required a home video segment. Rentals of blocky VHS tapes was that significant a piece of the entertainment market. It was also the great equalizer, giving smaller markets that would never see, say, a big screen showing of a playwright’s feature directorial debut, an adaptation of a stage work that provides a clever reimagining of Hamlet from the perspective of two minor characters, access to such comparatively esoteric efforts. Largely stuck with the more dismal wide releases for our main reviews, we tended towards recommendations of art house fare when we were guiding … Continue reading From the Archive: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

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And I still remember all those days we spent alone

Dan Seeger

Carol, the latest film from Todd Haynes, is unyieldingly admirable in almost every way that matters in the construction of great cinema. The screenplay, adapted by Phyllis Nagy from a novel by Patricia Highsmith, is meticulous and thoughtful, spelling out the conflicts of the main characters in a determined, empathetic fashion. The performances evidence an equal amount of care. Maybe more than anything, Haynes’s directing job, heavily abetted by the cinematography of Edward Lachman, is the sort that can be studied for decades, held up as the embodiment of the way that images can be framed and finessed to tell … Continue reading And I still remember all those days we spent alone

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Inside this stillness is a wave, a force from which we won’t be saved

Dan Seeger

It’s not that the entire career of Adam McKay makes it appear that he’s have no interest in, much less facility for, an adaptation of The Big Short, Michael Lewis’s fury-stirring 2010 book about the fiscal malfeasance that precipitated the real estate collapse of 2007. Time as a head writer of Saturday Night Live is inked into his resume, meaning there’s got to be at least some amount of political awareness in his skill set, and the Funny or Die website, which he co-founded, has demonstrated a regular willingness to use broad, hooky gags as a delivery vessel for pointed, … Continue reading Inside this stillness is a wave, a force from which we won’t be saved

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From the Archive: Quigley Down Under

Dan Seeger

Much as there has been an unexpected endurance for many of the films that populated theaters during the first part of the nineteen-nineties, when I was holding down one half of a movie review program at my college radio station, there are a whole slew of releases that are, I suspect, barely though of at all any more. Maybe Quigley Down Under is in regular rotation in the wilds of some cable channel I barely know is there, but I doubt it. These days, probably the most notable thing about it is that it was basically Alan Rickman’s first attempt … Continue reading From the Archive: Quigley Down Under

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Top Fifty Films of…

Dan Seeger

This all started in the middle of 2009. As the calendar moved into the second half of the last year of what might awkwardly be termed “the aughts,” I decided I was going to revisit an exercise I’d indulged in about a decade earlier, albeit without a public outlet. As I explained at the time, I previously commemorated the end of the nineties by swapping lists of the top fifty films of that span with my colleague from our bygone days offering up movie reviews on the radio. Now with a swanky digital platform at my disposal, I decided I was … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of…

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number One

Dan Seeger

#1 — Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) Back when I had my first opportunity to share my opinions on the vast swath of cinematic offerings, foisting thick clusters of film criticism upon the defenseless radio listeners of Central Wisconsin, I took the task of crafting lists very seriously. The only time that particular duty really came into play was as one film year gradually gave way to the next (for those of us well-removed from the major metropolitan areas and the eager attention of studios and publicity agents hoping for consideration for timely awards seasons accolades, we were lucky if … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number One

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From the Archive: Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith

Dan Seeger

Well, what else would I do this week? Unearth an old review of Baby Mama? This post actually represents redundancy upon redundancy (upon redundancy!) as I’ve already transplanted this tally from my former online home. This time, I’m caving in and using the full title. I’m also cleaning it up a little. I will allow my original misspelling of Wookiee to stand no more. I’m not sure how much samuraithief checks his livejournal, but he’s the reason behind this post. More accurately, my guilt over the conversation I had with him yesterday is the reason behind this post. You see, he really … Continue reading From the Archive: Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Two

Dan Seeger

#2 — Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) Casablanca is the quintessential Hollywood film of its era, so completely shaped by the strictures of the time and grounded in the established mechanics of narrative cinematic storytelling that it very nearly transcends itself to become a movie about what movies can achieve. It intermingles hope and cynicism, romance and sorrow, stirring patriotism and nomadic isolation. Filmed and released after the United States was wrenched into the tumult of World War II, it serves as an effective avatar of the somewhat ambivalent view towards international engagement that still defined the national sentiment. The theme of the weary, … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Two

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Three

Dan Seeger

#3 — Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) Double Indemnity is the film that convinced me of Billy Wilder’s ability to full off just about anything within the borders of a movie screen. Admittedly, this represented, in part, my own personal shortsightedness, a unlearned tendency to always categorize directors in terms of the genre in which they were most prolific, of at least crafted their best known triumphs. If Alfred Hitchcock struggled somewhat artistically the further he strayed from the splendid spectacles of suspense that made his fame, surely it was worth marveling at Wilder’s ability to make a film far darker and … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Three

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From the Archive: The Constant Gardener

Dan Seeger

It’s about time for a new Greatish Performances post, and I’ve been mulling over which acting feat to select. One that I’ve batted around as a possibility ever since I launched (or, being honest, stole) the series, is Rachel Weisz’s Oscar-winning turn in The Constant Gardener, if only because it seems to be largely forgotten (she’s not the only supporting acting winner from the decade that is rarely invoked as such). By the time of the awards ceremony, I probably felt as strongly about Weisz deserving the win in her category as any other performer (and this was the year of Philip Seymour … Continue reading From the Archive: The Constant Gardener