Category: Film

FilmLeave a comment

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…

Film1 Comment

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

FilmLeave a comment

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

FilmLeave a comment

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

FilmLeave a comment

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

FilmLeave a comment

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

FilmLeave a comment

Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Four

Dan Seeger

#4 — The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940) The Philadelphia Story is all about Katharine Hepburn. More specifically, the enigma code that unlocks why The Philadelphia Story is so great begins with Hepburn as the key. In the late nineteen-thirties, Hepburn’s struggles to generate consistent mass appeal among the moviegoing public led to the coining of the persistent dismissive “box office poison” (though the term has historically hung around Hepburn’s neck, other future unquestionaed icons of the silver screen such as Fred Astaire and Mae West were name-checked in the same infamous article). As headstrong in her professional navigation as … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Four

FilmLeave a comment

Be careful for the danger there, you just might just be unprepared

Dan Seeger

Like a lot of people that devote themselves to inordinate amounts of time spent in movie theaters, I have a tendency to equate novelty with accomplishment. Though I maintain a thick enough strain of cynicism to avoid knee-jerk genuflection before hollow material tricked up with self-congratulatory narrative gimmicks (this is where I’d link to a review of Fight Club if I had one), I am absolutely more prone to fall for movies that do something decidedly different, filling the screen before me with something that I’ve never quite seen before. I’d naturally assumed that predilection came from an altogether commonplace impulse … Continue reading Be careful for the danger there, you just might just be unprepared

Film1 Comment

From the Archive: Look Who’s Talking Too

Dan Seeger

Kirstie Alley’s attitude there seems about right to me. I was thinking about typing out a lament over how much terrible fare came dribbling out during holiday movie seasons of old, but it has always been a mix of the great, fine, and dreadful at this time of the year. The very same weekend Look Who’s Talking Too arrived, so to did the magical Edward Scissorhands and the solidly entertaining Mermaids. I don’t remember a bit of this movie, but I find it a little disconcerting that I offered praise — genuine, unguarded praise at that — for the portion … Continue reading From the Archive: Look Who’s Talking Too