Category: Film

Film1 Comment

Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-One

Dan Seeger

#31 — Edge of Darkness (Lewis Milestone, 1943) Sometimes the quality that really distinguishes a film is commitment. The bigger the concepts and the more intense the conflicts within the film, the more tempting it is to default to the counterbalance of restraint. Edge of Darkness takes the opposite tack, heartily embracing its own heightened emotions with a acceptance of the natural floridness of the tale. Trafficking in the fervid narrative grammar of wartime propaganda, director Lewis Milestone’s film ratchets up the tension at every opportunity, at times threatening to push the material into a sort of perversely grounded fever dream. … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-One

FilmLeave a comment

Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Two

Dan Seeger

#32 — Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock, 1941) Alfred Hitchcock had an abundance of theses he kept circling around to during his career, a natural outcome of his prolific nature and usual ability to take his pick of projects. That’s a significant part of the reason cineastes tend to flip over Vertigo: it’s the one instance in which the master filmmaker took a swing at the piñata of his creative psyche and every laced candy came tumbling out. Part of the fun of examining the best films of Hitchcock’s career, then, is considering precisely where they fit into the puzzle of his … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Two

FilmLeave a comment

From the Archive: Backdraft

Dan Seeger

We had a few traditions on the movie review radio show The Reel Thing. The one that was in place from the very first episode involved spending our first episode in September discussing the biggest box office hits of the summer. Hence the inclusion of earnings analysis alongside the quick breakdown of the film’s quality. (And how adorable is it that the fifth biggest film of the summer has a total take that now looks like a respectable opening weekend for a hit.) My recollection is that we usually looked at the top ten highest-grossing films, but my memory might be faulty, … Continue reading From the Archive: Backdraft

Film10 Comments

Greatish Performances #20

Dan Seeger

#20 — Linda Cardellini as Kelli in Return (Liza Johnson, 2011) In modern cinematic considerations of war, there is a broad agreement that the emotional aftermath when a soldier reached the homeland is just a brutal and devastating as anything that might have happened when they were deployed. Even a film as supposedly jingoistic and fully enamored with battlefield conquest as the ultimate in heroism as American Sniper needs to acknowledge that the military man whose prowess with a rifle is a such that he get deadly superlatives affixed to his name is going to win up staring blankly at a … Continue reading Greatish Performances #20

FilmLeave a comment

Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Three

Dan Seeger

#33 — The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946) Though The Big Sleep would never be considered experimental enough to suggest that it’s deliberating courting an antinarrative approach, it does oddly wind up making its own accidental argument about the invalidity of sanctifying cogent storytelling. Stories about the convoluted plot of the film flummoxing practically everyone involved are legendary. Based on a Raymond Chandler novel of the same name, the film had three formidable writers credited on the screenplay: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman. Additionally, with Howard Hawks in the director’s chair, The Big Sleep boasted one of the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Three

FilmLeave a comment

Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Four

Dan Seeger

#34 — His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) According to Hollywood lore, the simple and brilliant notion that changed His Girl Friday from a straight adaptation of the play The Front Page, which had been filmed within the preceding decade, was hit upon largely by accident. Howard Hawks had his female secretary read the lines of male character Hildy Johnson while auditioning actors to play the other lead, Walter Burns. Something about the back-and-forth made Hawks realize that the film could be bolstered by carrying that gender switch into the production proper, which also opened up the possibility of incorporating a fractious … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Four

Film1 Comment

From the Archive: Frankie and Johnny and The Player

Dan Seeger

One week ago, I helped bring the school year to an end at the college generous enough to employ me, thanks to my leadership role with the annual commencement ceremony for graduating students. This made me think back to my own college graduation, two decades (and change) ago. Part of my long goodbye from school involved writing one last movie review column for the student newspaper. I explain what I chose to do in the actual piece I’m transcribing, so I won’t get into the choice here. I will note, however, that I’ve written about both these films in this … Continue reading From the Archive: Frankie and Johnny and The Player

Film2 Comments

And someone said, “Live fast, die young,” but the time runs always faster, son

Dan Seeger

It has been almost exactly thirty years since George Miller released what all presumed to be the final film in the saga of a post-apocalyptic anti-hero named Max. Miller hasn’t exactly been prolific in the decades since, but his filmmaking journey has definitely been interesting. He helmed a fairly unlikely John Updike adaptation and demonstrated that a movie about disease could bypass typical dewy-eyed piousness and instead be shaped by uncompromising emotional brutality. Maybe most surprisingly, he took a turn towards family fare with a deceptively dark sequel to Babe and a couple of computer animated efforts featuring dancing penguins. … Continue reading And someone said, “Live fast, die young,” but the time runs always faster, son

Film1 Comment

Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Five

Dan Seeger

#35 — All the King’s Men (Robert Rossen, 1949) Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men was first published in 1946, just a few years after he left a teaching post at Louisiana State University. Warren openly acknowledged the heavy influence his time in the Bayou State had on his best-known novel. Willie Stark, the central character of the book, was inspired by Huey Long, the famed and infamous governor and senator from Louisiana who was known for the power he wielded and the astonishing levels of corruption that ran through his career. The totality of the United States … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Five