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Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Eight

Dan Seeger

The feature debut from writer-director Gillian Robespierre was much more than a single word. Quickly reduced by most of the entertainment press to a work with the primary significance of dealing with the topic of abortion more frankly, more fearlessly, and frankly more honestly than most other films that have cause to incorporate acknowledgement of the fully legal and not especially uncommon medical procedure, Obvious Child was a deeply insightful and beautifully funny creation. As Donna Stern, a low-level stand-up comic and struggling young woman approaching the age when unsettled directionless is no longer charming to herself or others, Jenny Slate works … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Eight

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Fifty

Dan Seeger

#50 — Mighty Joe Young (Ernest B. Shoedsack, 1949) There was really no pretense to originality with Mighty Joe Young. “Mightier than King Kong,” the trailer shouted, and similarities to the colossal primate who scaled the Empire State Building in the prior decade were more than superficial. Mighty Joe Young director Ernest B. Schoedsack shared that same title on the earlier film. His King Kong co-director, Merian C. Cooper, was a producer on Mighty Joe Young, and Ruth Rose worked on both scripts. While the oversized gorilla named Joe Young is different enough from his predecessor that it’s not reasonable to … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Fifty

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — An Introduction

Dan Seeger

Well, we can’t stop now, can we? Not when I’ve reached the decade that contains my reflexive answer to the impossible question, “What’s the best movie ever made?” (Don’t expend too much effort on puzzling out the identity of that film. It’s such an obvious, consensus-approved pick that it doesn’t just border on cliche, it resides in the city center.) Roughly six years ago, when I decided I wanted in on the proliferation of countdowns wrapping up a decade’s worth of films as different numeral moved into the third slot on the old year odometer, I genuinely didn’t anticipate the road before … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — An Introduction

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Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Nine

Dan Seeger

With these pieces tracking through the ten best films of the year, I prefer to focus entirely on the positive. The purpose is celebratory, after all. Why digress into minor flaws in individual films or more regrettable earlier efforts by filmmakers? In the case of Birdman, however, I think it will be helpful to elucidate my previous view on the work of director Alejandro González Iñárritu. To be blunt, I detest most of it. 21 Grams, Babel (which nabbed him an Oscar nomination in the Best Achievement in Directing category), and Biutiful are all manipulative exercises that revel in the easy drama … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Nine

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In a town that was like a wishing well, you were cast in like a stone

Dan Seeger

As if often the case when a film is the subject of back-and-forth, hyperbolic, politically-minded screeds, American Sniper is more of a litmus test of the predisposition of the viewer than a film making fiercely argued points on either side of the argument raging in its wake. As best as I can tell, those who decry it as a patriotically-blinded, neocon agitprop are ignoring the film’s undercurrent consideration of the way recurring wartime military service tears apart a life and a psyche. Interestingly enough, the film’s more fervent defenders’ common penchant to paint it as a sterling testament to the unyielding … Continue reading In a town that was like a wishing well, you were cast in like a stone

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You scream and everybody comes a running

Dan Seeger

Shortly after Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz was shot in killed, in 1996, a spokesman announced at a press conference, “John du Pont is a marksman, and he has an arsenal. We don’t know how many guns or how much ammunition he has.” This man pushing sixty, unbelievably wealthy thanks to a family fortune that stretched back generations, had taken one of the weapons from that arsenal and written an ugly, lurid story with the pull of a trigger. Back before stories celebrity freak shows and rampant gun violence seemed to arrive with the regularity of the tides, the twisted tale of … Continue reading You scream and everybody comes a running

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Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Ten

Dan Seeger

There are so many ways for the film version of Wild to go wrong. Adapted from Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling memoir of the same name, Wild is practically designed to lapse into feel-good platitudes cheering the triumph of the human soul over adversity. Following a personal spiral triggered in large part by the death of her beloved mother, Cheryl (played in the film by Reese Witherspoon) set out to hike the thousand-plus miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, despite (or maybe because of) her relative inexperience in such an endeavor. Nick Hornby’s screenplay and Jean-Marc Vallée’s direction admirable cohere to present the monumental … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — Number Ten

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Top Ten Movies of 2014 — An Introduction

Dan Seeger

Though I’d love to weigh in earlier on such matters, the vagaries of being a devoted film fan in a little mountain town, far removed from the urban centers which screen absolutely everything, require a little more patience in getting to a tally of the best films of a calendar year. Even as I buckle down to this task, there are a small slew of films that remain in my blind spot, some by my own error and plenty that haven’t found their way to one of my community’s modest number of screens devoted to artier fare. My tradition holds, … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2014 — An Introduction

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From the Archive: Desperate Hours

Dan Seeger

When I wrote this, I don’t think I realized the film was a remake (and also had earlier iterations as both a novel and a stage play). So, that’s embarrassing, especially when I make the observation that the makings for a good film are present, betraying no evident knowledge that maybe one already existed. I still haven’t seen the 1955 version, directed by William Wyler and starring Humphrey Bogart, so I can’t even weigh in on that now. This was the penultimate feature in the career of Michael Cimino, Academy Award winner for The Deer Hunter and Hollywood cautionary tale … Continue reading From the Archive: Desperate Hours

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I was feeling kinda seasick, but the crowd called out for more

Dan Seeger

As it takes me until late in the day to offer my reactions to this year’s slate of Academy Award nominees, expressing my own sense of disappointment-tilting-towards-outrage over the exclusion of Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo from their respective categories becomes the latest in a long line of echoes. Regardless of where the respective films will land on my own personal top ten list for the year, I think there are three 2014 movies that are true feats of directing: Birdman, Boyhood, and Selma (with The Grand Budapest Hotel very nearly deserving of that designation). That the one of those … Continue reading I was feeling kinda seasick, but the crowd called out for more