Category: Film

Books, Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

My efforts for Spectrum Culture this week began with an incredibly difficult movie to write about: Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color. The movie is so densely inscrutable that any attempt to summarize it (or even more daunting, to speculate on its meaning) is practically doomed to failure. I feel I did all right, but I’m actively looking forward to writing on what appears to be a fairly simple documentary for this coming week. On the music side, I wrote about the new album from Caitlin Rose, which is very solid. Though I didn’t make this comparison in the review, it reminded … Continue reading Spectrum Check

Books, Film, Television1 Comment

Roger Ebert, 1942 – 2013

Dan Seeger

I watch movies the way I do because of Roger Ebert. I started watching the venerable Chicago Sun-Times film critic verbally spar with Gene Siskel, his counterpart at crosstown paper the Chicago Tribune, when the two were hosts of the PBS program Sneak Previews. This was before the direction each of their thumbs pointed was keenly watched by studios, before the breadth of their influence reached a level that arguably exceeded that of any film critics that came before. These were simply two guys–equally passionate, equally smart, equally committed to exploring the value of cinema in all its forms–talking about … Continue reading Roger Ebert, 1942 – 2013

Books, FilmLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I had a lot of stuff go up at Spectrum Culture this week, so let’s just tick them off: –It’s fairly rare that I write for the book section, but it occurred to me late last fall that I just might be able to get myself a review copy of the massive, intimidating and universally adored new outing from Chris Ware, Building Stories. Evidently, I made my request right before our editor-in-chief, inspiring at least a bit of envy. That’s the proper reaction on his part, by the way. This thing is spectacular. In my many reviews for Spectrum, this … Continue reading Spectrum Check

FilmLeave a comment

You have to pay the price of admission sometime in your life, somewhere along the line

Dan Seeger

The new film Admission differs drastically enough from the source material novel of the same name that original writer Jean Hanff Korelitz was given the opportunity to address it, presumably with the consent of studio p.r. mavens given her willingness … Continue reading You have to pay the price of admission sometime in your life, somewhere along the line

FilmLeave a comment

Farrelly and Farrelly, Kazan, Levy, Stoller, Wain

Dan Seeger

The Three Stooges (Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, 2012). Strangely, this attempt to update the Three Stooges for a modern audience is the most disciplined Farrelly brothers film in years. That doesn’t mean it’s good per se, but the screenplay does have a tightness and care that’s been largely missing from the siblings’ work for at least ten years or so. There’s some genuinely inspired staging to the hyper-violent comic set pieces featuring the trio of orphaned doofuses clumsily beating the hell out of each other which carries over the broader narrative. Not much of it is especially funny or … Continue reading Farrelly and Farrelly, Kazan, Levy, Stoller, Wain