Category: Film

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Audiard, Curtiz, Elliot, Polanski, Vaughn

Dan Seeger

Mary and Max (Adam Elliot, 2009). A beautifully downbeat stop-motion animation feature about unlikely penpals on the opposite side of the Atlantic who correspond over a number of years, developing a moving, warm, fragile and occasionally fractured relationship. Despite the distance–or, arguably, because of it–they drawn strength and even courage from one another, muddling through the unique challenges of their respective lives in part because they’ve got a lifeline out there somewhere in the world, someone who may not understand them, but at least takes the time to try. Max, voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is an especially wonderful creation, … Continue reading Audiard, Curtiz, Elliot, Polanski, Vaughn

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Meanwhile…

Dan Seeger

Though I haven’t linked to them yet, I’ve contributed a few words to Spectrum Culture over the course of the past week. First, there was a consideration of The New Pornographers album Twin Cinema for a “Five Years Later” feature on the best music of 2005. When the “Five Years Later” feature turned its attention to film, I got the chance to take another crack at a movie I’ve written about a couple times previously. Today, I contribute to our inaugural List Inconsequential feature, Great Musicians Who Haven’t Made a Great Album in At Least 10 Years. If my friend … Continue reading Meanwhile…

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Almodóvar, Campion, DeBlois and Sanders, Lumet, Pontecorvo

Dan Seeger

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988). Almodóvar’s international breakthrough is almost quaint in its kitschy simplicity when held up against the rich, lush films that have sprung from his off-kilter cranium in recent years. It involves a tangled web of romantic and sexual relationships, largely converging in a Spanish apartment that has a convenient batch of sedative-laden gazpacho in the fridge. There evidence of Almodóvar’s sterling eye, especially in the earlier scenes, but it’s mostly an engagingly casual farce, played with a relaxation that feels nicely cultural. Carmen Maura is especially good in the lead … Continue reading Almodóvar, Campion, DeBlois and Sanders, Lumet, Pontecorvo

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Top Fifty Films of the 80s — An Introduction

Dan Seeger

Yes, I’m really going to do this. When I tracked through my selections for the fifty best films of the the ten year span that began with January 1, 2000, the timing made sense. It aligned with the pending spin of the third digit on the calendar’s odometer and everyone was cooking up lists intended to summarize the entertainment of “the aughts.” When I repeated the exercise with the films of the 1990s, it had its own warped logic (or so I convinced myself) as I was honoring and making a sort of effort to preserve the prior bout of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — An Introduction

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Gray, Herzog, Meyers, Mulligan, Ritt

Dan Seeger

It’s Complicated (Nancy Meyers, 2009). It’s not, really. It is, however, inane, phony and empty-headed. What’s more, it’s borderline offensive in its complete detachment from the problems that most people experience, positing the height of stress that someone could face is planning a wildly expensive addition to the already sizable house. Some of this could be forgivable if the comedy was funny in the slightest, but there’s a barely a laugh to be found in the strained story that wants so desperately to be farce, but no involved wants to sully their hands with such crass entertainment. Meryl Streep may … Continue reading Gray, Herzog, Meyers, Mulligan, Ritt