Tag: 2011 movies

Books, Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

The first thing I had go up on the site this week was a book review. Embarrassingly enough, this was something I could have and should have written months ago. Yes, that’s months. There was just always other material that was more pressing and it stayed simmering on the back burner until the bottom of the pan was covered with a crusty blackness as impenetrable as concrete. Needless to type, I’ve been very reluctant to sign up for further book reviews. Movie reviews, though…I’m all over that. This week I got the chance to review the new documentary from Errol … Continue reading Spectrum Check

Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Oh, the French. My first piece for Spectrum Culture this week was a review of the new film from director Catherine Breillat, who’s been playing around with classic fairy tales of late. This time, it’s the tale of Sleeping Beauty that she transforms, merging it with at least one other fable. Naturally, there’s some gratuitousness topless bathing in it. I also turned in a record review that was a little late, but not as shamefully late as the book review I recently sent it. That hasn’t run yet. I’ll sheepishly share that story when it does. Continue reading Spectrum Check

Film2 Comments

Bailey and Barbato, Bogdanovich, Herzog, Kurosawa, Margolis

Dan Seeger

Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977). There’s certainly no reason to expect anything less than inspired lunacy from a Werner Herzog movie, especially one he made back in the nineteen-seventies when thew rules of cinema were falling away like worn paint from a waterlogged wall. Stroszek follows a German man whose perilous romance with a prostitute causes him to move with her and his elderly neighbor to, of all places, rural Wisconsin. From there, Herzog’s examination of the general travails of the downtrodden trying to forge better lives takes on the added harsh tinge of the false promise of the American dream … Continue reading Bailey and Barbato, Bogdanovich, Herzog, Kurosawa, Margolis

Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Just a couple things from me went up this week. I reviewed the new album from Memory Tapes, which was very strong. It’s actually one of those albums that makes wish I had a radio shift since most of the songs on it would be perfect to drop in the middle of a set to enliven it. I also tapped out another very positive review, this time for the movie Terri, which contains what I think is John C. Reilly’s best performance to date. Strangely, I wasn’t supposed to receive this movie. The promotional folks said they weren’t sending out … Continue reading Spectrum Check

Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week, I was all over the site, beginning with a movie review of a offbeat new documentary about, at least in part, the collision between man and nature in the American south. It’s a movie built on so much abstraction that it was a challenge to write about. It was also tough to write about the new New York Times documentary, though for different reasons. It’s a fairly straightforward work and picking out what does and doesn’t work with it was correspondingly straightforward. However, I have such an investment in trumpeting the continued valued of traditional mass media, that … Continue reading Spectrum Check

FilmLeave a comment

Carpenter, Cronenberg, Ford, Truffaut, Wright

Dan Seeger

Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011). Well, I’ll say this for director Joe Wright: He’s not going to be pinned down. He made his feature debut with a Jane Austen adaptation and followed that with a prestige picture based on a Ian McEwan novel. Then came a fairly drab issues picture largely about the homeless community in Los Angeles. The bank shot away from that reunites him with Atonement Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan for a bizarre action film about a teenage girl who was raised in isolation to be an unstoppable assassin. The film is balanced awkwardly between stylish action and moody … Continue reading Carpenter, Cronenberg, Ford, Truffaut, Wright