Tag: 2012 movies

FilmLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

While I’m falling a little behind in my music reviews, I still had two new film pieces go up at Spectrum Culture this past week. First there was a review of a new documentary that uses one man’s personal experience, documented with a series of video cameras, to illuminate the ongoing challenges of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. While its homemade origins instill some humility into the film, it was also fairly complex and required a certain amount of deftness to detail its strengths and weaknesses. It was a nice challenge to write the review. I also wrote on … Continue reading Spectrum Check

FilmLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

  This week for Spectrum Culture, I reviewed a new film that fell into the category of earnest attempts sadly lacking in real chops in the execution. This is the sort of offering that I suspect plays like gangbusters at the smaller festivals on the circuit. I also contributed a short piece for our weekly List Inconsequential feature, because I simply will not pass up a chance to write about “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s finest film performance. Sorry, friends, but his turn for director John Carpenter ranks second in my book. Continue reading Spectrum Check

Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week at Spectrum Culture, I started with a piece on the music review side. I’ve previous written on Vivian Girls and La Sera, so it only seemed logical to me that I should continue weighing in on all the groups bobbing across that shared orbit. That meant writing on the second Best Coast album, not really knowing when I claimed it that the band was on the receiving end of enormous antipathy. That at least gave me an angle with which to start the review. I also had my regular contribution on the film side, writing about the new … Continue reading Spectrum Check

Everything ElseLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

It can be frustrating writing reviews from my relatively remote outpost (of course, there are greater frustrations here these days than that minor inconvenience). I’m reliant on studios that are willing to send out DVD screeners, and that’s a little harder to come by in the day of prolific online piracy. There are often weeks when the film I’m most interested (or best equipped) to review flatly isn’t available to me. And then there are weeks like this one. I tried and tried and tried to select a film from the limited release offerings that might have a screener and … Continue reading Spectrum Check

FilmLeave a comment

Don’t you think every kitten figures out how to get down whether or not you ever show up?

Dan Seeger

It never seemed like Whit Stillman was going to be prolific. There were four years between his 1990 debut Metropolitan and the largely forgotten follow-up Barcelona and then another four years before his third film, 1998’s The Last Days of … Continue reading Don’t you think every kitten figures out how to get down whether or not you ever show up?

Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

The vast majority of the time, the reviewers at Spectrum Culture choose the material we write on, which means we sometimes build our own trends as writers. For example, I’ve already regularly claimed Vivian Girls and associated acts (including writing about the new Best Coast soon). Turns out I’ve also inadvertently developed a specialty for writing about movies centered on French prostitutes. Last fall, extremely positive festival buzz led me to ask for Bertrand Bonello’s House of Pleasures. Now my willingness to follow Juliette Binoche just about anywhere led to a more modern exploration of that particular European subculture. The … Continue reading Spectrum Check

Books, Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I contributed a couple of pieces this week at Spectrum Culture. On the film side, I reviewed a French film based on a true story involving terrorists hijacking an airplane. While I didn’t expend much effort on this angle in the review, it’s sometimes very odd to see French filmmakers wrestle with the some of the established mechanics of action movies and thrillers without applying their deconstructionist tendencies. It really does wind up landing in some nether region between United 93 and Passenger 57. In the Music section, I reviewed the debut full-length effort from Alabama Shakes. From the editorial … Continue reading Spectrum Check