Tag: 2013 movies

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Spectrum Culture

Dan Seeger

Now that I look at it, this week at Spectrum Culture was entirely about music for me. Even the film review I contributed was bursting with it, appropriate considering it was about the legendary Muscle Shoals recording studios that have factored into countless classic rock songs. It’s a good thing the director was able to drop in plenty of the songs (which must have cost plenty), because the film doesn’t have much else to recommend it. On the music review side, I covered one disappointment and one winner, and they didn’t fall into those categories in quite the way I … Continue reading Spectrum Culture

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I actively tried to avoid the film I reviewed this week at Spectrum Culture. It’s not because I thought it would be bad, but instead I was worried it would be good, which would make it disheartening and grueling. Sure enough, the new documentary about the few remaining physicians who provide late-term abortions kept reminding me or the sorry state of reproductive rights in the country. The film is solid. It’s the oppressive, anti-empathetic, woman-hating culture that’s a mess. I also spared a few sentences for our latest Monthly Mixtape, extolling the virtues of a song of the excellent new … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I was kept plenty busy by Spectrum Culture, this week. For one thing, this week was a fairly uncommon instance of me having two films to review instead of one, although that was more a product of a slight tangle with the prior week’s schedule than any ambition on my part. So even though I shouldn’t have been scrambling to get it all in, that’s exactly what happened. I started with a significant disappointment: Lynn Shelton’s new film. I really enjoyed her prior directorial effort, but the new film is a mess, entirely wasting her best cast yet (and sadly … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Not that anyone’s likely to notice without me pointing it out, but I’m going to slightly jumble my usual order in listing off my latest contributions to Spectrum Culture in this weekly slot. For example, I usually position whatever list we’re track through as the last bit, almost as an aside. Instead, I’ll put our latest offering in the ongoing effort to count down the greatest greatest hits albums of all time right up front, if only to immediately note to a good friend of mine that I have now managed to make sure that anyone who chooses to search … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Daldry, Eastwood, Moore, Sirk, Soderbergh

Dan Seeger

Pitch Perfect (Jason Moore, 2012). Much as I can understand how this film turned into a stealth hit–it has the musical liveliness of early Glee combined with the knowing spunk of Bring It On–it’s a fairly clumsy endeavor, with strained jokes and haphazard structure that would almost count as daring anti-narrative if it were done intentionally. It’s also one of those films that has absolutely no idea how college works, not just taking liberties for the sake of the storytelling but completely ignoring any attempt to depict its setting in a way that’s at all plausible. It does have Anna … Continue reading Daldry, Eastwood, Moore, Sirk, Soderbergh

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This was one of those wholly manageable weeks for me at Spectrum Culture: one album review, one film review. The album review was the tricker of the two, largely because it was another instance of a record that didn’t inspire strong feelings one way or the other. And “It’s pretty good” simply isn’t enough. In my malaise, I completely missed my opportunity to invoke a long dreamed of touring contingent. Since I spent the first part of the review musing on how many different groups shared some variation of the band’s name, I should have suggested that all of the … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I was irritated that I had a day this past week when I plainly gave up on writing a post for this space. Here’s part of the reason why: I wrote an awful lot for Spectrum Culture this week. First, I wrote about the new album from Washed Out, which I think is a significant improvement on the full-length debut from a couple years back. I asked for the release because it’s a little different material for me, and I thought it would be a good stretch for me. When I sat down to write the review last weekend, I … Continue reading Spectrum Check