Tag: 2015 movies

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We have just discovered an important note from space

Dan Seeger

Ridley Scott has been directing feature films for nearly forty years, doing so at a reasonably prolific rate. Included among his films are a pair of science fiction efforts (Alien and Blade Runner) that are widely considered classics and have absolutely influenced the similar genre efforts that followed with a pervasiveness that only Star Wars can rival. He’s received three Best Directing Academy Award nominations and presided over a Best Picture winner. While I think even his most fervent adherents would acknowledge that he’s signed his name to more than a few clunkers, by any fair estimation Scott has had … Continue reading We have just discovered an important note from space

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‘Cause when life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door

Dan Seeger

Uncle John feels like a first feature. In this instance, I mean that as a compliment. The directorial debut of Steven Piet (who co-wrote the screenplay with producer Erik Crary), the film has a small-scale resoluteness, a commitment to telling an understated story with care and calmness. While the occasional evocative shot springs up, the film mostly proceeds with a smart humility. Piet isn’t trying to dazzle the audience. Instead, he wants to tell his story well, which is a far more admirable goal than wrenching attention with anxiously gaudy visuals. In assessing Piet’s commitment to the integrity of his narrative … Continue reading ‘Cause when life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door

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Enright and Berkeley, Garbus, McQuarrie, Van Sant

Dan Seeger

Promised Land (Gus Van Sant, 2012). This is exactly the sort of appalling earnest, dramatically inert fare that makes many rightly cringe when they think about the sort of medicine-tinged movies Oscar season might bring. With a story credit for Dave Eggers and a shared screenplay credit for Matt Damon and John Krasinski, who also start in the film, Promised Land takes the issue of fracking and tries to spin a sort of Capraesque fable with a dose of twenty-first century cynicism and a gotcha plot twist for good measure. Damon plays an ambitious employee of a global energy concern who … Continue reading Enright and Berkeley, Garbus, McQuarrie, Van Sant

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How do you know you’ll recognize me? I’m not too clear, but I’m easy to see

Dan Seeger

I’m not often able to assert the following right after seeing a new movie: I have a clear favorite scene in Mistress America. Tracy (Lola Kirke), a young woman in her first semester of college, has just been charged by her new friend and anticipated step-sister, Brooke (Greta Gerwig), with picking up some pasta for dinner. Alone in the grocery store, Tracy is flummoxed by the array of options before her, both in trying to determine which brand is fancy enough to impress her older, more worldly companion and simply which damn shape she should opt for. Maybe the ones that … Continue reading How do you know you’ll recognize me? I’m not too clear, but I’m easy to see

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Now I’ve got goons on my landing, thieves on my trail, Nazis on my telephone, willing me to fail

Dan Seeger

As is often the case with the most significant media innovations, the introduction of the the sort of pervasive punditry that absolutely infests broadcast new a few decades later came about as a sort of desperate accident. ABC was mired in last place, trailing well behind competitors CBS and NBC, when it came time to cover the presidential nominating conventions of the Republicans and the Democrats. The other networks opted for their usual gavel-to-gavel coverage, something ABC couldn’t afford. (It’s worth noting that this was at a time when the conventions were far more likely to be newsworthy events, as opposed to … Continue reading Now I’ve got goons on my landing, thieves on my trail, Nazis on my telephone, willing me to fail

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By the time I get to Phoenix she’ll be risin’

Dan Seeger

Phoenix takes place in Germany shortly after the end of World War II. The city of Berlin is reeling, much of it still in ruins, and the portion of its Jewish population that somehow survived the concentration camps is returning, warily ready to restart their lives but still understandably burdened by spiritual wounds that will likely never heal. One of those returning is Nelly (Nina Hoss), whose face was badly damaged by a bullet wound. The doctor charged with reconstructive surgery asks her about the appearance she’d like him to provide. Nelly insists she wants to look like herself, a choice … Continue reading By the time I get to Phoenix she’ll be risin’

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I wanna write my whole life down, burn it there to the ground

Dan Seeger

Brilliance is devilishly difficult to capture on film. So often, the necessary concessions that come with condensing prickly complexities into a concise cinematic narrative leave supposed acts of creative genius looking like shabby husks and the individual behind such revered greatness falling into pat, simplified categories, disposable icons with fervent spark and chasm-like flaws. Maybe the mightiest accomplishment of the many within The End of the Tour is the film’s honest, complicated, engrossing consideration of how brilliance resides uneasily in a society unprepared to meet it with due respect and gratitude. It is one of the few instances I can think of in … Continue reading I wanna write my whole life down, burn it there to the ground

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Banks, Bergman, Hamilton, Limon, Polanski

Dan Seeger

1971 (Johanna Hamilton, 2014). Clearly positioned as a history lesson for those who venerate Edward Snowden for his digital freedom fighting in bringing to light information about the U.S. government’s shady spying on its own citizens, 1971 focuses in on a break-in at a Pennsylvania FBI office in the year of the title. Those who are shocked by the modern transgressions against privacy can watch this documentary for a bracing reminder that federal crime-fighting agencies are in full-scale same-as-it-ever-was territory, Patriot Act or not. Of course, that doesn’t make current abuses acceptable, but the indignation is best shaped as part of … Continue reading Banks, Bergman, Hamilton, Limon, Polanski

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Don’t tread on an ant, he’s done nothing to you, there might come a day when he’s treading on you

Dan Seeger

By now, I think I’m largely over the shock over exactly which characters from their vast library of costumed, super-powered heroes and villains Marvel manages to turn into legitimate big screen figures. Deprived of cornerstone heroes Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men, all licensed out before the long-time comic book publisher decided they could do movies on their own, Marvel boldly committed themselves to the next tier down, convinced that the multiplex wasn’t all the different from the spinner rack of old. The individual heroes weren’t as important as the perceived stamp of quality that came from having the word … Continue reading Don’t tread on an ant, he’s done nothing to you, there might come a day when he’s treading on you

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Don’t say I never warned you when your train gets lost

Dan Seeger

No matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, the temptation is mighty to always ascribe cinematic authorship primarily (even solely) to the director. There’s good cause for that. Studying the filmographies of everyone from genuine artists like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese to abominable hacks like Brett Ratner and Michael Bay suggest just how much a director owns the final vision on the screen. On occasion, though, the genealogy of a film can be a little trickier than that. Trainwreck is unmistakably a Judd Apatow movie, maintaing the flavor and messiness of the director’s four prior features. But it … Continue reading Don’t say I never warned you when your train gets lost