Tag: 2016 movies

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Now Playing: La La Land

Dan Seeger

Damien Chazelle wastes no time in establishing exactly what kind of movie he aims to deliver with La La Land. As opposed to many other modern screen musicals that are coy about their commitment to the genre, Chazelle’s film opens with a full-scale number staged in the midst of a Los Angeles traffic jam, blue sky above and pavement below. There’s no freeing cut to a soundstage or winking implication that the narrative is dipping into a character’s rousing imagination. Instead, there’s a fleet of performers adorned in bright colors singing and dancing and staring right at the audience with feral confidence. … Continue reading Now Playing: La La Land

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Now Playing: Manchester by the Sea

Dan Seeger

Michelle Williams recently reported that Kenneth Lonergan was in tears while directing at least one pivotal scene in Manchester by the Sea. The actress shared this detail with a touch of awe, noting that she’d never had that experience on a movie set before (and Williams is not exactly reticent to sign on for films that deliver emotional gut punches). Having watched the new film, I have a difficult time imagining any other reaction from Lonergan, and not only because he was watching the film’s most wrenching scene play out before his watering eyes. Overall, Manchester by the Sea betrays … Continue reading Now Playing: Manchester by the Sea

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Now Playing: Nocturnal Animals

Dan Seeger

There are many flares of ingenuity in the sophomore directorial effort of Tom Ford, but perhaps the most important and telling is the title he chose. In adapting the 1993 novel Tony and Susan, written by Austin Wright, Ford opted for the title of a work of fiction within the fiction: Nocturnal Animals. Not only is that a far more elegant name to hang on a film, it offers an intriguing insight into the darkness that exist in and around the characters that move across Ford’s meticulous images. The film stars Amy Adams as Susan Morrow, an art gallery director … Continue reading Now Playing: Nocturnal Animals

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Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok

Dan Seeger

Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016). And so we’ve reached the point in the superhero era of cinema that allows for a caustically deconstructionist take on the genre to become one of the biggest hits of the year. There might be no better methodology for tracing the chronology of the genre’s takeover than measuring the comparative impact of Mystery Men (a dud in 1999) to Kick-Ass (a solid hit in 2010) to Deadpool (a sensation in 2016). Technically, Ryan Reynolds first played Wade Wilson in the dismal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, release in 2009. Besides the smirking countenance of the actor, that iteration … Continue reading Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok

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Now Playing: Loving

Dan Seeger

It can be too much of a burden to put on a movie, to insist that it offer a cautionary alarm about the conflicts and risks swarming into modern society, doing so with clarity and firm intent. It is challenging enough to tell a story on screen, especially one based in fact, when the needs of drama and the moral obligation of accuracy can tug on different sleeves, without the pressure of winning a moral argument. And yet that is precisely what certain movies can do. It is not necessarily an obligation, but it is a gift, at least of … Continue reading Now Playing: Loving

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Now Playing: The Edge of Seventeen

Dan Seeger

In The Edge of Seventeen, Hailee Steinfeld plays Nadine Byrd. She’s a high school junior beset by a fairly typical array of problems: family that doesn’t understand her, a small cluster of friends whose loyalty is continually tested, the always baffling pile-up of signals from boys. If the issues aren’t familiar from life, they certainly will tickle the recollection of anyone who’s watched a movie about teen-aged existence, at least those that flowed downstream from the rough seas sailed by Commodore John Hughes. Even as I type that out, becoming approximately the ten million and seventy-seventh person to handily categorize The … Continue reading Now Playing: The Edge of Seventeen

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Bird, Coon and Skousen, Garrone, Huston, Paradisi

Dan Seeger

Tomorrowland (Brad Bird, 2015). There’s nobility in Brad Bird’s oft-stated aspiration to use Tomorrowland to reanimate the futuristic optimism of his youth, countering the long meander into an endless procession of sci-fi dystopias. Intent is one thing. Execution is quite another. Bird’s second outing as a director of live-action features is a muddled, overbearing squawk of condescending nonsense that too often barrels headlong into disastrous inane storytelling choices. As a grizzled, grumpy outcast of a once-proud secret nation of innovators, George Clooney is in the mode of hammy, insistent twitches that rightly earned him derision when he made his initial … Continue reading Bird, Coon and Skousen, Garrone, Huston, Paradisi

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Now Playing: Arrival

Dan Seeger

There’s so much to dig into when discussing the new film Arrival. The intricacies of the storytelling, the jarringly smart manipulation of the film narrative grammar, and the resonance of deeply moving themes are all worth topics, compelling pieces of evidence in the argument of the work’s special accomplishment. And yet the element of the film that made the strongest impression on me — that convinces me it is the linchpin that makes it all work — is the one that I suspect and worry will be overlooked by many, convinced that it is in service of a bigger picture … Continue reading Now Playing: Arrival

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Now Playing: Certain Women

Dan Seeger

Director Kelly Reichardt specializes in a quiet attention to the small. In general that serves her well, making her films stand out with their unhurried emotional arcs. Whether tracking the sad plight of homeless woman traveling with her dog or a batch of weary, nineteenth century pioneers, Reichardt’s steadfast refusal to whirlwind up contrived drama invites attention to the more intimate facets of her stories, those that nestle in close to the bones of the characters. In their sharpest moment, Reichardt’s films unearth truths that most fiction storytelling rushes recklessly over. Admittedly, that can make the resulting works feel slight, … Continue reading Now Playing: Certain Women