Tag: catch-up reviews

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Bayona, Lang, Moore, Sturges, Webb

Dan Seeger

The Impossible (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012). At the very core of The Impossible is the commonplace sin of depicting a real-life tragedy in an Asian land through the experience of well-to-do, white, European travelers. The devastating tsunami that struck countries on the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004 killed approximately a quarter of a million people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, but its obviously rich vacationers played by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor whose story whose story needs to be told. This could be acceptable–albeit begrudgingly so–if the film still carried the sort of emotional weight that should … Continue reading Bayona, Lang, Moore, Sturges, Webb

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Faxon and Rash, Kasdan, Lloyd, Lord and Miller, Snyder

Dan Seeger

Darling Companion (Lawrence Kasdan, 2012). I’ve got loads of residual affection for writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, but he sure doesn’t make it easy to be one of his defenders these days. Darling Companion was his first film in nearly decade, following the appallingly bad Stephen King adaptation Dreamcatcher. It doesn’t make an argument that he used his creative downtime wisely. As wispy of a film concept as anyone’s likely to come across, Kasdan’s story (co-written with his wife, Meg Kasdan) concerns an older couple who adopt a stray dog and then lose that new furry family member in the woods around … Continue reading Faxon and Rash, Kasdan, Lloyd, Lord and Miller, Snyder

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Black, Buck and Lee, Emmerich, Frankel, Wells

Dan Seeger

Frozen (Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, 2013). The most successful animated feature in the traditional Disney mold (fairy tale structure, a bevy of Broadway-esque songs) since the studio’s nineteen-nineties heyday, Frozen is charming enough if a little flat. Like a lot of modern Disney fables, it’s more interesting for the ways it compulsively upends the legacy tropes–the “true love” with a man, the oversimplified villainy–than for the actual merits of what winds up onscreen freed from meta examinations. The songbook provided by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez may have launched a thousand (or more) YouTube videos on the strength of … Continue reading Black, Buck and Lee, Emmerich, Frankel, Wells

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Frears, Kurosawa, Robson, Sturges, Taylor

Dan Seeger

Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954). I sometimes identify Akira Kurosawa’s Ran as epic filmmaking writ as large as the screen allows. Seven Samurai, made over thirty years earlier, is epic filmmaking in the inverse, pruned and delicate and piercingly intimate. There are major moments to it, too, and scenes of pounding cinematic glory, but what really makes it work is the painstaking intricacy of Kurosawa’s storytelling. There’s a reason other creators return to it time and again, extracting what is useful for their own tales of valor and ironic victory. Kurosawa and his collaborators (Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni are … Continue reading Frears, Kurosawa, Robson, Sturges, Taylor

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Cretton, Hood, Kanin, Minnelli, Sturges

Dan Seeger

Next Time I Marry (Garson Kanin, 1938). The earliest film that gave Lucille Ball star billing casts her as bratty heiress who needs to marry the right man to secure her inheritance, the sort of dilemma that only exists in the movies. Arriving a few years after It Happened One Night, the film is transparently a riff on the Frank Capra hit, with Ball’s entitled scold being tamed by the regular joe (James Ellison) she impulsively weds to get her money. They road trip across the country in a race to secure an annulment, director Garson Kanin staging everything with … Continue reading Cretton, Hood, Kanin, Minnelli, Sturges

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Jones, Kubrick, LeRoy, Park, Tourneur

Dan Seeger

Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933). This big musical from the tail end of the Pre-Code Hollywood era is fascinating for its many contradictions, beginning with the framing of Great Depression challenges with a notably defeatist cheer. The production numbers are the handiwork of Busby Berkeley (the songs are by Harry Warren and Al Dubin) and they show off his skill at mesmerizing vastness. “We’re in the Money” is probably the most famous, but others are more interesting, especially the lengthy “Pettin’ the Park,” which includes a strikingly sexy moment involving a bevy of beauties changing behind a sheer … Continue reading Jones, Kubrick, LeRoy, Park, Tourneur

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Fleischer, McQueen, Perry, Sturges, Tourneur

Dan Seeger

The Swimmer (Frank Perry, 1968). This is definitely an odd one. It’s not hard to see why this has become something of a cult classic, its relative obscurity combining with the floridly executed proto-seventies moody grit creating a fairly singular viewing experience. Based on a John Cheever story, the film casts Burt Lancaster as a middle-aged stalwart of the self-anointed suburban upper class who decides on a whim on day that he can cross the vast distance from one house to his own home entirely by following a path that takes him through all of his many neighbors’ backyard swimming … Continue reading Fleischer, McQueen, Perry, Sturges, Tourneur

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Katzin, Kurosawa, Muschietti, Walsh, Wise

Dan Seeger

Colorado Territory (Raoul Walsh, 1949). This Raoul Walsh western both locks in on the form and offers a sort of sour, woozy commentary on its many tropes. Joel McRae plays a notorious outlaw who’s sprung from jail and gets himself enmeshed in the fabled “one last job,” a train heist that will net him and his conniving compatriots enough money to allow them to retire for good. Along the way, he also becomes enamored with a lady bandit, the wonderfully named Colorado Carson (Virginia Mayo). Walsh had used the exact same source material to make a film noir crime picture … Continue reading Katzin, Kurosawa, Muschietti, Walsh, Wise

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Ozu, Polley, Sullivan, Tourneur, Zenovich

Dan Seeger

Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic (Marina Zenovich, 2013). Richard Pryor had a life that was singularly amazing (deeply troubled childhood, an impact on the art of stand-up comedy like no other, and a personal life fraught with peril and bad decisions), so much so that it seems almost impossible to contain it within a single film. He couldn’t do it with the thinly fictionalized Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling, and Marina Zenovich–inadvertently, no doubt–does her level best to prove that the documentary feature format similarly has no hope of containing the man’s unbalanced magnificence. She clicks through the … Continue reading Ozu, Polley, Sullivan, Tourneur, Zenovich

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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