Tag: new movie review

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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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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

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Some are dying slowly, some are dying fast, some of us hold on to life as long as we can last

Dan Seeger

In Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, the “Me” is Greg (Thomas Mann), a high school senior who has successfully navigated the perils of that particular treacherous habitat by expertly positioning himself as innocuously forgettable. As he explains in listing the various cliques that exist in his school, he’s managed to make himself a casually likable acquaintance to everyone. That is, he stays on the safe periphery to everyone except Earl (Ronald Cyler II), someone he’s known since kindergarten and who he refers to as a co-worker, due the dozens of silly amateur films they’ve directed together. Greg’s precarious equilibrium … Continue reading Some are dying slowly, some are dying fast, some of us hold on to life as long as we can last

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Thinking, wishing, hoping that you’ll never feel the same again

Dan Seeger

Late in the closing credits of Inside Out, the latest feature from Pixar Animation Studios, there’s a dedication offered out by the filmmaking team to their collected children, urging them to never grow older. Ever. That’s hardly an original sentiment for parents to express. It even borders on the banal. That’s not what makes it notable. What makes it truly stand out is the way the wish for eternal childhood is at complete odds with the message of the movies that’s just preceded it. The creators may want their kids to stay kids. The film argues, persuasively, that growing up … Continue reading Thinking, wishing, hoping that you’ll never feel the same again

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And someone said, “Live fast, die young,” but the time runs always faster, son

Dan Seeger

It has been almost exactly thirty years since George Miller released what all presumed to be the final film in the saga of a post-apocalyptic anti-hero named Max. Miller hasn’t exactly been prolific in the decades since, but his filmmaking journey has definitely been interesting. He helmed a fairly unlikely John Updike adaptation and demonstrated that a movie about disease could bypass typical dewy-eyed piousness and instead be shaped by uncompromising emotional brutality. Maybe most surprisingly, he took a turn towards family fare with a deceptively dark sequel to Babe and a couple of computer animated efforts featuring dancing penguins. … Continue reading And someone said, “Live fast, die young,” but the time runs always faster, son

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Golden living dreams of visions

Dan Seeger

Three years ago, tossed the keys to the most important vehicle for the successful but still relatively new Marvel Studios, the film that would offer the culmination of a lot of careful positioning through a practically unprecedented convergence of cinematic properties, writer-director Joss Whedon went ahead and bravely made a Joss Whedon movie, drawing on his ample skill set honed through a bevy of geek-friendly properties, many of them interconnected. He was fulfilling the Marvel corporate vision, but doing so with a film that popped with his own sensibilities. The rhythms, dynamics, and dialogue were thrillingly familiar to anyone who once spent … Continue reading Golden living dreams of visions

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I was on the inside when they pulled the four walls down

Dan Seeger

There are certainly of plenty of potential reasons for the current renaissance in indie horror, not the least of which is the well-established helpful ratio of low budgets and high potential box office reward that the genre offers. Just as road movies were once the handiest ways to develop high drama with limited dollars (and inspiration, quite frankly) so too are horror movies one of the most direct routes to getting a film made for a fledgling filmmaker. But I think the more interesting consideration is the growing proliferation of artistically rich horror films, particularly in terms of the visual … Continue reading I was on the inside when they pulled the four walls down

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Your apocalypse was fab for a girl who couldn’t choose between the shower or the bath

Dan Seeger

I’ve been enthusiastic about Jupiter Ascending for quite some time, and that anticipation only ticked upward when the film suffered the ignominy of a postponement from the heart of summer to the dreary days of early February, a scheduling shift announced a mere six weeks before its original release date. That’s because I wasn’t necessarily craving my time in the theater before the latest sci-fi extravaganza from Andy and Lana Wachowski (or as they’re billed in the credits for Jupiter Ascending, simply “The Wachowskis,” like they’ve formed a traveling family band) out of a belief it was going to be good. Given what … Continue reading Your apocalypse was fab for a girl who couldn’t choose between the shower or the bath

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In a town that was like a wishing well, you were cast in like a stone

Dan Seeger

As if often the case when a film is the subject of back-and-forth, hyperbolic, politically-minded screeds, American Sniper is more of a litmus test of the predisposition of the viewer than a film making fiercely argued points on either side of the argument raging in its wake. As best as I can tell, those who decry it as a patriotically-blinded, neocon agitprop are ignoring the film’s undercurrent consideration of the way recurring wartime military service tears apart a life and a psyche. Interestingly enough, the film’s more fervent defenders’ common penchant to paint it as a sterling testament to the unyielding … Continue reading In a town that was like a wishing well, you were cast in like a stone