Tag: spectrum review

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

It was a fairly straightforward week for me at Spectrum Culture. I reviewed a film called Breathing, which is the directorial debut of a fairly significant Austrian actor (although not one who’s significant enough for his film to stir much more than a blip of curiosity over on this side of the planet). On the music side, I reviewed the second full-length album from the Australian band Van She. This was one of my periodic attempts to select a release for review that’s somewhat outside of my typical realm, which actually stymied me just enough that I turned it in … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I had a busy week at Spectrum Culture, in large part because it was my turn to contribute to the Revisit series on the music side. While my previous efforts were focused on different releases that did require me to give them fresh spins to reacquaint myself with their pleasures (and think about them in a context that now included significantly more hindsight), this time I decided to write about an album that I know extremely well. I’m also quite happy that my observations about the overly self-assured dismissive attitudes about differing opinions among the fans of the band in … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I was back to a fairly typical week for Spectrum Culture, beginning with a movie review. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much a movie. On the surface of it, the film is one of those desperately quirky efforts that is among the most painful material a modern fan of independent cinema is routinely saddled with. It’s even more of a mess than that. I also had a music review go up this week. The record I reviewed is a prime example of one that doesn’t necessary spring to mind when considering the best, most vital or most challenging music of the year, … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week at Spectrum Culture, I didn’t have a single new piece go up. While I’ve got a whole pile of stuff waiting to be reviewed (four movie screeners and, I think, the same number of new music releases), the site had a low-content week, which honestly couldn’t have come at a better time for me since my work week has been, to put it mildly, exhausting. In place of a weekly recap, it seems like a fine time to offer up a sort of “greatest hits.” Not only because I’ve got a spare week, but because we’re fast approaching … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

It was another modest week for me at Spectrum Culture. I only had one full piece go up there, a review of the new album from the Gaslight Anthem. When I was younger, I found it odd that there weren’t more bands emulating Bruce Springsteen, given his significant success. Now that there are a couple who clearly use his music as a touchstone, I actually find it just as strange. His distinctive sound, fueled by rock ‘n’ roll bombast, seems to be harder for bands to transcend than, say, that of the Velvet Underground, which dozens upons dozens of groups … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I had the blessed relief of a very light week at Spectrum Culture. The only piece of mine that went up was a review of the new film from Fernando Meirelles, which takes him yet further from the spectacular promise of his debut. I thought things couldn’t get much more dire than Blindness. Little did I know he’d adopt the multi-strand pile-up of coincidental misery typified by Babel and its tiresome brethren a few years ago. Luckily, I have a week off from movie reviews. After this one, I feel like I need it. Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

So, Spectrum Culture this week… I truly believe in reviewing films almost entirely on their own merits. It’s hard to confront a film by a major director without putting it into a career-long context (and there’s obviously some merit to that approach), but a significant number of viewers won’t be doing that. They meet a film for what it is and any comparisons to other creative efforts will be superficial at best. Still, it was so very tempting for me to expend a whole lot of words in my review of Nikolaus Geyhalter’s documentary Abendland to the three-hour, staidly observational … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I had a busy week at Spectrum Culture, and one that was significantly more time-consuming than I initially anticipated. As I’ve noted before, we writers largely select exactly which films, CDs and books we want to review. When I picked out the new documentary from Goncalo Tocha, I swear I read that it was ninety minutes long. Then the screener showed up, spread across two DVDs. So on a weekend that I was already somewhat pressed for time, I suddenly had a three-hour film to watch (after I’d already committed to watching a very different one in the theater that … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I didn’t have that many writing assignments for Spectrum Culture this week, so of course I needed to make certain my one piece was exceedingly long, maybe the longest I’ve ever written for the site. To be fair, the “Re-make/Re-model” series invites length given that at least two films need to be broken down. In writing about Jonathan Demme’s remake of a Stanley Donen classic, I also had the opportunity to reference an old Onion article for which I have a special fondness. I also offered up a far briefer contribution to this week’s List Inconsequential list about great live … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

By the evidence of the reviews I wrote, I had a pretty grumpy week at Spectrum Culture. Through the normal cycle, I wound up with a lot of middling material to write about. First of all, I had the new album from Sonny and the Sunsets. I like their previous outing quite a bit, but this new release is drab and uninteresting. And I’m usually a sucker for breakup albums. On the movie side, I reviewed the directorial debut of Martin Donovan, still probably best known for the movies he made with Hal Hartley a couple decades ago. As if … Continue reading Spectrum Check