Press Play

"The best video essay source on the web." (Roger Ebert) This web site is built on a mix of original video essays and critical, personal writing about film, TV, and their connection to broader cultural concerns. Co-founded by Matt Zoller Seitz, TV critic for New York Magazine, and Ken Cancelosi, it is overseen by Editor-in-Chief Max Winter.

THE REGULARS

Monthly Archives

SIMON SAYS: Celebrate Chinese New Year with these blockbusters

Blogs

This weekend is Chinese Lunar New Year, a cultural landmark that even some of my Chinese friends needed to be reminded is almost upon us. One way you can tell that the holiday is impending is to look for Chinese films at your local movie theater. In the same way that a crop of big budget Bollywood premieres are perennially released in time for autumn’s Diwali festivities, so too are a number of studio-produced would-be Chinese blockbusters released in time for the new year. But blink and you'll miss ‘em: there are only two Chinese films being released at AMC theater chains.

By Simon Abrams
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January 23, 2012 2:22 AM
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0 Comments

Video

[EDITOR'S NOTE: In 2009, Casey Pugh asked thousands of internet users to remake Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope into a fan film, 15 seconds at a time. Contributors were allowed to recreate scenes from that film however they wanted. Within just a few months, Star Wars Uncut grew into a wild success. Press Play urges each and every one of you to take 10 minutes (the film is over 2 hours in length), click on this link and look upon this effort. Pick any scene you want. By now, this story is so widely known and understood in such minute detail that there is nothing left to interpret, nothing left add to the discussion and nothing left do but wait around until George Lucas decides to release another version of it into theaters, having ordered his team of talented artists to change it one . . . .more. . . .time. (3-D, anyone?) But, here is Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia's triumphant story presented once again — performed by an amateur cast of hundreds, stitched together with Bondo and dental floss, shot in environments real and animated, presented and reconceived with a low-tech, zero-budget aesthetic. And still the story survives. Take heart, Lucas-haters, if this mythic tale can survive this democratic effort, it can even survive its creator. It is quite possibly the sweetest, funniest tribute to the Star Wars fable ever mounted. Look upon it, you should.]

By Casey Pugh with a cast of hundreds
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January 22, 2012 5:43 AM
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6 Comments

Video

It's the last day to enter VERTIGOED, Press Play's first ever video contest. The response has been outstanding - even The Huffington Post took notice. We've received dozens upon dozens of entries and Team Press Play has been up all hours of the week watching and marvelling at these clips. Is there any film that Bernard Herrmann's swooning music can't handle? Maybe this clip below can put him to the test:

By Kevin B. Lee
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January 20, 2012 10:55 AM
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0 Comments

GREY MATTERS: DOCTOR WHO's sublime study of grief, death and transfiguration continues to captivate its viewers

Blogs

On a recent episode of "The Graham Norton Show," the genial goofball host was plainly delighted to have Karen Gillan—known worldwide as Amy Pond, the spirited, ginger-haired companion of The Doctor on "Doctor Who"—on his guest couch. Of course, Norton couldn’t pass up commenting on a rumor that Amy Pond would meet her maker on a coming "Who" episode, chiding her, “Everyone knows nobody on 'Doctor Who' dies!” The joke was that everyone on "Doctor Who" dies all the time and yet comes back to die yet again and again. Because dying is what you do on Who.

By Ian Grey
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January 19, 2012 11:30 AM
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2 Comments

Video

Is it me you're looking for?

By Kevin B. Lee
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January 19, 2012 10:40 AM
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0 Comments

KEVIN B. LEE: The strange case of the 103 year-old film director

Reviews

Few of us can expect to live 100 years, much less have that age represent the prime of our career. But Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who last month celebrated his 103rd birthday, has averaged one new film a year since 1985 (Ron Howard's "Cocoon," in which Florida retirees meet space aliens who hold the secret to youth, was released the same year -- coincidence?). Two-thirds of Oliveira's 30 features were made in his eighties and nineties; Clint Eastwood, who last year turned 81, has his work cut out for him.

By Kevin B. Lee
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January 19, 2012 10:31 AM
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0 Comments

VIDEO: You're a Creep, Charlie Brown!

Video

The Great Round Head meats Radiohead. This is the kind of song-video mashup that seems so obvious in retrospect you wonder why it hadn't been thought of long ago. Using the a capella version is a great touch, makes it feel like it came straight out of "A Charlie Brown Christmas." HT to Ali Arikan.

By Kevin B. Lee
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January 18, 2012 9:50 AM
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0 Comments

SIMON SAYS: Top Five From the New Wave of French Horror

Features

If you want to see better Gallic horror movies than The Divide (opening this weekend), try these on for size.

By Simon Abrams
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January 18, 2012 8:19 AM
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3 Comments

Video

Press Play's first video mash-up contest, with a prize and everything.

By Press Play Staff
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January 18, 2012 8:02 AM
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21 Comments

Watching TNT’s cop series "Southland" (Tuesday 10 pm/9 c) puts knots in my stomach, and I mean that as praise. It’s the most engrossing cop series since season one of NBC’s "Homicide," and maybe the most raggedy and real. Chaos erupts out of nowhere, zooming in from off-screen, and then escalates into horror or takes a right turn into absurdity. There are several moments in the premiere that illustrate what I’m talking about. In one of them, Sgt. Cooper (Michael Cudlitz), who has just returned to active duty after last season’s personal disasters, and his new partner, Officer Jessica Tang (new castmember Lucy Liu), pull over a young black man for running a red light. The ingrained resentments assert themselves; the driver talks trash to the cops and refuses to get out of the car, Cooper threatens him with violence, the whole situation verges on hysteria, and then suddenly there’s a roar of gunning engines from off-screen. A black sport utility vehicle cuts across several lanes of traffic and screeches to a halt right in front of the pulled-over car, the terrified officers draw their guns … and out jumps the young man’s mother. She just happened to be driving by and saw her son’s car pulled over by police. She dresses her son down for texting behind the wheel and disrespecting police officers and tells him he’ll never drive that car again. “It’s gonna take Jesus and two more white folks to keep me from kicking your ass!” she shouts.