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"The best video essay source on the web." (Roger Ebert) This is a web site built around original video essays and critical, personal writing about movies, TV, music, comics and whatever else interests its contributors. Co-founded by Matt Zoller Seitz, TV critic for New York Magazine, and Ken Cancelosi, it is published by Seitz and Cancelosi and overseen by editor-in-chief Kevin B. Lee and managing editor Max Winter.

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VIDEO ESSAY: Kevin Brownlow, Film Essay Pioneer, on D.W. Griffith

Video

Next week the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will present the complete 5 1/2 hour version of Abel Gance’s epic Napoleon. It is truly a singular event: Due to the expense, technical challenges, and complicated rights issues involved, no screenings are planned for any other American city. This monumental event is being presented by SFSFF in association with American Zoetrope, The Film Preserve, Photoplay Productions, and the British Film Institute.

By Kevin B. Lee
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March 15, 2012 8:27 AM
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0 Comments

Video

By Nelson Carvajal
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March 14, 2012 9:49 AM
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2 Comments

Television

Episode seven of "Luck" at first feels like a placeholder, until you look back over it and realize that the universe is reordering itself beneath the surface of things. In the pilot, most of the characters seemed detached from life, or isolated; but now, with just two episodes left to go until the end of the season, they've formed or deepened relationships. More importantly, given the show's seeming belief in kindness as good karma, a lot of the characters have taken responsibility for another human being or fellow creature.

By Matt Zoller Seitz
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March 13, 2012 3:35 AM
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0 Comments

Television

The two boys were inseparable growing up. They were twins, and although they fought on occasion, there was a special unbreakable bond between them at all times. Words were rarely necessary. They would just look at each other and know what the other one was thinking. It was a psychological and intellectual bond, bordering on the spiritual. It is a profound thing to not need words. Nobody else could enter their cyclical closed bond. That was okay by them. As long as they had each other, they didn't need anyone else.

By Sheila O'Malley & Dave Bunting, Jr
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March 13, 2012 3:32 AM
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3 Comments

Features

It’s easy to be cynical about the Kony 2012 video. There is a painful lack of self-consciousness on the part of filmmaker and activist Jason Russell – a handsome white guy, culling together video he shot in Uganda in 2003 – as he uses his camera to preach the cause of ending African suffering, intercutting testimonials from escaped child soldiers with footage of his son Gavin. The testimonials are blatantly manipulative, framed with swelling music and fancy editing tricks to underscore each child’s tears, particularly of a young boy named Jacob, he talks solemnly about his flight from being forced into combat by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistence Army.

By Louis Godfrey
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March 12, 2012 11:56 AM
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1 Comment

VIDEO: The story of BREAKING BAD, as told by its opening scenes, seasons 3 & 4

Television

Season 3 opens with a surreal scene of a group of people crawling in the dirt through a rustic Mexican village. It seems that some well-known ritual is taking place. Nobody seems too surprised at the sight. A gleaming car pulls up and two men get out. They are bald, handsome, and dressed in immaculate suits. They are also identical twins. Without hesitation, they join the ritual, lying down in the dirt, despite their silk suits, and crawling along with the others. The destination is a run-down shack which has been built into some kind of shrine. Inside there are lit candles with dripping wax and bouquets and skulls draped in beads. The men in suits pin a picture up on the wall. It is a sketch of the chemistry teacher. Wherever we are in this opening scene is far from the sun-blasted streets of Albuquerque (the stomping grounds of the chemistry teacher), but it is clear that his fearsome influence is spreading.

By Sheila O'Malley & Dave Bunting, Jr
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March 12, 2012 9:42 AM
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3 Comments

Video

Analysis of the opening credits of the first season of "The Wire," exploring how the images highlight the overall themes of each season and offer predictive snippets of future plot twists.

By Andrew Dignan, Kevin B. Lee and Matt Zoller Seitz
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March 11, 2012 1:40 PM
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0 Comments

Television

HBO's "Game Change," about the making and unmaking of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential election, is basically that scene stretched out to feature length — an agonizing experience. You don't need to know the names of political consultants or remember every detail of the campaign to become immersed in it, because in its heart, it's about coming up against the limits of one's own competence. This harsh lesson is learned not by Palin, but by the people who submitted her as McCain's running mate, and by McCain himself, who unknowingly ceded the election the minute he added her to the ticket.

By Matt Zoller Seitz
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March 9, 2012 11:35 PM
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0 Comments

Television

Albuquerque has a huge meth problem. Meth labs blow up in the desert, in the suburbs, in the center of urban areas. High schools are broken into, chemistry labs ransacked. The situation has gotten so extreme that an FBI task force has been assigned to investigate. They argue over what to call their investigation. "Operation Icebreaker." "But isn't that a breath mint?" There are two Mexicans of the criminal class who have vanished, and it is thought that the disappearance has something to do with the meth war going on in Albuquerque. The meth found at the various crime scenes is purer than anything before seen in the area, so it is clear there are "new players in town". The FBI is determined to find out who it is.

By Sheila O'Malley & Dave Bunting, Jr
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March 7, 2012 4:14 PM
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7 Comments

Video

Two European-set love stories separated by nearly a century, Lady Chatterley and In the City of Sylvia share a fascination with the art and practice of “looking.” This video essay picks up on a special connection between these two films.

By Kevin B. Lee
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March 7, 2012 2:17 PM
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0 Comments

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