Press Play

"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.

THE REGULARS

Monthly Archives

CANNES 2012: Walter Salles' ON THE ROAD

Festivals

Walter Salles and Jose Rivera love the characters and world of "On the Road" too much to know how to properly represent them.

By Simon Abrams
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May 23, 2012 1:56 PM
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1 Comment

Festivals

Where does one begin with Leos Carax’s insane "Holy Motors"? Maybe its incredible central performance(s) by Denis Lavant, who literally transforms into a different character in nearly every other scene, each one stranger than the next? Or perhaps its stark raving mad narrative that bends so far into the absurd, it threatens to break apart?

By Glenn Heath Jr.
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May 23, 2012 11:38 AM
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0 Comments

Video

For this month’s Criterion Consideration, coming up with a suitable equivalent to Barry Sonnenfeld's latest film, "Men in Black III," was a bit of a challenge.

By Robert Nishimura
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May 23, 2012 9:41 AM
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0 Comments

Festivals

It’s a testament to Australian director Andrew Dominik’s considerable story-telling abilities that a movie as nakedly cynical and aggressively repellent in its philosophy as "Killing Them Softly" is as satisfying as it is.

By Simon Abrams
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May 22, 2012 6:56 PM
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2 Comments

Video

Press Play introduces Sight and Sound Film Poll: Critics' Picks, a series of video essays featuring prominent film critics on films they selected for Sight and Sound magazine's poll of the greatest films of all time. New videos will premiere each week until the poll results are announced later this summer.

By Various Contributors
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May 22, 2012 12:58 PM
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4 Comments

Festivals

Denial and delusion ripple the pristine visual surface of "Like Someone in Love," Abbas Kiarostami’s masterful critique of social and emotional formality, set in Japan.

By Glenn Heath Jr.
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May 22, 2012 11:13 AM
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2 Comments

News

So apparently Tom Cruise is going to "star" in a remake of The Magnificent Seven, which itself is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. What does "star" mean? The Variety story doesn't say. But you have to wonder whose shoes is he going to fill, or try to fill. Yul Brynner's? Steve McQueen's? Charles Bronson's? James Coburn's? I can't get my mind around any of those possibilities -- not just because John Sturges' first remake is still vivid in my mind, but because Cruise basically played man-boys until he was pushing 40, and it wasn't until very recently that I got used to the idea of him playing a character with any gravitas at all.

By Matt Zoller Seitz
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May 22, 2012 12:25 AM
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16 Comments

Festivals

The screenwriting process produces a kind of sandbox cinema in Hong Sang-soo’s "In Another Country," the Korean director’s latest jazz riff on human interconnection. The film’s beach side location may be consistent with earlier films, but its unique characterizations traverse freely outside the logic of conventional storytelling.

By Glenn Heath Jr.
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May 21, 2012 11:48 PM
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0 Comments

Festivals

"Antiviral," Brandon Cronenberg’s directorial debut, proves the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree. Like his father David Cronenberg’s early features, "Antiviral" is more of a collection of inspired, perverse ideas than a cogent piece de provocation.

By Simon Abrams
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May 21, 2012 1:31 PM
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0 Comments

Television

One of the recurring discussions about this second season of "Game Of Thrones" concerns how much the television show is changed from the novels. While the merits of the specific changes are debatable, a running theme of both my reviews and those of other critics is that the show is more confident in its adaptation, becoming its own entity.

By Rowan Kaiser
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May 21, 2012 9:49 AM
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2 Comments

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