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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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CANNES 2012: Leos Carax's HOLY MOTORS

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

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

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

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

Festivals

Michael Haneke’s "Amour" dares to address the possibility that nightmares and hopeful dreams can co-exist in the same closed-off cinematic space.

By Glenn Heath Jr.
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May 20, 2012 3:48 PM
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1 Comment

Festivals

Editor's Note: Press Play has two critics covering the Cannes Film Festival this year. Simon Abrams and Glenn Heath Jr. are tag-teaming their way through the most anticipated collection of screenings in the film industry. This is your ticket to Cannes. Enjoy!

By Glenn Heath Jr. & Simon Abrams
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May 20, 2012 2:08 PM
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1 Comment

Festivals

Indifference kills quietly in Amour, the new psychodrama from Austrian provocateur Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon, Cache). In this devastating character study about the hell that is caring for an ailing loved one, writer and director Haneke explores grief as a slow, gnawing process. Coping with loss does not, however, begin with a catalyst as mundane as physical illness. Instead, it starts and ends with a debilitating kind of depression that’s facilitated by solitude. For Haneke, grief is just as frightening as death because it’s also a draining progression that we necessarily go through alone.

By Simon Abrams
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May 20, 2012 11:34 AM
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0 Comments

Festivals

This is the American outback in all its bloody glory.

By Glenn Heath Jr.
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May 19, 2012 1:58 PM
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1 Comment

Festivals

If nothing else, the new 4K restoration of the late "Once Upon a Time in America" proves the necessity of film preservation. This essential new cut of Sergio Leone’s last film was re-assembled from newly rediscovered footage long thought lost.

By Simon Abrams
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May 19, 2012 10:43 AM
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5 Comments

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