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"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.

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VIDEO ESSAY: DEEP FOCUS: SUPERMAN RETURNS, Angel of America

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Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" is no masterpiece. The movie's first act is hobbled by weird misjudgments (including a criminally underused Eva Marie Saint as Ma Kent), and it's so choppy that it seems to have been edited with a meat axe. Kevin Spacey's snidely campy performance as Lex Luthor unbalances the film's otherwise sincere tone. It's also so dependent upon our knowing what happened in 1978's "Superman: The Movie" and its follow-up, "Superman II," that at times it feels like a long-delayed sequel in which the principal cast has been replaced.