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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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CANNES 2012: Jeff Nichols' MUD

Festivals

Some film critics have described Jeff Nichols’s "Mud" as the perfect way to end Cannes 2012, a fun and accessible slice of cinematic Americana. But considering the film’s hammy sentimentality and bogus emotional connections, I can’t think of a more disappointing send off.

By Glenn Heath Jr.
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May 26, 2012 3:33 PM
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5 Comments

Festivals

For a Cronenberg film, "Cosmopolis" is light on violence and body horror, but the director’s obsession with evolving ideas and tainted perspectives remains on full display.

By Glenn Heath Jr.
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May 25, 2012 5:01 PM
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1 Comment

Festivals

Legacy is the thing in "11/25: The Day He Chose His Own Fate," Japanese guerilla filmmaker Koji Wakamatsu’s remarkable drama about the death of militant poet/novelist Yukio Mishima.

By Simon Abrams
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May 25, 2012 4:37 PM
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1 Comment

Festivals

Narrative is the devil in Carlos Reygadas’s baffling and intoxicating "Post tenebras lux."

By Glenn Heath Jr.
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May 24, 2012 12:31 PM
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1 Comment

Festivals

The best that can be said of Lee Daniels' "The Paperboy" is that it’s sometimes intentionally awful. More often than not, however, it’s just awful.

By Simon Abrams
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May 24, 2012 9:53 AM
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1 Comment

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

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

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