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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.

Video Essays

  • VIDEO ESSAY: Wong Kar-Wai's Lust for Life
  • VIDEO ESSAY: Directed by De Palma
  • "The First, The Last, My Everything" : Tilda Swinton Da...
  • BADLANDS: Terrence Malick’s “early, funny film”
  • On an Animation of a Sentence by Nathan Englander

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CANNES 2013: Images, Part 1

Festivals
Thick grey clouds paint the coastal horizon, and rain keeps falling. Massive yachts bob up and down in the choppy water while scattering festival attendees take cover under umbrella canopies.
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr.
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  • May 18, 2013 7:39 PM
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  • 0 Comments
More: Cannes Film Festival, Glenn Heath Jr., Festivals

CANNES 2013: Jia Zhang-ke's A TOUCH OF SIN

Festivals
Jia Zhang-ke sees modern day China as an expansive minefield of potential narratives, each one ready to trigger its own perspective on the countless institutional and societal issues that ultimately impact identity, gender roles, and economic expansion.
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr.
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  • May 17, 2013 12:04 PM
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  • 0 Comments
More: Glenn Heath Jr., Cannes Film Festival, Zhang Ke Jia

CANNES 2012: And the Winners Should Be...

Festivals
Read our critics' personal predictions of who SHOULD win the awards, and who WILL win the awards, at Cannes 2012...
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr. & Simon Abrams
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  • May 27, 2012 1:31 PM
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  • 3 Comments
More: Cannes Film Festival, Simon Abrams, Glenn Heath Jr.

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.
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr.
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  • May 26, 2012 3:33 PM
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  • 5 Comments
More: Cannes Film Festival, Glenn Heath Jr., Jeff Nichols, Mud, Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Michael Shannon, Sarah Paulson

CANNES 2012: David Cronenberg's COSMOPOLIS

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.
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr.
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  • May 25, 2012 5:01 PM
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  • 1 Comment
More: Cannes Film Festival, Glenn Heath Jr., David Cronenberg, Cosmopolis, Robert Pattinson, Samantha Morton

CANNES 2012: Carlos Reygadas' POST TENEBRAS LUX

Festivals
Narrative is the devil in Carlos Reygadas’s baffling and intoxicating "Post tenebras lux."
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr.
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  • May 24, 2012 12:31 PM
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  • 1 Comment
More: Cannes Film Festival, Glenn Heath Jr., Carlos Reygadas, Post Tenebras Lux, Adolfo Jimenez Castro, Nathalia Acevedo, Willebaldo Torres

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?
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr.
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  • May 23, 2012 11:38 AM
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  • 0 Comments
More: Cannes Film Festival, Glenn Heath Jr., Leos Carax, Holy Motors , Denis Lavant, Kylie Minogue, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes

CANNES 2012: Abbas Kiarostami's LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE

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.
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr.
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  • May 22, 2012 11:13 AM
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  • 2 Comments
More: Cannes Film Festival, Glenn Heath Jr., Abbas Kiarostami, Like Someone In Love, Rin Takanashi, Ryo Kase, Tadashi Okuno

CANNES 2012: Hong Sang-soo's IN ANOTHER COUNTRY

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.
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr.
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  • May 21, 2012 11:48 PM
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  • 0 Comments
More: Cannes Film Festival, Glenn Heath Jr., Hong Sang-soo, In Another Country, Isabelle Huppert, Yu Junsang

Welcome to the Cannes Film Festival 2012!

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!
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  • By Glenn Heath Jr. & Simon Abrams
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  • May 20, 2012 2:08 PM
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  • 1 Comment
More: Cannes Film Festival, Simon Abrams, Glenn Heath Jr., Sergio Leone, Michael Haneke, Matteo Garrone, Michel Gondry, Jacques Audiard, Yousry Nasrallah, Wes Anderson, Walter Salles, Andrew Dominik, Leos Carax, Kôji Wakamatsu

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