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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.

Video Essays

  • BADLANDS: Terrence Malick’s “early, funny film”
  • Raised in Fear: The Superdynamational Horrors of Ray Ha...
  • CANNES 2013: Jia Zhang-ke's A TOUCH OF SIN
  • CANNES 2013: Joel and Ethan Coen's INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
  • CANNES 2013: Images, Part 1

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Press Play

VIDEO ESSAY: Siskel and Ebert: Screen Fighting Men

News
Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were journalists, film reviewers, TV personalities and friends. They disliked each other and loved each other. They needled each other on the air and put on a great show, but it was always in the service of film criticism and education, a means of exciting viewers and drawing them in.
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  • By Ken Cancelosi
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  • April 5, 2013 12:01 PM
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  • 2 Comments
More: Roger Ebert (1942-2013), Ken Cancelosi, video essay, Video

VIDEO ESSAY: Sorkinisms, by Kevin T. Porter: A Writer Under a Microscope

Video
I don't know what to think of this video. But I know what its creator, Kevin T. Porter, wants me to think of it.
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  • By Kevin T. Porter and Ken Cancelosi
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  • June 27, 2012 8:55 AM
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  • 5 Comments
More: Aaron Sorkin, Kevin T. Porter., Joss Whedon, Ken Cancelosi

VIDEO ESSAY: ON THE QT # 1: RESERVOIR DOGS

Video
Press Play launches its new director series "On the Q.T.," about Quentin Tarantino, with a look at his debut "Reservoir Dogs" (1992). Although it earned plenty of acclaim, the film also sparked two kinds of controversy.
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  • By Aaron Aradillas, Matt Zoller Seitz & Ken Cancelosi
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  • June 20, 2012 8:58 AM
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  • 5 Comments
More: Matthew Zoller Seitz, Ken Cancelosi, Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs, video essay

VIDEO ESSAY: Maurice Sendak: Outside Over There

Video
There’s absolutely no denying the ground-shaking societal impact of "Where The Wild Things Are," "In The Night Kitchen" and, in a quieter way, "Outside Over There"—they are the great post-Victorian children’s manifesto of rebellion.
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  • By Tres Seymour and Ken Cancelosi
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  • May 29, 2012 9:48 AM
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  • 0 Comments
More: Tres Seymour, Ken Cancelosi, Maurice Sendak, Video, video essay

VIDEO ESSAY: AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN HOLLYWOOD: HORROR, MAKEUP AND THE OSCARS

Video
The practitioners of visual effects have a favorite phrase for what they do: the Invisible Art – effects that are imaginative, even astonishing, but that are ultimately there to sell a world, a character or a moment. Special makeup might be the best illustration of this principle. One of makeup's greatest triumphs is An American Werewolf in London, which in 1982 became the first film to win an Oscar for makeup in regular competition. Overseen by Rick Baker, who supervised all of the film's makeup effects, it shows a man changing into a werewolf in real time…right in front of your eyes. This sequence was the culmination of eight decades of movie makeup. And the film's Oscar represented a coming-out for a once-neglected aspect of filmmaking.
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  • By Aaron Aradillas, Matt Zoller Seitz & Ken Cancelosi
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  • February 24, 2012 1:15 PM
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  • 0 Comments
More: Academy Awards, An American Werewolf in London, Ken Cancelosi, Matthew Zoller Seitz, Aaron Aradillas, video essay

'SHOULD WIN' VIDEO ESSAY SERIES: Best Actor Brad Pitt, MONEYBALL

Video
Brad Pitt is one of the biggest movie stars in the world. But he is also a fantastic actor. His phenomenal range has allowed him to play delirious and zany, as in "Twelve Monkeys," but also understated and restrained, as in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Those films brought Pitt a Best supporting actor and a best leading actor Oscar nomination respectively, but both times, he went back home empty-handed. This year, Pitt is once again nominated as best actor in a leading role Academy Award for his performance in Bennett Miller’s "Moneyball." Press Play believes that he deserves the Oscar, and, in this video essay, we will tell you why.
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  • By Ali Arikan & Ken Cancelosi
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  • February 9, 2012 7:21 AM
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  • 21 Comments
More: Ali Arikan, Ken Cancelosi, Brad Pitt, Moneyball, Should Win, Academy Awards, video essay

'SHOULD WIN' VIDEO ESSAY SERIES: PRESS PLAY picks the Oscars

Video
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Press Play presents "Should Win," a series of video essays advocating winners in seven Academy Awards categories: supporting actor and actress, best actor and actress, best director and best picture. These are consensus choices hashed out by a pool of Press Play contributors.]  
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  • By Press Play Staff
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  • February 7, 2012 6:21 AM
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  • 1 Comment
More: Should Win, video essay, Academy Awards, Matthew Zoller Seitz, Ali Arikan, Aaron Aradillas, Lisa Rosman, Kevin B. Lee, Ken Cancelosi

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

Video
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.
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  • By Matt Zoller Seitz & Ken Cancelosi
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  • January 9, 2012 4:20 PM
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  • 63 Comments
More: Matthew Zoller Seitz, Bryan Singer, video essay, Superman Returns, Ken Cancelosi

VIDEO ESSAY: Never Before, Never Again: Henson and Oz; A Muppet conversation

Features
EDITOR'S NOTE: To mark the opening of Jim Henson's Fantastic in July 2011, Matt Zoller Seitz and Ken Cancelosi created Never Before, Never Again: Henson and Oz, a video essay which describes the nature of that long and fruitful collaboration between Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Press Play is re-posting that essay in light of the release of Jason Segel's new directorial effort, The Muppets. Given the length of their 27-year collaboration and their creative influence on the culture, it makes the argument that they should be considered a comedy team on the level of Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy. In addition, we are publishing a discussion between the essay's creators. They discuss the curious fate of the Muppets since Jim Henson's untimely death and the challenges director Jason Segel faces in resurrecting them.
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  • By Matt Zoller Seitz and Ken Cancelosi
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  • November 22, 2011 5:43 PM
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  • 1 Comment
More: Jim Henson, Matt Zoller Seitz, Ken Cancelosi, Frank Oz, Muppets, video essay

In creating "Blind Love: In Memory of Steve Jobs," Illusionist Paul Gertner wonders how humans will process emotions in a digital realm

Features
Look, I don't mean to come across as crass or insensitive, but I'm officially tired of hearing about Steve Jobs' legacy. I'm not saying he wasn't the visionary, creative genius we've been reading about or that the changes he brought to the human world aren't remarkable. But there are only so many words one can read and only so many lazy documentaries one can watch on this one guy. (Besides, I’ve read tens of thousands of words by writers famous, infamous and unknown, and none come closer to explaining Jobs' purpose, personality and legacy than the commencement speech that he himself delivered at Stanford University.) So, when my friend Rich sent me a link to a Steve Jobs tribute video by a magician named Paul Gertner, I will admit to a little eye-rolling – that is, until I saw the video.
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  • By Ken Cancelosi
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  • November 15, 2011 4:52 AM
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  • 0 Comments
More: Ken Cancelosi, Paul Gertner

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