Press Play

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. It is published by Matt Zoller Seitz, TV critic for New York Magazine and overseen by editor-in-chief Kevin B. Lee.

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GIRLS RECAP 6: THE RETURN

Television

One of the things I liked most about "The Return"—and I liked a bunch of things—was its title.

By Sarah D. Bunting
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May 20, 2012 10:55 PM
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0 Comments

Television

More like "Hard Writing Consistently." What *was* that?

By Sarah D. Bunting
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May 13, 2012 10:55 PM
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9 Comments

Television

I hoped the title of this week's episode wouldn't imply what I had a feeling it implied. I hoped we'd just see Hannah writing in her diary, or hear snippets in a voice-over—something, anything besides another character reading Hannah's diary and getting information s/he didn't want, while I watched, cringing, from behind a pillow.

By Sarah D. Bunting
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May 6, 2012 10:55 PM
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6 Comments

Television

Remember those Cosmo-ish "Which Sex & the City character are you?" quizzes that every single editorial outlet featured during that show's run? Of course you couldn't take the results seriously; you can't "be" one of those people, because those people weren't people. They were slices of people, meant to illustrate (and easier to write than) the composite, contradictory whole.

By Sarah D. Bunting
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April 29, 2012 10:55 PM
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8 Comments

Television

"Vagina Panic" is an attention-getting episode title—but nobody's really panicking in the second episode of "Girls" except Hannah, whose takeaway from a childhood viewing of Forrest Gump is an obsessive fear of contracting AIDS from "stuff that gets up around the sides of condoms." "Vagina Denial" might cover the subject a bit better.

By Sarah D. Bunting
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April 22, 2012 10:55 PM
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7 Comments

Television

Short verzh: yeah, it's niche and occasionally obnoxious. It's also super-watchable and good (in that "extractions portion of a facial" way at times, but still). Give it a chance.  

By Sarah D. Bunting
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April 15, 2012 11:00 PM
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1 Comment

Blogs

"The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement." A salute to the many men and women who took enormous risks for the movement without needing name recognition, "TBoB" introduces us to James Armstrong, a barber in his eighties, on the eve of Barack Obama's election. You can't necessarily separate the man from his relationship to the fight for integration (his sons integrated Graymont Elementary in Birmingham), but I'd rather have seen a tighter focus on the man himself, letting those stories come through him. The talking heads and footage of the inauguration made the film a little flat overall.

By Sarah D. Bunting
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February 26, 2012 4:24 PM
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0 Comments

Blogs

[EDITOR'S NOTE: It's over! With her inclusion of Best Documentary Shorts in this series, Sarah D. Bunting of Tomatonation.com has succeeded in watching every single film nominated for an Oscar this year. Congratulations, Sarah, for winning the Oscars Death Race. You can catch her down at the local bar treating herself to a pleasant alcoholic beverage, celebrating her hard-won victory. For more on how the Oscars Death Race began, click here. And you can follow Sarah through this quixotic journey here. ]For more on how the Oscars Death Race began, click here. The adventure begins.

By Sarah D. Bunting
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February 26, 2012 3:40 PM
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4 Comments

Blogs

NYMag's David Edelstein posits that "The Artist" is a lock for the gold on Sunday, and I don't disagree, with the conclusion or the reasoning. It's a weird year for the Best Pic slate, with a lot of seriously-flawed-at-best material; it might come down to the least of nine evils.

By Sarah D. Bunting
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February 26, 2012 6:00 AM
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2 Comments

Blogs

Perhaps I should have given each of these categories its own piece, but I don't think you can separate them, and also, we're running out of time here. Let's take cinematography first.

By Sarah D. Bunting
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February 26, 2012 5:24 AM
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0 Comments

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