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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.

THE REGULARS

Monthly Archives

VIDEO ESSAY: Who Should Win the Oscar for Best Lead Actress

Awards

Some Best Actress contenders seem to be nominated for their roles more than for their performances, but the most deserving actress is a smart exception.

By Kevin B. Lee
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January 31, 2013 7:13 PM
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3 Comments

Video

"He used to be a big shot." That's how a gangster's girlfriend describes him as she cradles his corpse at the end of "The Roaring Twenties." But the line could be plugged into any gangster film that ends with a tough-talking, two-fisted, hot-tempered alpha male cooling his heels in prison, frying in an electric chair or bleeding out in an alley.

By Nelson Carvajal and Matt Zoller Seitz
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January 9, 2013 12:38 AM
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0 Comments

Video

Withhold information, then release it. Set up expectations, then subvert them. Tease, then gratify. This is how you construct an epic. This is how Quentin Tarantino, block by block, builds up "Kill Bill."

By Nelson Carvajal and Andreas Stoehr
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January 4, 2013 8:30 AM
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0 Comments

Video

Things don’t look good for Beaumont Livingston. His self-proclaimed benefactor, Ordell Robbie, has just posted $10,000 to bail bondsman Max Cherry in exchange for Beaumont’s release.

By Odie Henderson and Jason Bellamy
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December 17, 2012 8:30 AM
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4 Comments

Video

Reckoned by many to be one of the best films about Hollywood, The Bad and the Beautiful is pungent and occasionally acidic, and at the time of its release a clear sign that things were changing in the movie capital.

By Jim Beaver
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November 14, 2012 12:12 AM
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1 Comment

Blogs

Your ears didn’t deceive you. In the clip above, Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel) takes a verbal walk down Memory Lane as his residency at St. Eligius comes to a close in the final episode of "St. Elsewhere"’s six-year run and says it lasted “three years.”

By Edward Copeland
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November 5, 2012 8:00 AM
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5 Comments

Video

I am a woman, a feminist, and a hardcore James Bond fan; I've even written a book on the Bond movies. But when I meet fellow fans, they are often startled that a woman is among them.

By Deborah Lipp and Kevin B. Lee
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October 30, 2012 8:01 AM
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14 Comments

Blogs

In the video above, for the first time, the "St. Elsewhere" credit sequence, set to Oscar-winning composer Dave Grusin’s memorable and infectious theme, unites all 26 regular cast members who graced its opening credits for varying lengths of time, ranging from a single season to its entire six-year NBC run, which began 30 years ago tonight.

By Edward Copeland
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October 26, 2012 8:00 AM
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2 Comments

Video

Hollywood can keep its 3D, its CGI and whatever Dolby Surround version they’re up to now. For a contemporary cinematic experience as visceral and visually arresting as "Breaking Bad," audiences must look abroad, to Gaspar Noé’s "Enter the Void," or further, to films coming out of Thailand, Japan, and South Korea.

By Dave Bunting, Jr. and Gary Sullivan
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October 25, 2012 8:45 AM
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0 Comments

Video

Quentin Tarantino’s films treat talk as action; torrents of words spill out of his characters' mouths, defining and redefining them, in their own eyes and in the eyes of the world.

By Peter Labuza and Matt Zoller Seitz
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October 19, 2012 11:14 AM
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1 Comment

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