7 years ago
Video essay 9
Video Essay: On Orson Welles’ “The Big Brass Ring”
Two video essays on the later work of Orson Welles, as written about in F.X. Feeney's book from The Critical Press.
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Video Essay: See What I See
With just four films to his name, Bennett Miller has already become one of the most respected directors working today. Yet suprisingly all of his films have been based, in part, on true stories. Miller tackles these stories because while they seem fixated on o...
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Video Essay: Kevin B. Lee’s The Best Films of the Decade So Far
The people have spoken! Remember those half decade lists I was talking about and how the remarkable Kevin B. Lee started all this kerfuffle? Well, the esteemed video essayist has completed his daunting task in polling 290 film critics and cinephiles and the re...
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Video Essay: Style as Substance – The Style of Xavier Dolan
For the past year or so, I've vehemently defended the work of Xavier Dolan, the 25-year-old Quebecois director who recently won the Cannes Jury Prize for his fifth film, Mommy. The arguments against him are usually the same: his films are mawkish and maudlin, ...
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Video Essay: Lessons from “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Do you have thirty minutes to spare? This isn't just like any thirty minutes, and, no, this is not Jordan Belfort trying to sell you on something. From the moral motivations and the moral depravities of Mr. Belfort to the specific techniques Martin Scorsese us...
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Cynthia Rothrock, Hong Kong Action Films, and Expendable Women
Michael Mirasol talks to the venerable female actress and muses on the state of women in action films.
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Primates: Human Mirrors in Cinema
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What do we see when we look at an ape?
Throughout history, we have been drawn to how much they resemble us. No other animal comes close in our anatomical, behavioral, developmental, physiological and reproductive similaritie...
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Criticism in the Youtube age: The Video Essay in Conversation
“Sometimes you have to look at the postmodern set of circumstances we live in and conclude that the way we review things hasn't changed nearly to the same degree that art has changed.”
Though this quote from Winston Rowntree's recent piece for Cracked isn...
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A Defense of ‘Pacific Rim’ Along with Other Reflections
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When it comes to creating movies aimed at seasoned fans, most filmmakers are content to set their sights on remaking longtime existing entities with a firmly established canon. Whether they be superheroes, toys, or pop...
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