Matthew Zoller Seitz
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MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: Why, After 500 Episodes, Slagging The Simpsons Is Unfair
At some point, a show stops being a show and becomes a utility: gas, electricity, water, "The Simpsons." That’s not my line; it’s cribbed from a quote about "60 Minutes" by its creator, the late Don Hewitt. But it seems appropriate to recycle a point about one long-running program in an article abou...
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'SHOULD WIN' VIDEO ESSAY SERIES: PRESS PLAY picks the Oscars
[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 contrib...
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OSCARS REVISITED, 1981: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
For years after the release of his box-office breakthrough "Jaws," Steven Spielberg fantasized about directing a James Bond picture. He finally got his chance, sort of, with "Raiders of the Lost Ark," his first team-up with his old film school classmate and fellow "movie brat" George Lucas.
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OSCARS 2012: PRESS PLAY'S staff picks their favorites
After last week’s announcement of this year’s Oscar nominees, a handful of Press Play contributors gathered together via email to discuss the highs and lows in some of the major award categories. Below are some of the highlights of the conversation, and as always, we encourage you to keep the discu...
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MATT ZOLLER SEITZ RECAP: LUCK: If Wishes Were Horses ...
Before we delve into HBO's "Luck," I need to get some housekeeping out of the way. I wrote about it in a very general way for New York magazine, then asked to recap the first season for Vulture. "Luck" is a rare TV drama that benefits from wonky auteurist scrutiny, and that's how I'm going to approa...
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MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: The Sexy, Gory, Low-Rent Spectacle of SPARTACUS: VENGEANCE
"Spartacus" is back with a new Spartacus. Both the new actor and the revamped series take some getting used to. For the most part, the reincarnation works, in large part because this cable franchise doesn't have a pedigree to sully. The latest edition, "Spartacus: Vengeance," picks up where the orig...
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MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: The Fan-Made Star Wars Uncut Is the Greatest Viral Video Ever
"Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut," a full-length sweding of the original Star Wars made by hundreds of participants, might be the greatest viral video in the still-young history of the Internet. It's also the best argument I've seen for an overhaul of outmoded copyright laws which, if enforced to th...
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MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY Offers Only a Fleeting Sense of Relief for the West Memphis Three
By all rights, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" (HBO, 9 p.m. Eastern) should feel more triumphant than it does. It is, after all, about the release of the West Memphis Three, men who were imprisoned — wrongly, it now seems — for murdering and mutilating three young boy...
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VIDEO ESSAY: DEEP FOCUS: SUPERMAN RETURNS, Angel of America
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 unba...
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SLIDE SHOW: Movies for a desert island
You don’t need much of a setup for this one: It’s a Desert Island List of visual media that I’d like to have with me if I were shipwrecked.
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