Press Play Video Blog

Watch: FARGO’s Blank Interiors and Crushing Exteriors

The characters in FX’s ‘Fargo‘ wage a steady war against each other–a quiet war, but a persistent one. Just as fervent and just as persistent, however is the clash between the show’s interior rooms and businesses and the sublimity lying just outside them. The tranquil diners, the bland living rooms, the weirdly sleek mansions push stubbornly against the windswept plains and long, frosty highways of the most deserted part of the midwest, where anything could and will happen. You feel cold just looking at the screen. Roger Okamoto does a wonderful job, in this video essay, of juxtaposing inside vs. outside, shelter vs. storm, civilization vs. primordial wilderness, showing that what Noah Hawley and the show’s DP, Dana Gonzales, have created here is not so much a "prestige TV" drama as an ode to the human urge to punctuate silence, either with gunfire, laughter, or good old-fashioned conversation.–Max Winter

Watch: What Props Do for The Films in Which They Appear, and Vice Versa

Can the heart of a film be its props? The light saber. The movie camera. The gun. The tape deck. These are all things we see as we watch our Spielberg, our Andersons, our Hitchcocks, our Godards, and yet we somehow view them as incidental. Rishi Kaneria argues, with this new video essay, that they are essential. He has set himself a difficult exercise here and exceeded its limits, taking us through the use of seemingly incidental items from the beginnings of film to its most recent developments.

Watch: What Is David Fincher’s Favorite Recurring Detail?

If you guessed "the refrigerator," you’re correct! And yet chances are you didn’t. The refrigerator, for Fincher, is oddly enough a perfect locus for the sorts of stories he is drawn to; stories of containment and of personal degradation, going from ‘The Game’ to ‘Se7en’ to ‘Gone Girl.’ And, in balance, the good old ice box turns out to be a miniature stage for Fincher: inside its icy depths, you get to know a subject, from creepy introverts to jubilant young lovers to hard-working detectives. This new video by De FilmKrant takes us to the back of the fridge, as it were–and inside Fincher himself: inside his methods, inside the tools he uses to get the work of storytelling done.

Watch: Hal Ashby, Filmmaker from the Edge of Darkness

Hal Ashby was an American filmmaker whose quirky sense of humor and sentimental charm made him a unique voice in the American New Wave. His work spans from 1970 to his death in 1988—for the sake of time, I’m going to concentrate on his string of classics between 1971 and 1979. Ashby got his start in the 60s as an editor and ended up earning an Oscar nomination for the 1966 Norman Jewison comedy ‘The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming’ and he won the Oscar one year later for another Norman Jewison film titled ‘In the Heat of the Night.’

Despite being older than the Vietnam generation, he was very comfortable living the hippie lifestyle, which was apparent even in his first film titled ‘The Landlord,’ about a wealthy white man who becomes the new landlord of an urban apartment building for low-income tenants. He plans to evict all the residents and transform the building into a home for himself. The film is a moving satire of race and class relations that still rings true today.

Following ‘The Landlord’ Ashby directed several iconic films starting with 1971’s ‘Harold and Maude,’ about a death-obsessed young man who starts a close relationship with an eccentric old woman. The screenplay for the film was the master’s thesis of a UCLA student named Colin Higgins. Ashby shot the film in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, which, coupled with a beautiful soundtrack by Cat Stevens, perfectly encapsulated the atmosphere of the youth culture during the early 70s and the theme of coming to terms with an existential crisis and feelings of alienation. Even though it was Ashby’s second feature film, it is widely considered to be one of his best, but that wasn’t the case at the time—after its release, it was a critical and commercial failure.

His next film, titled ‘The Last Detail,’ follows two navy officers as they escort a young sailor across a few states to a prison for petty theft. On the way they decide to show him a good time. Ashby was originally doing pre-production on a different film when Jack Nicholson told him about ‘The Last Detail.’ Ashby abandoned the project in favor of working with Nicholson. The script was adapted by acclaimed screenwriter Robert Towne from a novel by Darryl Ponicsan and was quite controversial when it was released due to its pervasive use of profanity. ‘The Last Detail’ captures Ashby’s unique charm and sentimentality and contains one of Jack Nicholson’s greatest performances.

His next film, ‘Shampoo,’ takes place during the 1968 presidential election and follows a male hairdresser—played by Warren Beatty—who uses his position to meet and have sex with women. A year later he made ‘Bound for Glory’—starring David Carradine— about folk musician Woody Guthrie who decided to travel west during the Great Depression. The film is most notable for containing the first use of Garrett Brown’s Steadicam rig, which provided smooth motion without the use of a dolly.

Ashby’s political themes started to take on a bigger role starting with his next film titled ‘Coming Home,’ which is about the Vietnam War, but doesn’t depict any combat whatsoever. Instead, it is about the veterans of that war coming back to America and coping with their injuries and the reality of what they did over there. It follows a recently paralyzed veteran who connects with the wife of a soldier at a VA hospital. The wife was played by Jane Fona who, along with her costar Jon Voight, won an Oscar for acting. Ashby also earned a nomination for Best Director. ‘Coming Home’ turns the media portrayal of the glory of being a soldier completely upside-down and shows the reality of what survivors face.

In 1979, Ashby made ‘Being There’ about a simple gardener who finds himself amongst the most powerful people in Washington who mistake his thoughts on gardening as profound metaphors. Chance the Gardener was brilliantly played by Peter Sellers in one of his most iconic roles. Ashby continued to make films until his death in 1988, but none were as beloved as his films from the 70s.

Films referenced:

‘The Landlord’ (1970 dir. Hal Ashby)
‘Harold and Maude’ (1971 dir. Hal Ashby)
‘The Last Detail’ (1973 dir. Hal Ashby)
‘Shampoo’ (1975 dir. Hal Ashby)
‘Bound for Glory’ (1976 dir. Hal Ashby)
‘Coming Home’ (1978 dir. Hal Ashby)
‘Being There’ (1979 dir. Hal Ashby)
‘The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming’ (1966 dir. Norman Jewison)

Tyler Knudsen, a San Francisco Bay Area native, has been a student of film for most of his life. Appearing in several television commercials as a child, Tyler was inspired to shift his focus from acting to directing after performing as a featured extra in Vincent Ward’s What Dreams May Come. He studied Film & Digital Media with an emphasis on production at the University of California, Santa Cruz and recently moved to New York City where he currently resides with his girlfriend.

Watch: Terrence Malick’s Influence on… Well… Everybody

Ah, Terrence Malick, where would we be without your wistful, sweeping, speculative influence? As it turns out, nowhere much. Video-essay machine Jacob T. Swinney has turned out yet another piece recently, this on Malick’s ever-expanding stamp on filmmakers ranging from Cary Fukunaga to Zack Snyder to Shane Carruth, spottable by a recognition of the human capacity to dream.

Watch: James Bond ‘Skyfall’ Title Sequence Wondrously Re-Invented

Regardless of what you may think of the James Bond films, you probably do know, or remember, or even have an emotional attachment to their title sequences. Knowing this, Heebok Lee has recreated the title sequence from Sam Mendes’ ‘Skyfall’ here, using Claudia Kim (from ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’) as the central female figure and employing the choreography of renowned Korean dancer Soojin Choi to create something that looks like… well, what does it look like? A Miltonic, explosive, surreal, dreamlike, and frightening (in a good way) opening to one of the better films of the series.

Watch: In Alfred Hitchcock’s Films, We All Become Voyeurs

Watch enough of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, and you will eventually notice that characters can repeatedly be seen simply watching. James Stewart’s Jeff Jefferies in ‘Rear Window’ watches his neighbors through binoculars. Ben McKenna in ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ watches his adversaries from a dark balcony. Norman Bates in ‘Psycho’ watches… well, you know what he watches. What does this watching represent, ultimately? In part, it’s bound to the films’ narratives, which all involve spectatorship of one kind or another–but in a broader sense, viewers are implicated, as if the very act of taking in a story involves voyeurism, of a kind. Jorge Luengo’s new video piece takes us through Hitchcock’s most poignant moments of said voyeurism with enthusiasm and verve.

Watch: Todd Haynes’ Isolated Women

One of the much-buzzed about events at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival was the spotlight screening of Todd Haynes’ latest film Carol. The film is an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt and tells the story of the May-December relationship between two women, the young Therese (Rooney Mara) and the older, married Carol (Cate Blanchett). And while Carol adds further dimension to the Haynes LGBTQ filmography (Poison, Safe, Velvet Goldmine), it reinforces Haynes’ recurring cinematic trope of the isolated female figure, one who is often suppressed by the societal restrictions of her time and place.

Consider, for example, the heroine of his Douglas Sirk-inspired Far From Heaven. In 1950s Connecticut, Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore, Haynes’ ubiquitous muse) finds herself to be the center of adoration and praise from the socialites in her suburban utopia. Cathy leads the ideal life; her husband (Dennis Quaid) is a successful company man, her house brims with beauty and warmth and Cathy herself is an ‘up and at ‘em woman of the times,’ dividing her work load between attending art shows and supporting the extracurricular activities of her kids. Once Cathy learns that her husband is a closeted homosexual, her picturesque life unravels internally—but for the sake of social upkeep she has to exude the familiar facade of familial normalcy (by the standards of that era anyway) on the outside. To make matters even more strenuous, she is coldly criticized by her peers once she embarks on a friendship with her African American landscaper Raymond Deagan (Dennis Halbert). And through all this, with music and art direction from the era, Far From Heaven never really falls into campy 50s melodrama. The brilliance of Haynes’ direction comes in its simplicity of staging; often his heroines are exposed quietly by judging third-party characters who simply stare at them; other times, these female protagonists become transparent beings in the frame, becoming more helpless as they fall into self doubt or defeat. It’s a subtly piercing yet bold choice in today’s kinetic moviemaking canon.

Haynes, a Brown University graduate who majored in semiotics, reminds us that some of the strongest works of art come from the minimalist approach and by presenting us images of genuine pathos; we are forced to find a little bit of ourselves in those moments of introspection or grief. And in the films where Haynes does embellish a a flashy visual style (e.g. the different color palettes in the Bob Dylan experimental biopic I’m Not There), those choices are always grounded in the intense proximity and affinity he shares for the isolation felt by his screen protagonists. This was evident in one of Hayne’s early works, the 43-minute short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, which Haynes shot using barbie dolls in dollhouses and occasionally mixing in archival footage and music from The Carpenters discography. Here is the most potent case for Haynes’ theme of the isolated female figure: In presenting an unauthorized biopic on Karen Carpenter’s anorexia and untimely death using barbie dolls as the main actors, Haynes’ made a masterstroke comment on the cultural pressures placed on women from an early age. Carpenter was 32 years old when she died, and her death brought a bigger spotlight to eating disorders; so by using the barbie doll—the paramount cultural signifier for what “beauty” meant to little girls everywhere—as the main screen figure, Haynes stripped a tragic story to its elementary roots, transforming children’s play into a twisted, unnerving parable of isolation and depression. There’s a generosity in that filmmaking gesture of simplicity, an invite from a perceptive artist who dares us to expose our vulnerability collectively as an audience. An audience of isolated individuals, yearning to come together once the theatre lights go down.

Nelson Carvajal is an independent digital filmmaker, writer and content creator based out of Chicago, Illinois. His digital short films usually contain appropriated content and have screened at such venues as the London Underground Film Festival. Carvajal runs a blog called FREE CINEMA NOWwhich boasts the tagline: "Liberating Independent Film And Video From A Prehistoric Value System." You can follow Nelson on Twitter here.

KICKING TELEVISION: Mindy Kaling, Me, and The Death of Network TV

I have an awkward attraction to Mindy Kaling. Awkward, because I have a complicated relationship with the characters she has played on The Office and Mindy. They seem obsessed with pop culture, their glossy public aesthetic, and the material. So I shouldn’t be attracted to her, because those obsessions annoy me. And yet, I want to have a dysfunctional relationship with her characters. I want to fight about Taylor Swift songs playing in our Mercedes. I want to go through a painful divorce with them, and reconcile one day in the romcom style of the art they find heroic. So, when Fox predictably cancelled The Mindy Project last year because it was a funny, well-written show that didn’t attempt to solve naval crimes, I was somewhat heartbroken. But then Hulu came along. The online network picked up the show, and Mindy and I were reconciled, just like in the movies!

What’s above is analogous to the current state of television in that the Internet and streaming services are the future of TV. Earlier this month, the National Football League broadcast a London game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills on the Internet. Yahoo served as the tilt’s exclusive venue (with the exception of the Jacksonville and Buffalo markets), the first such broadcast in league history. The NFL, always at the forefront of broadcasting and profit, was ostensibly using the game as a precursor to telecasts in markets beyond North America. And though the viewership numbers are under some discussion, one can imagine that this is the future of sports television. And as go sports, so does the rest of TV. Sport is the last bastion of live viewing, and has always been a leader in evolving to suit consumption habits. Sports were on cable long before The Sopranos gave life to HBO. Monday Night Football moved to ESPN a few years ago.

As the technology and the audience change while the networks don’t, TV is being consumed and celebrated beyond its once seemingly indestructible monopoly. HBO, Amazon, and AMC were feted at the Emmys; Hulu and Netflix are creating interesting, popular, and successful programming; and NetFlix’s CEO declared that their shows aren’t just better, but that all TV will be on the Internet by 2030. Is there any hope left for the network model?

Network television has been trying to fend off the rise of alternative broadcasters for over a decade. NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox were besieged by the onslaught of cable. But while HBO et al. were expanding the breadth and ambition of the medium through innovative and original programming, the networks had the sanctuary of convenience and tradition, not to mention brand authority. Plug a TV into a wall and you can watch Big Bang Theory. And even if a Chuck Lorre laugh fest isn’t on, the viewer recognizes that eventually something they like will probably come on CBS soon enou… oh hey, it’s Mark Harmon! Network TV was safe and comfortable.

But out of nowhere, at least to the anachronistic and ignorant rule of the networks, came the Internet. The constraints of traditional television were gone, like twenty-two minute sitcoms and seven-day schedules to shoehorn CSIs into. Programming is released on any schedule, viewers vote on pilots to promote to series, and the audience can consume products at their leisure. And the Internet doesn’t have to bow to censorship. But, instead of embracing the technology and adapting to inevitability, the networks have fought back with inferior efforts and multiple incarnations of established dreck. And now their end is nigh. Advertising revenues for broadcast television have plateaued, and advertisers are “predicted to spend more on digital platforms than television in two years.”

My own viewing habits are indicative of the evolution of the way we consume TV. I haven’t had a TV in nearly a decade; only recently has that changed. All of my viewing was online, mostly through less than legal means. It allowed me to pick and choose what I wanted to watch, on my schedule, without commercials or Dick Wolf productions. The picture quality, the sound quality, and the technology were at times less than ideal. But the price was right: nothing. And I never had to sit through an episode of something I loathed.

But don’t take my word for it. Take consulting firm Deloitte’s:

Streaming video services, now used by more than 42 percent of American households, are heavily changing media consumption habits across generations, according to the ninth edition of the Deloitte "Digital Democracy Survey" released today. The study reveals that streaming content has overtaken live programming as the viewing method-of-choice, with 56 percent of consumers now streaming movies and 53 percent streaming television on a monthly basis, as compared to 45 percent of consumers preferring to watch television programs live. Moreover, younger viewers have moved to watching TV shows on mobile devices rather than on television. Among Trailing Millennials (age 14-25), nearly 60 percent of time spent watching movies occurs on computers, tablets and smartphones, making movie viewing habits decidedly age-dependent.

In August I purchased a cable package, in part because I write about TV and I can deduct it from my taxes, and in part because I gotta have my Shondaland Thursdays without delay. And what I’ve found in the decade between cable subscriptions is that they look a lot like the Internet. Albeit an overpriced and less user friendly Internet. There’s on-demand viewing, but it takes some getting used to and there are still commercials. The picture quality is without peer, but I feel like I’m always being sold something. My package inexplicably doesn’t include HBO, but I can watch Modern Family at any time of the day.

The reason I keep the cable, other than the advice of my accountant and my affection for Ellen Pompeo: sports. I can watch nearly any event live, in perfect HD, with pause and playback features. Sports had always been the one drawback to my online viewing decade. Either options available to me were too expensive, the illegal streams lagged or were non-existent, or simply watching on a 13” screen didn’t do the spectacles justice. But as the Jags-Bills experiment predicts: sport is not long for extreme online convenience at a reasonable expense. And when that day comes, and it is coming soon, my subscription will be stricken from my monthly bills.

So, with the rapid change in technology suggesting that networks adapt a new model, one would think that the quality of their programming would evolve to counter their dissipating audiences. But that has not been the case. The fall pilot season has been awful, and television events like a live broadcast of H.M.S. Pinafore can only hold the fort for so long. Network programming is analog in every sense of the word. It is tired and dated and enjoyed mostly by your parents. Programming still aspires to mediocrity and adheres to antiquated formats. How many hospital serials that run forty-two minutes plus commercials from 10 to 11 can a generation handle? The networks are trying to offer audiences online options, but their streaming services are designed for your parents, as is the programming. Despite their efforts to offer on demand viewing on multiple platforms, they’re still selling a product that was designed for a platform (traditional TV) that has evolved beyond six channels and a set of rabbit ears. Networks are large companies with near infinite resources and a keen understanding of technology, and yet they seem to still believe that a century old model will continue to be successful. CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox seem to be trying to bleed the last few dollars out of a generation that will soon be watching NCIS in their retirement homes on iPads programmed by their grandchildren.

I missed last night’s episode of The Mindy Project. According to Hulu, in “Mindy and Nanny” Mindy has to “fire the world’s most difficult nanny: her mother-in-law. Jody tries to save Jeremy from his manipulative girlfriend.” It sounds delightful. I’m going to watch it as soon as I send this to my editor. I’m going to watch it in my pajamas, eating watermelon and Halloween candy using my parents’ Hulu login while drinking a pumpkin beer on my couch at 1:11 in the afternoon. Just the way TV is meant to be consumed.

Mike Spry is a writer, editor, and columnist who has written for The Toronto Star, Maisonneuve, and The Smoking Jacket, among others, and contributes to MTV’s PLAY with AJ. He is the author of the poetry collection JACK (Snare Books, 2008) and Bourbon & Eventide (Invisible Publishing, 2014), the short story collection Distillery Songs (Insomniac Press, 2011), and the co-author of Cheap Throat: The Diary of a Locked-Out Hockey Player (Found Press, 2013).Follow him on Twitter @mdspry.

Watch: Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ Hal Ashby’s ‘Being There,’ and the Link between Them

Watch: Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ Hal Ashby’s ‘Being There,’ and What Connects Them

Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ was a landmark in science fiction films precisely because its line of questioning extended beyond the stuff of other science fiction films, into philosophical inquiry, social criticism, and elsewhere. Hal Ashby’s ‘Being There‘ was a landmark in comedy for similar reasons–it took a remarkable comic actor, Peter Sellers, and placed him in the middle of a philosophical question, in the form of a film: what if having a blank slate for a mind, and seemingly little intentionality. makes you the perfect leader of others? In an new video essay, Rob Ager explores the links between the two films, in great depth and with simultaneous care and ambition.