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Funny Games: Three real-life sequels

View image The youngest victims of the games. 1) A letter from Kate Johnson, published at RogerEbert.com: Too late I read your review [of "Funny Games"]. I was blindsided by this movie. Went with a friend and didn't know a…

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Chop Shop: Of hopes and hubcaps

Alejandro Polanco plays... Alejandro. My review of "Chop Shop" is in the Chicago Sun-Times and on RogerEbert.com. Here's an excerpt: Three shots into Rahmin Bahrani's "Chop Shop," and you're already pulled into its world with an effortless economy and precision…

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Arthur C. Clarke: Do aliens dream of anthropomorphic gods?

View image Another evolutionary stage. "I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion…

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Dr. Haneke's diagnosis

Michael Haneke, Austrian experimenteur. UPDATED (03/15/08) Selected interviews: From Adam Nayman's interview/review with "Funny Games" director Michael Haneke in Toronto's eyeweekly: ā€œIā€™m trying to impart in my films what mainstream movies work to take away,ā€ explains Haneke in an exclusive…

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Welcome to the experiment

View image The tagline reads: "You Must Admit, You Brought This On Yourself." Here's the bait. Do you want it? My review of "Funny Games" is in the Chicago Sun-Times and on RogerEbert.com. Here's an excerpt: * * * *…

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The reviews are in: Let the Funny Games begin!

View image Nudge-nudge. (2008) UPDATED (03/15/08) (My review of "Funny Games" is here. See also Your User's Guide to Movie Violence, a discussion below.) * * * * "You Must Admit, You Brought This On Yourself" -- advertising tagline, and…

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Paranoid Park: A Beaver State of mind

View image Under the bridge. My review of "Paranoid Park" is in the Chicago Sun-Times and on RogerEbert.com. Here's an excerpt: Many films use scrambled chronology just to make the story seem more interesting than it really is. That's not…

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Vegas, baby, yeah!

View image De Niro in "Casino." Las Vegas is a Hollywood movie. From my piece on Sin City in the Movies at MSN Movies: The world has other gambling meccas -- Monte Carlo, Atlantic City, Reno -- but none as…

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David Mamet says he's not a brain-dead liberal anymore

View image David Mamet. What is "liberal," what is conservative? What is "brain-dead" and what is "knee-jerk"? The writer of " Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Wag the Dog," the writer-director of "House of Games," "Homicide" and "Oleanna," reveals in the…