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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…

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The Monument Valley: Music as film criticism

View image: "What makes a man leave bed and board and turn his back on home?" The Drive-By Truckers' "Brighter Than Creation's Dark," features a song about John Ford -- and "The Searchers," in particular. (Listen to a sample or…

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Your User's Guide to Movie Violence

UPDATED: Three more trailers (1997 & 2008) added below for comparison. When Michael Haneke's movie-star remake of his own "Funny Games" opens Friday, he claims it will pose a direct challenge to American audiences. (In my review, which will appear…

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Fassbinder or NPR?

View image From "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" -- one of the best movies, and movie titles, ever. Say it five times. Back when the New German Cinema was colonizing America, my friends and I liked to transform…

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Robert Downey Jr. plays it black

Who's that black guy in between the blonde Jack Black and the tattooed Ben Stiller? It's Robert Downey, Jr. One of these days I'm gonna play it black Play it black One of these days... -- misquoted Elvis Costello song…

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IFC signs pact with devil Blockbuster

View image The site says "NC-17" but the box art says "R." Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" won the Venice Film Festival last year. But that's not the version Blockbuster carries. Would you have known you weren't seeing the version released…

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What we think we think we know (about movies)

"Have you seen her? Tell me have you seen her?" (Chi-Lites, 1971) Some movies evoke strong opinions and some leave barely a trace behind in your memory. When I glance back at the deadline reviews I've been filing for the…