House of Games
by David Mamet
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DVD details
Actor: J.T. Walsh, Joe Mantegna, Lilia Skala, Lindsay Crouse, Mike NussbaumDirector: David Mamet
Cinematographer: Juan Ruiz Anch?a
Writer: David Mamet
Editor: Trudy Ship
Producer: Michael Hausman
Writer: Jonathan Katz
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Unknown; Spanish (Original Language), Unknown; French (Original Language), Unknown; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.33:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-12-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of House of Games
DVD Review: A masterpiece
Summary: 4 Stars
What can I say - this is a mesmerizing film without all the extras. I have not finished all the extras but I have started some. The fact that this is a Criterion DVD speaks volumes - it is of quality.DVD Review: Don't direct this film like HE did!
Summary: 1 Stars
A few films fall into the catogory of ones that make me want to run from the room kicking and screaming, "Don't ever direct a film the way this one was!" Wag the Dog seemed to fall into that category. David Mamet often can't make a career transition from stage work to screen. Lindsey Crouse is as stiff and repulsive as sleazy Joe Montegna is. They perform each scene like they're playing on stage to an audience. Other characters appear to be on projection backdrops along with the cardboard street slum set. Oh, and believability. Montegna can steal a key to use a first class hotel room without the bell boy or maid coming up to clean their room and find new guests there. He can spend the night there with Crouse. She will make sure each intimate line is heard in the back row. His con men gamble with a squirt gun! Wouldn't an empty pistol bluff just as easy? The scenes focus solo on two characters even in crowded rooms--no sound blends the others in.DVD Review: House of Games
Summary: 4 Stars
DVD was in good shape and delivered on time. Look for a surprise ending.DVD Review: Fool me once,shame on you,fool me twice,shame on me....
Summary: 2 Stars
"House of Games",David Mamet's cinematic debut,is supposed to be about the complexities of the human mind and relationships. Maggie (Lindsay Crouse),a psychologist,has a patient with a gambling problem (Mantegna) Instead of helping him give up his addiction, Maggie is swept in. He teaches her about card games (yawn) He's a player,of course. Maggie doesn't hate the player,she hates the game. Well,she hates that she loves it. They go to the House of Games in Seattle to watch it all unfold. Maggie is aroused by the sight of stings going on in the casino-- and soon she's aroused by Mantegna. A stomach-churning love scene unfolds between the Italian lug and his homely psychiatrist. Isn't that unethical? Not to mention worthy of brain bleach?
"House of Games" has a predictable ending when Maggie gets wind of the whole con game. It's a pretentious bore. As a viewer,you end up feeling played.
DVD Review: hateful poorly directed film
Summary: 1 Stars
THe key performances are off. THey feel like stage performances rather than cinematic. Im assuming its the direction thats misguided; most of the performances are consistently bad in the same way.
The writing is very angry. Like a temper tantrum against human nature.
THe depiction of female characters is ugly.
the plot is very predictable.
Description of House of Games
It's the shrink vs. the shark in the ultimate mind game! Starring Oscar?(r) nominee* Lindsay Crouse (The Insider) and Joe Montegna (The Godfather III) as an unlikely team of conartists, this "witty and devious" (Time) psychological thriller is Oscar?(r) nominee** David Mamet's directorial debut. It's an "extraordinary" (Newsweek) and "thrilling funhouse" (New York Post) of mental gamesmanship that will keep you guessing until its exciting end! When a suicidal patient reveals that his gambling debt has him at the end of his rope, dedicated psychiatrist Margaret Ford (Crouse) enters into the shadowy underground world of gaming to help him out. At a seedy casino, she boldly confronts Mike (Montegna), the con man who holds her patient's markers. Duped into a high-stakes poker match, Margaret becomes intoxicated by Mike's mastery, as he both cheats at the game and charms her. She quickly falls for him, turning a blind eye to the fact that he's a swindler who can't be trusted. And before long she finds herself sparring in a mental poker match of the heart with deadly consequences! *1984: Supporting Actress, Places in the Heart **1982: Writing, Screenplay Based on Material From Another Medium, The Verdict; 1997: Writing, Screenplay Based on Material From Another Medium, Wag the DogDavid Mamet's 1987 directorial debut was this mesmerizing study of control and seduction between two kinds of detached observers: a gambler who is also a con artist, and a psychotherapist who is also an emerging pop-psych guru in the book market. The latter (played by Lindsay Crouse) meets the former (Joe Mantegna) when one of her clients is driven to despair from his debts to the card shark. Mantegna's character agrees to drop the IOUs in exchange for Crouse's attention at the seedy House of Games in Seattle, a mecca for con men to talk shop and hustle unsuspecting customers. The shrink gets so caught up in the arcane rules and world view of her guide over subsequent days that she observes--with no false rapture--various stings in progress inside and outside the club. Mamet's story finally becomes a fascinating study of two people protecting and extending their respective cosmologies the way rival predators fight for the same piece of turf. The psychological challenge is compelling; so is the stylized dialogue, with its pattern of pauses and hiccups and humming meter. Mostly shooting at night, Mamet also gave Seattle a different look from previous filmmakers, turning its familiar puddles into concentrations of liquid neon and poisonous noir. --Tom Keogh
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