House of Games - Criterion Collection
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DVD details
Actor: Joe Mantegna, Lindsay CrouseBrand: IMAGE ENT.
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), PCM Mono
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-08-21
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion
Product features:
- Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter David Mamet first sat in the director's chair for this sly, merciless thriller, one of the most original and acclaimed films of the eighties. Mamet's witty tale of a therapist and best-selling author (Lindsay Crouse) who must confront her own obsessions when she meets an attractive cardsharp (Joe Mantegna) is as psychologically acute as it
DVD Reviews of House of Games - Criterion Collection
DVD Review: House of Games
Summary: 5 Stars
House of
Games is an excellent film directed by David Mamet. The choppy dialogue is intriguing and the story riveting. Another in the long list of great Mamet films Highly recommend
DVD Review: Overrated but worth watching
Summary: 4 Stars
The Bottom Line:
House of Games is for the most part an intriguing thriller about confidence men which shouldn't be terribly predictable even if you've seen a lot of these types of films, but it flies off the rails in the final act (when a character says "Thank you sir may I have another" I was rolling my eyes very hard) and Mamet could certainly have used a better actress in the lead than Lindsay Crouse (aka Mrs. Mamet); House of Games is a decent movie but the director's later effort The Spanish Prisoner takes similar ideas and does them much better.
3/4
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.
Description of House of Games - Criterion Collection
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter David Mamet first sat in the director's chair for this sly, merciless thriller, one of the most original and acclaimed films of the eighties. Mamet's witty tale of a therapist and best-selling author (Lindsay Crouse) who must confront her own obsessions when she meets an attractive cardsharp (Joe Mantegna) is as psychologically acute as it is full of twists and turns, a rich character study told with the cold calculation of a career criminal.David 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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