This film opens in the US on March 14. (I saw it Friday night.)

In this provocative and brutal thriller from director Michael Haneke, a vacationing family gets an unexpected visit from two deeply disturbed young men. Their idyllic holiday turns nightmarish as they are subjected to unimaginable terrors and struggle to stay alive.

Remade from his own acclaimed 1997 film, "Funny Games" is written and directed by Michael Haneke ("Caché"), and stars Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet, and Devon Gearhart.

Watch the trailer.

Funny Games (2008)

Another day, another director.

Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni, renowned for his 1966 release Blow-Up, has died aged 94.

I had just watched L'Avventura again recently ... it's on Amazon's "essential" list. Time to revisit a few more, including The Passenger, with its single-shot, seven-minute-long final scene, which Amazon calls "one of the most famous in cinema history."

Michelangelo Antonioni dies

Louis Menand calls "The Manchurian Candidate" "tony pulp," an echo of Time magazine's book critic, who in 1959 said it could qualify as one of the Ten Best Bad Books. "Condon distributes his sour, malicious humor with such vigor and impartiality that the novel is certain to be read and enjoyed," the critic wrote.

I think there's something to be said for regularly revisiting the topic of brainwashing, even in such an exaggerated form as Mr. Condon's. Today, persuasive language is shoveled into our ears and eyes every minute we're awake. Ray Shaw didn't know he was brainwashed. He just knew what he wanted.

Revisiting Classic Thrillers

If there is any justice, this year’s Academy Award for best foreign-language film will go to “The Lives of Others,” a movie about a world in which there is no justice.

Again, I fear Lane gives away too much in this review; read it afterward, instead of beforehand. But this is a nice conclusion:

You might think that “The Lives of Others” is aimed solely at modern Germans. A movie this strong, however, is never parochial, nor is it period drama. Es ist für uns. It’s for us.

Guilty Parties: Anthony Lane on 'The Lives of Others' | The New Yorker

This film is very strong; after seeing both, I'd say Pan's Labyrinth probably doesn't stand a chance at the Oscars, despite getting almost impossibly high praise from critics. (I haven't yet seen Indigènes.)

Goodness, as a subject for art, risks falling prey to piety and wishful thinking, but “The Lives of Others,” one of the nominees for this year’s best foreign-language film Oscar, never sacrifices clarity for easy feeling. Posing a stark, difficult question — how does a good man act in circumstances that seem to rule out the very possibility of decent behavior? — it illuminates not only a shadowy period in recent German history, but also the moral no man’s land where base impulses and high principles converge.

I didn't read this article until afterward, and I'm glad, because I feel like Scott's review gives too much away in an effort to convince you to go see the film (or perhaps on the assumption that you won't, anyway, so it's no danger). Other positive reviews are from filmcritic and TV Guide.

The Lives of Others

This film is excellent. I saw it a few weeks ago and should have posted about it then. Highly recommended.

Decius wrote:

The film is set in post-Civil War northern Spain, in 1944. A young girl, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), moves with her pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil), and her stepfather Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), into a new home in the countryside. Vidal and his small army have been sent to the remote area to rid it of a small Republican militia.

Ofelia, who often immerses herself in ancient stories and fairy tales, finds an immense and ancient labyrinth near her new home. There, she meets a faun (Doug Jones) who reveals that she is the long-lost daughter of the King of the Underworld, and that to regain entry to her kingdom she must carry out three tasks. The faun gives her a storybook, which will tell her the details of the tasks.

Pan's Labyrinth

Martin Sheen and Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars") are doing the voices for Arthur Square and Hex.

Based on Edwin Abott's book "Flatland", this is an animated film about geometric characters living in a two-dimensional world. When a young girl named "Hex" decides to "think outside the box" (in a world where such thought is forbidden), her life becomes in danger and it is up to her grandfather to save her life.

The film is due out in May.

If you're looking for other threads about Flatland, try these:

On Privacy

When I see the popular debate repeatedly circling around the same targets, bookending the variously weak and/or alarmist arguments with portentous excerpts from "1984", I am reminded of Flatland.

I must admit that I'm not sure what you're getting at ... I must still be thinking in 2D.

Dark matter highlights extra dimensions

... my head is still spinning a little from this and I think I'm really going to have to go back and read Flatland again to really be able to wrap my mind around (heh) it ...

The Annotated Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Publisher's Weekly calls it "a math-geek classic!"

The Infinite Matrix | Rudy Rucker and Rudy Rucker, Jr. | Jenna and Me

Rudy Rucker rules!
I dig Rudy Rucker.
I second the recommendation!
I also recommend reading Edwin Abbott's "Flatland" directly.
I love Rudy Rucker.

Flatland: Next-Generation Simulation Visualization, Today

This representation of network and Internet activity brings to mind William Gibson's original vision of cyberspace in the novel Neuromancer.

A Business Proposition From the Fourth Dimension

This tribute to Edwin A. Abbott's classic novel Flatland works wonderfully.

Best Selling Science Books

How many pop-science books have you read?

Edward Tufte: Envisioning Information

This book celebrates escapes from the flatlands of both paper and computer screen ...

Flatland: The Movie

I'll be posting my own "top of 2006" list here shortly, but I like Anthony Lane's picks.

My saddest moment in a movie theatre came a month ago, when I screened “All About Eve” to a bunch of acquaintances, one of whom came up to me at the end. “What happened?” she asked.

“Well,” I replied, “Anne Baxter got the award, and Bette Davis sat there all steamed up, and George—”

“No,” she said, tapping her foot, “what happened to movies like that? Movies with four great parts for women and lines you want to quote? Where did they go?”

No idea, but they sure as hell aren’t coming back.

I'm not so much in line with David Denby's companion write-up; while I agree on some of his picks ("Little Children" and "The Queen" among them), his commentary leaves something to be desired.

Lane has some interesting what-could-have-been questions:

How would “Mission: Impossible III” have ended up if Paul Greengrass ("United 93") had been in charge? Can you imagine “The Da Vinci Code” remade by Michael Haneke ("Caché / Hidden"), with Tom Hanks locked in a crypt?

Memorable Movies of 2006 | Anthony Lane in The New Yorker

FYI for Netflix subscribers.

Just in time for the holidays, Blockbuster is giving Netflix subscribers the opportunity to experience the best of BLOCKBUSTER Total Access. From Dec. 5 through Dec. 21 current Netflix members can exchange the tear-off address flaps of their Netflix rental envelopes and receive on-the-spot free movie rentals from Blockbuster for every flap they bring in to any of the more than 5,000 participating BLOCKBUSTER stores.

Netflix Subscribers Get Free DVDs at Blockbuster

skullaria wrote:

These really are some strange, strange dolls.....very expressive art form. :)

If you are into strange dolls, it's worth checking out the film 4. On the whole, the film has both strong and weak points, but the scenes with the "masticating crones" are among the most surreal I've encountered. From the NYT review:

Sometimes a severed pig's head is just a severed pig's head, after all, though sometimes a weeping crone yodeling mournfully about the Volga River is also a symbol of a grotesque and nostalgic nationalism.

At cin-o-matic, you can get a broad set of views on the film. Slant Magazine nicely captures the crones:

[Director] Khrjanovsky eventually ends his epic on a somewhat hopeful note, but it's a small gesture incapable of overshadowing the preceding, stunningly foul third-act showpiece, in which a vodka-soaked bacchanalia culminates with two of the doll-making crones pulling, fondling, and pouring liquor on their naked bosoms. A depiction of a lost society's degeneration into unsalvageable debauchery? Or simply one last provocation perpetrated by a director intent on condemning his birthplace with full-throttled bad taste? Either way, it's a jaw-dropping moment that, like 4 itself, truly has to be seen to be believed.

Strange Dolls Indeed