eliter and eliter

Ex-Stripper, Sadist Among 105 New Invitees to Join AMPAS

Hollywood's power list got a little more diffuse Monday when Diablo Cody, Marion Cotillard, Judd Apatow and Sacha Baron Cohen were among 105 new invitees to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The number is the lowest since 2004, when the Academy instituted its "Riff-Raff Rule" limiting the annual invitee total to 137; that said, we're not sure what kind of internal politics and/or pledge drives would necessitate inviting Michael Haneke and Jet Li to assume even 1/6000th of the Oscar vote. Follow the jump for more of this year's celebrated AMPAS Cub Club! More »

sick flicks

Lunch is Lost, Ticket Cost Recouped After Messy 'Funny Games' Fallout

While we're mildly impressed by the $1 million take in limited release for the bourgeoisie torture-snuff opus Funny Games (especially considering the overwhelmingly negative reviews), no story speaks higher of director Michael Haneke's success than that of one Kate Johnson, who recently gave new meaning to "box-office gross" following her trip to the movies:

Finally when it was over and my "friend" looked like a deer in the headlights — I was physically sick. I demanded my money back from the box office only to have the girl laugh at me — at first. I threw up on the floor right in front of her — and it splattered.

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anticipation

'Funny Games': The Ultimate Bourgeois Nightmare Or Just Art House Torture Porn?

For those of us out there who are active moviegoers, the weekend of March 14 has been circled on our calendars for some time. While 2008 has seen a handful of worthwhile releases hit the cineplex (think Be Kind Rewind, think Charlie Bartlett), the indie-inclined viewer has had painfully few movie choices from which to choose from so far this year. However, all that changes this weekend when Neil Marshall's Doomsday, David Gordon Green's Snow Angels and Michael Haneke's Funny Games make their way to a theater near you. While all three will must sees (at least in my book), one of these flicks is drawing significant levels of pre-release controversy (if not great reviews). Specifically, Haneke's Americanized remake of his own 1997 pic Funny Games is being labeled by notoriously cranky film blogger Jeffrey Wells as being "the ugliest and most repulsive violent melodrama I've ever seen (including the thoroughly disgusting I Spit On Your Grave)" and, simultaneously, "a smart and nervy critique of sexy-violent movies ... and one of the ballsiest movies ever released by Warner Bros. in its 90 year history." Um, sign us up!

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