HOUSE OF D
*/****
starring Anton Yelchin, Téa Leoni, David Duchovny, Robin Williams
written and directed by David Duchovny
THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES
½*/****
starring Wes Bentley, Richard Jenik, Stephen Alexander, James E. Ash
screenplay by Angelo Pizzo, based on the book by Geoffrey Douglas
directed by David Anspaugh
by Walter Chaw I'm going to talk on for a while, but all you need to know about House of D and The Game of Their Lives is that they share framing stories and voice-overs. Each is hatched from that particular litter of crowd-pleasing, tear-jerking, golden-hued nostalgia operas that endlessly recycle the same batch of story conveniences and stock characters in pursuit of frozen tableaux and over-scored, broadly-telegraphed climaxes. And they both present to their middlebrow audiences comfortable stories buoyed on the drab wings of sub-par screenplays, obvious direction, and perfunctory performances. I'm always surprised by the appetite for this kind of pre-masticated gruel--by how much people want and expect to be invasively groomed by their entertainments like cats by their tongues. This of course means I'm the stupid one.
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