House of Games (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Sometimes a bit corny but one of my favorite movies!

House of Games is a cracklingly great noir thriller. If you're into films about con artists this one ranks as one of the best. It features that classic Mamet dialogue that draws you in it's grasp and doesn't let go. Performances are very solid especially from Joe Mantegna who is outstanding and an honorable mention to the late great Ricky Jay who has a memorable scene at an early card game. House of Games is a top notch thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat and will keep you guessing right up until it's final frame. It also has a great noir look and feel. It was filmed in the great city of Seattle and it ends up being perfect.Criterion's blu ray is a great treat as well with a solid transfer and audio and some fun extras. Don't miss it!

I learned in Entertainment weekly that Joe Mantegna won a Tony for playing Rick Roma in David Mamet's play  Glengarry Glen Ross , when they were turning it into a film the studio wanted a larger name, Al Pacino, which lead to an oscar nomination for Pacino. As a consolation prize Mamet offered Mantegna the lead in his directorial debut House of Games. House of games is a psychological mind game/crime movie that plays like a modern film noir and enough smoking to be one.The Game: A con/confidence game.The Players:Mike- Played by Mantegna is an old school con man a dinosaur of con men. He can talk with the best of them.Margaret Ford- A famous therapist who has a best selling book out and comes to meet Mike by trying to help out a patient who owes money to him.The Rules- There is none.To go in detail of any of these cons would ruin the movie, it's best to know as little as possible. You don't know who is who or who is playing who, and that's the best part as we as viewers don't know if were in on the con or not. The last con was a bit I think obvious but not the ending.House of Games is also in Roger Eberts Great series.

This blu ray is definitely the best way to watch '"House Of Games.' but, unusually for Criterion, the picture quality is a bit of a letdown.I'm no expert on digital remastering for blu ray bit the image on this disc just doesn't live up to my usual expectations for this HD platform.It's certainly watchable but as I watch it I just get the impression that more could have been done to optimize the picture quality.I'd recommend this release to any fan of 'House Of Games.', but just don't expect to be wowed by the picture quality. Temper your expectations a bit.

I think its fair that one of Mamets main themes is masculinity or the masculine world so its interesting to see that in his first film the protagonist is a women. If you are lucky to see this film for the first time cold, you are in for a hell of a ride.

The plastic case is broken along the bottom of the DVD box. Still closes, just a bummer.

Shame on Criterion for pricing this only slightly lux version of standard packaging, graphics, and extras at the $35.00 price point where one would expect a high end treatment throughout the entire package! The new transfer is absolutely first rate. But talk about cheap and over priced packaging and extras! Nothing but a plastic case, a single disc, a fat booklet and a few on disc extras, no more than you would get with a regular edition for countless other films. This disc might do well at $16.99, but at thirty-five dollars ($35.00) it's just a rip.I love this film, always have, always will, ever since it was first released. So I was excited to see Criterion issue a completely remastered edition to replace the very mediocre transfer and disc that has, till now, been all that was available. I had recently purchased the Criterion three disc edition of the beautifully remastered "Seven Samurai". That set was without a doubt one of the most lavish, best designed, wonderfully packaged and best presented sets I have ever seen. Well worth the $35 Amazon charged for it.Silly me, I assumed that, just because "House Of Games" was priced at the same $35 level that it would be packaged and presented with the same value and care. Boy was I wrong!So, to balance out my two star rating:Film: *****Packaging: *Transfer: *****Value: **

I bought this as one of my husband's Christmas gifts. We had both seen the movie a number of times and we loved every showing. It just made sense to own it since it's one of our favorites. The joy of utter surprise isn't quite there anymore because we know what's going to happen, but the story, acting and directing are still superb. If you enjoy plot twists, you'll love this movie. Just pay attention to every scene!

Mamet is hard-boiled,a subtle user of language games,to enact transactions.He takes individuals from 2 tribes,one from psychiatry and one from the the world of shysters and con-men and he sets them circling each other.Uniquely for himself he adds, untypically,a female psychotherapist.You get the feeling he thinks psychotherapy is"all just a con game.It's all talk...you do nothing"(says Billy,the victim of a debt who seeks her help).That is the challenge he sets up to induct her and us into a world of vicarious pleasure,a life of crime that is a series of ingenious games,until the realisation that he/she was the victim of a master game that reached back to the beginning of the film.Small cons lead onto a bigger con,cons operate within cons,language is like the guage with its pauses and repetitions and cadences,polished from Mamet's theatrical world,featuring players he brings with him as a company and family(including ex-wife Lindsay Cruise),who are all tried and tested deliverers of Mamet's crafted dialogue. Within a situation that is carefully prepared, where the environment,the `script'and the required behaviour are very familiar to the players, something is undertaken involving risk and challenge,the unexpected and the unpredictable,so the person(heroine,audience)for whose benefit it is all being staged will be tempted to participate,will be drawn in.That House of Games,Mamet's 1st film,works in film terms,smoothly dovetailing theatrical-rhetorical and cinematic-minimal.This is a psychological drama as well as a scam:human curiousity,greed and vanity are the counters in a game in which control is achieved through fantasy.Margaret Ford has written a best-selling book,Driven,astudy of compulsive behaviour,she is a successful practitioner,she has a mentor to whom she confesses what she does is a `con game',she can't help people,she makes a Freudian slip about her father telling a murderess(she's seeing in prison)she's a whore.Her mentor tells her to relax,enjoy herself.She says she enjoys writing her book.She keeps a notebook:'"Help me-no one will help me."`The character Mike,the unbeatable gambler-seen as omniscient,who doles out punishment.'Turning a page:`The House of Games' 211 Beaumont Street`The necessity to find a place to be humiliated-a place you can go back to again and again.He romanticises the scene...soft lighting...'This may all be part of a novel she is writing.We cut to a night scene in the House of Games.Mike(Mantegna) is the charismatic hustler and practitioner of the card-sharping House of Games.She has come to ask him to stop threatening Billy and finds the debt is $800 not $25,000.She can cancel the debt if she does Mike a `favour'.He informs her what a `tell' is,then proceeds via a poker game to draw her into his world.She is conned into thinking she has seen through their con to get her $6000. They say "It's only business,it's the American way".This becomes the guarded,deadpan mode in which their courtship is played out-a double seduction in which Mike offers the kind of danger and excitement Margeret has only known at second-hand through her work,and by his demonstration of the psychological clues and ploys in gamesmanship which pique her as a professional in the field.Mike tells her "to trust no one".She asks him if he'd engage with her in a study of the confidence game.He says "you want to see how a true bad man plies his trade?"He describes why it's a confidence game,"because you give me your confidence?No,because I give you mine."He demonstrates how to get money when you have none:he gives William H.Macey his" confidence,I ask him for help,what he gets is he feels he's a good man."He thinks she gets something from this transaction:she "wants somebody to come along and possess her.To take you into a new thing. "The con artist maintains control,until the repressed,morbidly fascinated doctor flips out,asserting control in the only way available to a woman scorned.Or does she?The last piece of Mamet's puzzle might be the possibility that this all takes place in the heroine's mind,while she plays doctor to herself.Remember the notebook,before she goes to the House of Games,the Freudian slips,is Mike the father she has killed?Is he mentor her doctor?As for empathy...

Great movie that I first watched many years ago. It is still as enjoyable as I remember. Lindsay Crouse and Joe Mantegna are awesome in the movie. The ending is unforgettable.