Listings for Friday, October 10, through Thursday, October 16, 2008

War, Inc.

Capsule by J.R. Jones

From the Chicago Reader

In his third project as cowriter-producer-star, John Cusack plays a hit man for a Halliburton-like corporation who's dispatched to the fictional, U.S.-occupied Turaqistan to bump off a troublesome native businessman. Once he arrives, he's libidinally torn between Marisa Tomei as a left-wing journalist and Hilary Duff as a grotesque pop diva whose act includes the salacious licking of a sequined gas-pump spigot. Like so many satires in the Strangelove mold, this never comes close to working as a story, but its lampoon of U.S. imperialism and military privatization is so bracingly obnoxious I didn't really care. (In one scene, embedded journalists file into a theater for a virtual-reality chopper mission; in another, a trade show presents a kick line of women with high-tech prosthetic legs.) Joshua Seftel directed; with Joan Cusack, Dan Aykroyd, and Ben Kingsley. R, 107 min. Film scholar Reid Schultz will lead a discussion after each screening.

This movie is currently playing at: Sat 10/11, 2 and 7:30 PM, Northbrook Public Library, 1201 Cedar, Northbrook, 847-272-6224

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