'The Lives of Others' & 'Funny Games'

Ah, the fine work of German actor Ulrich Muhe. No, I had never heard of him either until I saw "The Lives of Others," a brilliant period piece of the German Democratic Republic and the ways and means of the communist government to silence the critical ideas of its intelligentsia.

Unbeknownst to myself, Muhe is also a lead in "Funny Games," a brilliant violent movie about the effects of violent movies.

Muhe is great in both, although he's stellar in "The Lives of Others," but I think the Ulrich Muhe Oscar goes to Arno Frisch and Frank Giering, two other German actors who play the coy and playful (sadistic, rabid, biting) murderers in "Funny Games." Much in the vein of Alex in "Clockwork Orange," Peter and Paul (Tom and Jerry) charm the pants off the reader as they play insane head games with an unsuspecting, well-off family vacationing in the mountains.

First they blow the son's brains against the wall, murder the father and then drown the mother without batting an eyelash or unwilling to skip a meal, catch up on TV watching or take pot shots at each other. Frisch, particularly, was excellent.

The other Ulrich Muhe Oscar goes to the uber-sexy Martina Gedeck, for "The Lives of Others."