Producer Lawrence Bender is sitting poolside at the Four Seasons Hotel, celebrating an unrivaled triumph: he’s just helped Quentin Tarantino kill Adolf Hitler.
When the extreme horror auteur Eli Roth visited Germany to promote his 2005 hit, “Hostel,” journalists asked how he dared make such a sexually sadistic movie. Roth, now a still-boyish 37-year-old, had already cemented his reputation as one of the most successful directors to push the so-called “torture porn” genre to grisly new heights; “Hostel” pushed it even further with its tale of smug American college students who become the playthings of wealthy sadists abroad.
Robert Novak, the Jewish-born influential conservative columnist who often criticized Israel, has died.\n\nNovak died Tuesday in Washington after a long struggle with brain cancer. He was 78.
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