1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me

Mars Attacks! (Tim Burton, 1996)

As anticipation of the Martians’ arrival builds across the nation, recovering alcoholic Barbara Land (Annette Bening) stands up at an AA meeting in a sleepy Vegas church and launches into an optimistic speech about the future of the human race. Yet to her mind it’s not God that promises salvation but the varicose aliens themselves: “The Martians heard our karmic cry for help,” she explains to a receptive audience. “I think they’ve come to save us!” (Needless to say, the Martians have other ideas.)

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Las Vegas movies vs the Ten Commandments

With the Ten Commandments as our moral compass, we explore the sins of the city's cinema

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They call it Sin City for a reason—a city run on the ideology of pleasure-seeking consumerism is never going to please God. For as long as Vegas has stood for glitz, glamor and glory at the poker table, it's also attracted muggers, mobsters and mescaline addicts. By representing the American Dream in its seediest form, the city serves as a sort of dark counterpart to Hollywood. Little surprise, then, that the movies return to it time and again. Read on as we delve into the sins of Las Vegas's cinema.

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