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Recent Headlines
a la Mod:

Domino is
a "disarmingly
straight-forward"
work that "pushes
us to reexamine our
relationship to images
and their consumption,
not only ethically
but metaphysically"
-Collin Brinkman

De Palma on Domino
"It was not recut.
I was not involved
in the ADR, the
musical recording
sessions, the final
mix or the color
timing of the
final print."

Listen to
Donaggio's full score
for Domino online

De Palma/Lehman
rapport at work
in Snakes

De Palma/Lehman
next novel is Terry

De Palma developing
Catch And Kill,
"a horror movie
based on real things
that have happened
in the news"

Supercut video
of De Palma's films
edited by Carl Rodrigue

Washington Post
review of Keesey book

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Exclusive Passion
Interviews:

Brian De Palma
Karoline Herfurth
Leila Rozario

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AV Club Review
of Dumas book

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« October 2008 »
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Interviews...

De Palma interviewed
in Paris 2002

De Palma discusses
The Black Dahlia 2006


Enthusiasms...

De Palma Community

The Virtuoso
of the 7th Art

The De Palma Touch

The Swan Archives

Carrie...A Fan's Site

Phantompalooza

No Harm In Charm

Paul Schrader

Alfred Hitchcock
The Master Of Suspense

Alfred Hitchcock Films

Snake Eyes
a la Mod

Mission To Mars
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Sergio Leone
and the Infield
Fly Rule

Movie Mags

Directorama

The Filmmaker Who
Came In From The Cold

Jim Emerson on
Greetings & Hi, Mom!

Scarface: Make Way
For The Bad Guy

The Big Dive
(Blow Out)

Carrie: The Movie

Deborah Shelton
Official Web Site

The Phantom Project

Welcome to the
Offices of Death Records

The Carlito's Way
Fan Page

The House Next Door

Kubrick on the
Guillotine

FilmLand Empire

Astigmia Cinema

LOLA

Cultural Weekly

A Lonely Place

The Film Doctor

italkyoubored

Icebox Movies

Medfly Quarantine

Not Just Movies

Hope Lies at
24 Frames Per Second

Motion Pictures Comics

Diary of a
Country Cinephile

So Why This Movie?

Obsessive Movie Nerd

Nothing Is Written

Ferdy on Films

Cashiers De Cinema

This Recording

Mike's Movie Guide

Every '70s Movie

Dangerous Minds

EatSleepLiveFilm

No Time For
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The former
De Palma a la Mod
site

Entries by Topic
A note about topics: Some blog posts have more than one topic, in which case only one main topic can be chosen to represent that post. This means that some topics may have been discussed in posts labeled otherwise. For instance, a post that discusses both The Boston Stranglers and The Demolished Man may only be labeled one or the other. Please keep this in mind as you navigate this list.
All topics  «
Ambrose Chapel
Are Snakes Necessary?
BAMcinématek
Bart De Palma
Beaune Thriller Fest
Becoming Visionary
Betty Buckley
Bill Pankow
Black Dahlia
Blow Out
Blue Afternoon
Body Double
Bonfire Of The Vanities
Books
Boston Stranglers
Bruce Springsteen
Cannes
Capone Rising
Carlito's Way
Carrie
Casualties Of War
Catch And Kill
Cinema Studies
Clarksville 1861
Columbia University
Columbo - Shooting Script
Congo
Conversation, The
Cop-Out
Cruising
Daft Punk
Dancing In The Dark
David Koepp
De Niro
De Palma & Donaggio
De Palma (doc)
De Palma Blog-A-Thon
De Palma Discussion
Demolished Man
Dick Vorisek
Dionysus In '69
Domino
Dressed To Kill
Edward R. Pressman
Eric Schwab
Fatal Attraction
Femme Fatale
Film Series
Fire
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Fury, The
Genius of Love
George Litto
Get To Know Your Rabbit
Ghost & The Darkness
Greetings
Happy Valley
Havana Film Fest
Heat
Hi, Mom!
Hitchcock
Home Movies
Inspired by De Palma
Iraq, etc.
Jack Fisk
Jared Martin
Jerry Greenberg
Keith Gordon
Key Man, The
Laurent Bouzereau
Lights Out
Lithgow
Magic Hour
Magnificent Seven
Mission To Mars
Mission: Impossible
Mod
Montreal World Film Fest
Morricone
Mr. Hughes
Murder a la Mod
Nancy Allen
Nazi Gold
Newton 1861
Noah Baumbach
NYFF
Obsession
Oliver Stone
Palmetto
Paranormal Activity 2
Parker
Parties & Premieres
Passion
Paul Hirsch
Paul Schrader
Pauline Kael
Peet Gelderblom
Phantom Of The Paradise
Pimento
Pino Donaggio
Predator
Prince Of The City
Print The Legend
Raggedy Ann
Raising Cain
Red Shoes, The
Redacted
Responsive Eye
Retribution
Rie Rasmussen
Robert De Niro
Rotwang muß weg!
Sakamoto
Scarface
Scorsese
Sean Penn
Sensuous Woman, The
Sisters
Snake Eyes
Sound Mixer
Spielberg
Star Wars
Stepford Wives
Stephen H Burum
Sweet Vengeance
Tabloid
Tarantino
Taxi Driver
Terry
The Tale
To Bridge This Gap
Toronto Film Fest
Toyer
Travolta
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Tru Blu
Truth And Other Lies
TV Appearances
Untitled Ashton Kutcher
Untitled Hollywood Horror
Untitled Industry-Abuse M
Untouchables
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Friday, October 31, 2008
PARADISE ON HALLOWEEN
FOX LEGACY CLASSIC OF THE WEEK

Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise will play three times this Halloween as the FOX Movie Channel's Fox Legacy Classic of the Week. De Palma's classic will play tonight at 8pm, 10pm, and midnight eastern time. All over the web the past couple of weeks, bloggers are writing about Phantom and linking to the great Swan Archives, where, as we've posted about before, you can see exclusive outtakes and alternative scenes from the film. Now, at FanEdit.org, you can download a fan's edit of the film that utilizes a complicated splicing-together from the DVD release, audio from the old 1988 laser disc release (which is apparently much better than the DVD's audio), and the outtakes from the Swan Archives to create something akin to De Palma's original vision of the film. Be warned, however, that you must own at least one of the DVD versions of Phantom before downloading, or you could find yourself engulfed in the sort of legal entanglements that would make Swan jealous.

LOVE FOR CARRIE
Another De Palma film being mentioned all over the place this Halloween season is Carrie. Today, romance writer Jill Sorenson wrote on her blog that Carrie is one of her favorite scary movies. "De Palma's masterpiece" was also screened under the stars last Saturday at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. In a U.K. poll of more than 6000 HMV customersCarrie was voted the 24th best horror film ever made, according to results released yesterday. And just today, The Playlist team posted what they call the "Rosetta Stones of the fright genre." Here's what they say about Carrie:

Carrie (1976) begins and ends in a bloodbath. From the unforgettable opening scene as bullying girls unmercifully taunt the titular menstruating outcast with tampons ("Plug it up!") in the high school locker room to the prom night cataclysm that leaves Carrie soaked to the skin in pig's blood before unleashing her telekinesis for ultimate revenge against her vindictive classmates, this film remains today one of the most effective cinematic tragedies. Stephen King's first novel-to-film adaptation directed by Brian De Palma is not your standard horror flick, obviously, and the fact that Carrie is both the sympathetic protagonist and demonic villain — leaving the delineation between good and evil unclear — makes this film so powerful and classic. And who could forget Piper Laurie's bone-chilling performance as Carrie's bible-beating, devil-fearing, lunatic mother, in particular, the orgasmic exhalations of her kitchen knife crucifixion?


Posted by Geoff at 12:45 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, October 31, 2008 6:19 PM CDT
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Monday, October 27, 2008
HURD LAYS OUT STRANGLERS STORY
AICN USERS SUGGEST IMPERIOLI AS DESALVO
Gale Anne Hurd was interviewed by UGO Movie Blog's Jenna Busch a few days ago. Hurd told Busch that her production company, Valhalla Motion Pictures, is gearing up to seek financing and distribution on Brian De Palma's The Boston Stranglers, with intentions to begin filming in 2009. Hurd layed out the film's story line for Busch:

It’s based on Susan Kelly’s book called The Boston Stranglers, because everything that we think we know is wrong. There was a film made right after the events called The Boston Strangler starring Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda. And it posits that Albert DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler, but the truth is, if you scratch beneath the surface, Albert DeSalvo was never charged with the crimes. He was actually incarcerated for another series of assaults, and there was not one shred of evidence linking him to the crimes. So the film is very much (about) how did things go so wrong, that to this day we all think Albert DeSalvo was tried and convicted as the Boston Strangler?

When Busch told Hurd that that sounded "really interesting," Hurd responded by saying, "Yeah. With media, with fear, with the cult of celebrity, so many of the things that are part of our life today, were just beginning in the late sixties."

EARLY VERSION OF SCREENPLAY
Mr. Beaks over at Aint It Cool News provides a brief synopsis from an earlier draft of Alan Rosen's screenplay. (Rosen has been with the project since 2001, when Hurd was trying to get it set up for Carl Franklin to direct at Paramount. Now that De Palma has signed on to the project, the screenplay is being revised under his direction.) Mr. Beaks writes:

The massive-in-scope screenplay (a recent draft by Alan Rosen ran over 160 pages) starts small with DeSalvo's first string of crimes (he talked his way into the homes of lonely/neglected women by pretending to be a scout for a modeling agency), but quickly turns into a multi-layered dramatization of the botched police investigation, the intense, often unhelpful media scrutiny (courtesy of an ambitious young female reporter for The Boston Herald), and DeSalvo's jailhouse confession to convicted murderer George Nassar (who got F. Lee Bailey involved). It's kinky, bloody and full of betrayal; in other words, it's ideal material for De Palma. Right now, he's just got to find the narrative throughline.

MICHAEL IMPERIOLI
A user named blackmantis, posting in the "Talk Back" section following Mr. Beaks' AICN post, stated, "Michael Imperioli is DeSalvo's doppelganger! He absolutely must play that part." Several other users agreed that Imperioli would be perfect for the role. Imperioli is best known for his role on HBO's The Sopranos, and can currently be seen carrying an authentically distinct '70s vibe as a cop working for Harvey Keitel on ABC's Life On Mars. No casting has yet been mentioned for The Boston Stranglers.


Posted by Geoff at 4:50 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, October 27, 2008 7:34 PM CDT
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DRESSED FOR "WEIRD WEDNESDAY"
LARS NILSEN INTRODUCES DE PALMA FILM IN AUSTIN

Above is a video of Lars Nilsen providing a wonderful introduction to Brian De Palma's Dressed To Kill last Wednesday at the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin, Texas. The screening was part of Nilsen's "Weird Wednesday" series, which happens every Wednesday night, and is free of charge thanks to local sponsor I Luv Video. When you go to Nilsen's blog posting about Dressed To Kill, be sure to read the comments section, where a guy named Jay complains that Nilsen was so uptight about the "slightest snicker" that he went into "full-on Geek police mode" to keep people from distracting from the film (in the intro above, Nilsen tells the audience it is especially important not to talk during Dressed To Kill). Nilsen's reply to Jay's post indicates what kind of atmosphere to expect when attending "Weird Wednesday":

Sorry, we don't allow people to carry on conversations during the movie. It's an unpopular policy with people who like to carry on conversations at movie screenings.

You'll also note that Nilsen is wearing a De Palma T-shirt as he introduces the film. I've seen this shirt before, and was turned off by the design that resembles the Def Leppard logo. But now I may just have to get one as a tribute to Nilsen's enthusiastic introduction.

Thanks to Drew!


Posted by Geoff at 10:25 AM CDT
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Sunday, October 26, 2008
REDACTED OPENS IN JAPAN

AND AT CARTHAGE FILM FEST IN TUNISIA
Brian De Palma's Redacted opened yesterday in Japan. The Japan Times ran a review of the film by Giovanni Fazio, who discussed the effect of De Palma's juggling of forms within the film:

The effect is a little jarring: Some 10 minutes into the film, the tone shifts so wildly — from a shakily shot barracks video to a stately documentary, complete with voice-over and classical soundtrack — that I thought the wrong film had been dubbed onto the DVD preview copy.

This jumble of perspectives seems intentional: half a prosecutor's assemblage of evidence of a crime, half a reminder that the war's big picture remains on the fringes and can only be glimpsed by sifting the miasma of Web videos. The media, De Palma is quite clear in pointing out, are not doing their job of showing us the reality on the ground in Iraq.

Redacted will also screen this Friday (October 31st) as part of the 22nd Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia. The fest began October 25th, and runs through November 1st.


Posted by Geoff at 12:45 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, October 27, 2008 9:55 AM CDT
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Armond White on Changeling


From the New York Press:

By some unaccountable phenomena, Clint Eastwood’s Changeling resembles a Spike Lee movie. It starts with a simple premise: single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) asks police to find her pre-teen son gone missing in 1928 Los Angeles. Then, like Lee, Eastwood piles on extraneous, aggravating subplots: a corrupt police force (“The Gun Squad”) manipulating Christine’s misfortune; her sexist exploitation by both the rabid media and opportunistic radio evangelist Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich); bogus psychiatry practiced by a menacing shrink (Dennis O’Hare) who terrorizes Christine in a mental institution. Plus, Eastwood’s usual film-noir furbelows: His favorite hues are green and darkness. The only red in the entire film is Jolie’s 3-D lipstick.

For these reasons, Changeling isn’t suspenseful: It’s creepy. Lacking the historical veracity of De Palma’s Black Dahlia, its style is a bizarre form of old-school storytelling, mixing masochistic dread with ugly reportage. The opening credit, “A True Story,” is an immediate bad omen. Fact and fiction are tools that Eastwood uses, like Lee, for a shrewd form of demography. Critic Gregory Solman long ago suggested that Eastwood works both sides of the aisle: Jolie plays a pre-feminist martyr surrounded by men who simultaneously represent conservative repression (the cops) and sentimentality (the Rev.). Eastwood also agitates by throwing in serial-killer episodes that lapse into gruesome pedophilia—including a set of child performances that are the least convincing since Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace.


Posted by Geoff at 12:07 PM CDT
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Thursday, October 23, 2008
Whose Endorsing Who?

POLITICS AS ENTERTAINMENT AS POLITICS
The above photo is posted at Eric Harvey's Marathonpacks with the caption, "A Brian De Palma film waiting to happen." The photo, apparently snapped from in front of a television screen, shows Sarah Palin entering on the left, while Tina Fey, impersonating Palin, exits to the right during the opening segment of last Saturday's Saturday Night Live. Harvey rants that both Saturday Night Live and "politics" treat politics "less as a contest of ideas than as a cast of characters," and he mentions Oliver Stone's just-released W. as another instance where a cast of characters, some reprising their roles from a dozen years earlier, seem to have taken over our collective stream of politics.

Meanwhile, over at the Huffington Post, Michael Showalter cites James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential to explain why he thinks Palin keeps using the tough-to-pronounce word "Ahmadinejad" to con her audiences into thinking that she is making sense. Palin then leads Showalter to think of The Bonfire Of The Vanities:

With the latest revelation that Sarah Palin has spent more than four times what Joe the Plumber makes in a year, $175,000 to be exact, on her wardrobe so far, I couldn't help but thinking of another book: The Bonfire Of The Vanities. I also thought of the movie, or to be more exact, the making of the movie. The making of the movie version of Bonfire of the Vanities as detailed in the book The Devil's Candy by Julie Salamon is the story of a pretty good idea that became a really, really bad idea really fast. I think that the publisher's comments sum it up well: "When Brian De Palma agreed to allow Julie Salamon unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe's best-selling The Bonfire of the Vanities, both director and journalist must have felt like they were on to something big. How could it lose? But instead Salamon got a front-row seat at the Hollywood disaster of the decade...This riveting insider's portrait provides a timeless account of an industry where art, talent, ego, and money combine and clash on a monumental scale."

If only John McCain's presidential bid were just a movie. Then again who thought really thought that the movie about the chihuahua would do so well?


Posted by Geoff at 11:38 AM CDT
Updated: Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:40 AM CDT
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Friday, October 10, 2008
PHANTOM IN CHICAGO "MASSACRE"
AND GERRIT GRAHAM IN WINNIPEG THIS WEEKEND
Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise will be part of this year's "Music Box Massacre," a 24-hour horror marathon taking place at Chicago's Music Box Theatre beginning at noon October 25th. The theatre's website bills Phantom as "Brian De Palma's lunatic film!" Clive Barker will be there to present his latest film, The Midnight Meat Train, and Lucky McKee, director of the Carrie-ish May, will also be present.

In separate Phantom news, Gerrit Graham will be a special guest at the third annual Manitoba Comic Con & Sci-Fi Expo this weekend in Winnipeg, where Phantom is a very popular cult film.


Posted by Geoff at 11:42 AM CDT
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Thursday, October 9, 2008
STRANGLERS TO SHOOT NEXT SPRING
FOR RELEASE IN 2010, SAYS HURD
Film School Rejects' Cole Abaius spoke recently with Gale Anne Hurd, producer of Brian De Palma's upcoming film, The Boston Stranglers. Hurd told Abaius that the screenplay should be finalized this week, and be ready to start shooting next Spring (2009), with a projected release in 2010. In his post, Abaius states, "So far, there’s no casting in place, and Hurd wouldn’t spill the beans on who they are looking at."

Posted by Geoff at 1:07 AM CDT
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
DE PALMA AWAITS BOSTON REWRITE
AND UPDATES ON OTHER PROJECTS
I had a chance to exchange e-mails with Brian De Palma last week regarding the status of some of his recently announced projects. De Palma said that he is waiting for the rewrite on The Boston Stranglers, which could be his next film. This news shows promise that the film will reflect De Palma's sensibilities from the ground up, as the script is being rewritten (presumably by Alan Rosen) under De Palma's direction, and under no apparent rush for a release date.

PRINT THE LEGEND
But what has happened to Print The Legend, De Palma's proposed Iraq-themed follow-up to Redacted? De Palma said he would love to experiment with these new forms of storytelling again, "but we couldn't get it financed. No one wants to make this kind of anti-war [film] now." Print The Legend had been announced by The Film Farm at Cannes last May, along with an untitled political thriller written by De Palma, with the understanding that Print The Legend would be made first. One can guess that if no one wants to finance an anti-war picture right now, investors might be similarly wary about financing a political thriller by the same man who has made his views on the current war in Iraq abundantly clear. While De Palma said that he still has no title for said political thriller, he was able to provide a clue as to what it is about (which he nevertheless presented in the capitalized form of a title): "Sex and Lies on the Champaign Trail."

CAPONE RISING, AND DE NIRO...
I also asked De Palma if he thought Capone Rising might get off the ground again (that project was stalled over questions about who owns the rights to the property). De Palma said it's "always possible-- it's a very good script." When I mentioned there had been rumors that Robert De Niro may appear in the film as the Mayor of Chicago, De Palma replied, "Haven't heard that one."

OTHER TIDBITS: LUDIVINE SAGNIER

A couple of weeks ago, Ludivine Sagnier, now appearing in Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut In Two, was interviewed by Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle. Sagnier mentioned a conversation she'd had with De Palma while auditioning for a role in one of his films (which must have been The Black Dahlia). Sagnier recalled:

I auditioned once for a part with Brian De Palma, but he decided he didn't need a European actress for the role. But I remember he said, "Why don't you learn better English, learn a proper accent, and come down to L.A.?" And I was like, "No, I'm sorry, sir. I don't want that." And he was like, "Come on, you lazy cow." And I said, "No, it's not a question of being lazy. I just want to blossom in nice roles, whatever the geography." It's very difficult, the path of young actresses. For example, Scarlett Johansson started out to be a very indie actress, with very edgy roles. But even she - it seems like, ooh, suddenly something has reached her, and that, ooh, she's falling into the trap of too much exhibition, too much money, too much advertisement. And I want to say, "Oh, slow down girl! Slow down! Life is so long! Don't take it as a sprint. Take it as a marathon."

SNOOP DOG & JAKE SULLY
Finally, here are two more little tidbits, courtesy of Rado. Snoop Dog is currently on tour, and the screens behind the stage are showing clips from Scarface edited with Snoop-reenacted versions of them. Rado also notes that the main character in James Cameron's upcoming 3-D extravaganza Avatar is named Jake Sully. Of course, the main character in De Palma's Body Double was named Jake Scully, but there is another odd connection here in the fact that Gale Anne Hurd, who was once married to Cameron and once married to De Palma, has produced projects for both directors (but neither Body Double nor Avatar). Hurd, no longer married to either director, is currently producing The Boston Stranglers for De Palma to direct.


Posted by Geoff at 1:26 PM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 3:58 PM CDT
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Friday, September 12, 2008
REPORT FROM TALENT LAB
DE PALMA GIVES "SOLID ADVICE" TO YOUNG FILMMAKERS
Tom Quinn reports that he was honored to be "the first American filmmaker to take part in the Toronto International Film Festival Talent Lab" last week. Quinn provides details of all the guest speakers at the Lab, including Brian De Palma. Of the latter, Quinn writes:

Brian De Palma kicked off the week by reminding us to always be assertive; to seize every opportunity. He spoke of meeting young filmmakers who complained about their lack of money and studio attention, or worse, filmmakers who did not take charge of their own careers. De Palma feels that breakthroughs in video technology over the past 10 years has erased any lingering excuses. "If you can’t go get a digital camera and get some actors together," he asked, "why are you here?" However, his best advice was regarding clear communication on set. "Be careful," he told us, "Not with what you’re saying, but what they’re hearing. Red to one means blue to another." Solid advice.


Posted by Geoff at 7:53 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, September 12, 2008 7:59 PM CDT
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