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Domino is
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straight-forward"
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De Palma on Domino
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Listen to
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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
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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.
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Friday, October 11, 2013
PARADISE CITY-- SLASH SPORTS 'PHANTOM' SHIRT
WHILE DOING PRESS FOR FILM HE PRODUCED & SCORED, 'NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR'


The image above comes from the Winnipeg Free Press, showing Slash (a.k.a. Saul Hudson) wearing a Phantom Of The Paradise T-shirt as he promotes his debut film as producer, Nothing Left To Fear, in Toronto. While Slash produced the film under his production company, Slasher Films, he tells the Winnipeg Free Press' Randall King that he is not interested in making slasher films. "The moniker 'Slasher' just goes along with my name, so it was the easiest thing," Slash tells King. "But it's really the antithesis of the kind of movies I want to make."

Nothing Left To Fear was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD October 8th. Aside from producing the film, Slash also co-composed the score, explaining to Rolling Stone's Steve Baltin that the score is important to him, "because that's the one thing where I actually know what I'm doing. The rest of it is just me using my wits and sensibilities and going to what I think I should do. But with the music, it's something I have a grasp on, and one of the reasons that becoming a producer for horror flicks was enticing was the fact that I could be responsible for the music. So in this film, it was understood from the very get-go that we wanted to do something orchestral. So I wrote a bunch of different music and played it for the director to see which one he thought fit his sort of cinematic vision for this thing. Then he introduced me to an old friend of his, Nicholas O'Toole, who's a scoring composer and sound designer, and so the music that we picked I gave to him and he interpreted it to an orchestral application. Then we just sort of worked hand in hand through the whole movie. It was great. It was really sort of a combination of people, but it was a lot of fun to do and I was really happy with the end result. Then Myles [Kennedy] and I have the theme song at the end."

As far as horror influences, Slash tells the Globe and Mail's Geoff Pevere that he, first-time director Anthony Leonardi III, and co-producer Rob Eric all universally loved Rosemary's Baby, and went for the "slow-burn" effect of Roman Polanski's film. Slash also mentions in two of the above interviews that as a kid, he was creeped out by George Romero's Night Of The Living Dead. In addition, he tells King, "When I was a kid, one of the big ones for me was The Omen, the original. I always thought it was a marriage of great directing, a great story and great actors. It was really well done, and it was made in the fashion of the old feature movie."


Posted by Geoff at 1:14 AM CDT
Updated: Friday, October 11, 2013 1:15 AM CDT
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
WHATCULTURE ON 'SCARFACE'/'BREAKING BAD'
AND OLIVER STONE CALLS 'BREAKING BAD' FINALE "RIDICULOUS"
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan has said that he envisioned his show as Mr. Chips becoming Scarface. Now that the AMC series has come to a close, WhatCulture's Joe Young has posted "8 Notable Comparisons Between Breaking Bad And Scarface." Moving from headings such as "Drugs" and "Family," to "Violence" and "Memorable Dialogue," the article is illustrated with images and video clips. The other headings are "Greek Tragedy," "Both Characters Are Eventually Honest With Who They Are," "Neither A Good Advert For Drug Use," and "Explosive Endings."

Meanwhile, during a press conference this week for the DVD release of his Showtime series The Untold History of the United States, Scarface screenwriter Oliver Stone called the Breaking Bad finale "ridiculous," according to Forbes' Todd Gilchrist. With SPOILERS from the season finale, here is an excerpt from Gilchrist's article:
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Speaking to press about the rejuvenating effects of working on documentaries in comparison to his feature work, he suggested that fiction filmmaking has lost respect for the kind of escapism it provides audiences, evidenced by the final episode of Breaking Bad. “There’s too much violence in our movies – and it’s all unreal to me,” he said. “I don’t know if you saw the denouement [of Breaking Bad], I happen to not watch the series very much, but I happened to tune in and I saw the most ridiculous 15 minutes of a movie – it would be laughed off the screen.”

Stone pointedly critiqued Walter White’s method of handling the gang that kidnapped Jesse. “Nobody could park his car right then and there and could have a machine gun that could go off perfectly and kill all of the bad guys! It would be a joke,” he insisted. “It’s only in the movies that you find this kind of fantasy violence. And that’s infected the American culture; you young people believe all of this shit! Batman and Superman, you’ve lost your minds, and you don ‘t even know it! At least respect violence. I’m not saying don’t show violence, but show it with authenticity.

The Untold History of the United States offers a fascinating look at American history, re-examining pivotal moments in the shaping of our culture and our democracy, by placing events like the development of the atomic bomb in a larger, more well-rounded context. When asked whether mainstream entertainment could provide similar sorts of lessons about American culture, Stone said that the infrastructure of studio blockbusters often obscures those potential insights.

“I wouldn’t criticize everything. I’m just saying it’s the level of violence,” Stone explained. “If people think that bringing a machine gun to your last meeting is a solution to a television series that’s very popular, I think they’re insane. Something’s wrong. It’s not the world we know. But I think there might be in Iron Man… there could be some good stories about war profiteering, some good moral tales. I agree. Comics were that for that reason, remember? But when you’ve reached this height of technology level of a Michael [Bay], of a Transformers, I don’t understand the meaning of it and the reason for it, except that it appeals to some visual sense, some kinetic sense of dynamism and a need for action. But action is not always a solution, character is.”

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Posted by Geoff at 7:48 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, October 10, 2013 7:50 PM CDT
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Wednesday, October 9, 2013
FIRST REVIEW OF ARROW'S 'THE FURY' BLU-RAY
INCLUDES MORE DETAILS ABOUT EXTRA FEATURES
Simon Crust at AV Forums has posted a review of Arrow Video's upcoming Blu-ray edition of Brian De Palma's The Fury, which will be released October 28th in the U.K. Calling it "a sterling package" from Arrow, Crust states, "re-mastering the picture from the original camera negative has produced a magnificent restoration, with a bright, detailed and colourful image that belies its age. The sound doesn’t fare quite so well, the surround track being the best of the bunch, though it’s great to also have the isolated music track." Here's what Crust has to say about the extras included in the package:
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• Blood on the Lens (27.00) – An interview with cinematographer Richard H Kline who discusses his time making the picture the ideas he brought to it, the professionalism of De Palma and the cast and how many of the optical effects were achieved. Entertaining and informative.
• Spinning Tales (13.38) – Another interview this time with Fiona Lewis. She talks about her time on set, relationships with the other actors and De Palma, of course. Far more anecdotal than either of the other two interviews.
• The Fury: A Location Journal (49.49) – Third and final (new) interview for this release this time with Sam Irvin who interned on The Fury and wrote up several interviews for the magazine Cinefantastique while there. This guy knows just about everything there is to know about the film, he talks about how he was introduced to De Palma, his time on set, his relationships with the cast and crew, how scenes were shot, the editing process, the post production and how it was received. There is a wealth of information here all told in an enthusiastically infectious manner.
• Original Archive Interviews – Four interviews recorded in 1978 to promote the film, very interesting in how they are set up (single camera panning between the interviewer and the guest) is in rather poor shape and even poorer sound, but very interesting in its own right. Included are Brian De Palma (06.03), producer Frank Yablans (06.52), [Carrie Snodgress (05.05) and Amy Irving (04.45). The chats are very light in tone and every question leads to an answer that in some way promotes the film.
• Double Negative (17.58) – Sam Irvin’s short film tribute to De Palma, telling the story of a director getting his own back on some ruthless producers. Looks to be VHS of a film source, not terrible quality but not great, easily watchable and showcasing some very early talent – I actually quite enjoyed it.
• Gallery (0.53) – A number of production pictures play as a slideshow accompanied to some of the film’s score.
• Reversible Sleeve – Original and newly commissioned artwork from Jay Shaw.
• Booklet – Thoroughly comprehensive writings on the film, printed interviews with De Palma and John Farris, all illustrated with original film stills and poster art.

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Posted by Geoff at 11:00 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 11:04 PM CDT
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Monday, October 7, 2013
'CARRIE' PROMO PRANKS COFFEE SHOP PATRONS

Posted by Geoff at 8:20 PM CDT
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Sunday, October 6, 2013
ARMOND SOUR ON 'GRAVITY', RECALLS RICHER 'M2M'
"REMEMBER THAT ASTOUNDINGLY WITTY ENNIO MORRICONE SCORE?"
Armond White at City Arts has posted his review of Alfonsso Cuaron's Gravity, and is sour on what he sees as Cuaron's "glib cynicism," left over from the director's Children Of Men, unearned Kubrickian sense of "intellectual contemplation and wonder" (in Gravity's opening-image evocation of 2001: A Space Odyssey), and Cuaron's "fashionable" anti-religious "sop to the hipster market". White then contrasts Gravity with Brian De Palma's Mission To Mars and Walter Hill's Supernova:
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Too bad Gravity’s fanboy audience is conveniently ignorant of richer space dramas like Walter Hill’s sexy-scary Supernova and Brian DePalma’s Mission to Mars (remember that astoundingly witty Ennio Morricone score?) which entertainingly combined psychological and visionary pondering with sci-fi agape. Hill advanced the genre with tense, erotic, metaphysical characterizations. Nothing in Gravity compares to Mission to Mars’ extraordinary orchestration of passion and dread among a team of astronauts attempting to forge a lifeline in outer space. DePalma created an unforgettable, breathtaking sequence of love and loss. His great tragic humanism was more powerful than Cuaron’s tepid “hope.”
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Posted by Geoff at 11:59 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, October 6, 2013 12:01 PM CDT
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Saturday, October 5, 2013
PEIRCE SHOT FIVE ENDINGS FOR 'CARRIE'?
AND TWO MORE PRODUCTIONS OF THE MUSICAL THIS MONTH IN NEW JERSEY
SPOILERS - According to a post from this past Monday (September 30th) by Very Aware's Michael Haffner, a test screening of Kimberly Peirce's remake of Carrie happened a "few days" prior. Haffner writes that he spoke with someone ("a big horror fan") who attended the screening and liked it well enough to say that he plans on seeing it again when it opens in theaters later this month. Haffner's source says that Julianne Moore "gives an award worthy performance," and that Chloe Grace Moretz "isn't bad but they really gathered a realistic group of high school kids that she’s surrounded by."

Haffner's source tells him that four different endings were shown to the test audience, with a fifth ending mentioned, but held back from the screening. One of those endings, according to the source, "is an exact replica" of De Palma's ending. It also sounds like Peirce uses De Palma's crucifixion idea in her film (the source says he likes the new crucifixion scene better). "Four different endings were shown to us," the source tells Haffner. "They said that there is a fifth but they held back from showing it so that they could have a surprise ending if test audiences really didn’t like the others that were shown to us.” Here is Haffner's summary of what the source said about the endings:
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The first ending is very similar to the ending of the 1976 film but without the final twist: Sue Snell actually gets killed when Carrie pulls her into the ground. The second ending is an exact replica of the original film where Snell gets pulled into the ground by Carrie but wakes up in her bed to find it’s just a dream. The third ending is described as a “morning after voiceover” by Snell as we see the town coping with what happened. Finally, the fourth ending shows the town the morning after Carrie’s attack filled with news crews, reporters, and cops talking about the whole thing. What’s bizarre about this scene is that Carrie’s destruction of the city is being described as “a conspiracy.” Apparently the town is “trying to cover up what really happened.” Apparently the audience preferred the first two and “weren’t really into the other two at all.”
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The test audience was also shown multiple versions of the prom scene, as well as some others, according to Haffner's source. Haffner expresses much surprise that they were testing the film with so many different verions so close to the release date. (We'll have to wait and see the final film to determine whether these claims are true or not.)

'CARRIE: THE MUSICAL' IN NEW JERSEY
And we have two more productions of Carrie: The Musical to mention, and both are in New Jersey. NENAProductions Theater Project will stage the revised version of the musical for two weekends, from October 25th through November 3rd, at the Jersey Shore Arts Center.

Meanwhile, Mercer County Community College’s Kelsey Theatre will host Pierrot Production's eight performances of the revised version, including two midnight shows, from October 18-27. Two actors, Lindsey Krier and Jenna Scannelli, will alternate in the lead role. "The demands in this highly emotional role are extreme, not just the amount of singing, but the fact that the majority of the singing is high belt,” explains the show's director, Kat Ross-Kline, to MCCC News. “We want to give each girl a chance to perform at her best. They work well together and the cast has been so respectful and supportive of both of them. It has been a neat process to watch as they discover their own version of the character. This is my first attempt as a director to cast in this way.”

(Thanks to James!)


Posted by Geoff at 1:54 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, October 6, 2013 1:55 AM CDT
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Friday, October 4, 2013
GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S 'SIMPSONS' INTRO
INCLUDES SHOUT-OUT TO 'PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE' AT HALFWAY MARK

Guillermo del Toro directs the intro to this year's "Treehouse Of Horror" episode of The Simpsons, and includes a prominent shout-out to Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise, which del Toro has not been shy about discussing as one of his favorite films. About halfway through the intro, the Phantom of the Paradise, voice-box and all, is at his organ, making music with a choir made up of several other phantoms, but when Lisa begins playing her saxophone, the Winslow-esque character orders her to get out. Behind our Phantom is his Swanage recording studio, lovingly detailed, straight out of De Palma's film. The episode airs on FOX-TV this Sunday (October 6th). UPDATE: UPROXX's Warming Glow has a video showing every single reference in the intro.
(Thanks to Drew!)

Posted by Geoff at 12:28 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, October 5, 2013 7:05 PM CDT
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Thursday, October 3, 2013
'TIS THE SEASON FOR 'CARRIE'
RAY OF LIGHT THEATRE STAGING MUSICAL IN SAN FRANCISCO
Looks like October is the month for Carrie, as yet another theatre company is staging the revised musical. At left is high school junior Cristina Ann Oeschger, who has the title role in Ray Of Light Theatre's production of Carrie: The Musical, running October 3rd through November 2nd at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco. In discussing the notoriety of the original version of the musical, Ray Of Light director Jason Hoover tells the Bay Area Reporter's Richard Dodds, "I'm sure someone could do a hilarious sendup, but it's something we're trying to distance ourselves from. It's not played for comedy, and it's not really a horror thing, either. It's more of a suspense thriller with a really beautiful score."

Hoover explains to Dodds that Ray Of Light has been wanting to stage Carrie for a while. "We've had our eye on the show for a long time, and we e-mailed [licensing company] Rodgers and Hammerstein to let us know the moment it became available. It really fits the aesthetic of the kind of darker, edgier musicals in a rock vein that Ray of Light produces." Hoover later adds, "This is a real, relatable tale in its themes of bullying and not fitting in and just everything that goes on with the fraught high school experience. Everyone already knows the climactic scene of the movie, but we're still hoping to get people to sit on the edges of their seats."

Posted by Geoff at 11:45 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, October 3, 2013 11:46 PM CDT
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ARROW'S 'FURY' INCLUDES NEW FARRIS INTERVIEW
FINAL SPECS FOR BLU-RAY, RELEASES OCT. 28; 'SISTERS' & 'PHANTOM' IN 2014
Arrow Video put out a press release today announcing the release date (Ocftober 28) and final specs for its mouth-watering Blu-Ray edition of Brian De Palma's The Fury. There has only been one real addition since the initial specs were announced in July, but it's a pretty great one: the booklet will include "a brand new interview with screenwriter John Farris on the writing of the film, his and De Palma’s unrealised adaptation of Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man and more, illustrated with original stills and posters."

The press release states that "this new version of The Fury has been painstakingly restored from the original camera negative, a process overseen by master technician James White (who also restored the massively acclaimed Arrow Video release of Zombie Flesh Eaters in 2012). Marking the film’s UK Blu-ray premiere in style, Arrow’s team of restorers have breathed new life into this telekinetic masterpiece – it’s crystal clear, incredibly vibrant and has been newly graded, all the while keeping true to Richard H. Kline’s brilliant original cinematography. 2013 year marks THE FURY’s 35th birthday... it’s never looked better."

Restoration Supervisor White is quoted, "It's been a great honour to restore The Fury, a truly fantastic film by one of my favourite directors. Its combination of sci-fi, horror and post-Watergate paranoia thriller make it one of the key titles in Brian De Palma's filmography, although some fans may be less familiar with the film due to its poor treatment on home video until now. Thankfully, this new restoration, struck directly from the original camera negative and carefully restored to preserve the full colour palette and subtleties of Richard Kline's masterly cinematography, should reaffirm the film's reputation as one of De Palma's greatest works, as well as a key film in American 1970s cinema. Finally audiences can see The Fury as it was meant to be seen."

The press release also provides new details about one of the Sam Irvin extras included in the set. Irvin was an intern on The Fury, and an assistant to De Palma on Dressed To Kill. In 1985, he made a short film called Double Negative that featured William Finley, which is included as an extra on The Fury Blu-ray. The IMDB's plot description of Double Negative: "Horror film director must plot to steal the negative of his film in order to save it from being destroyed in an insurance scam cooked up by his sleazy producers."

The press release also mentions that Arrow will release restored Blu-ray editions of De Palma's Sisters and Phantom Of The Paradise in 2014.


Posted by Geoff at 6:34 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, October 3, 2013 10:52 PM CDT
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ZACHAREK ON 'GRAVITY' & 'MISSION TO MARS'
"CUARON IS EVEN MORE OF A ROMANTIC THAN DE PALMA, IF SUCH A THING IS POSSIBLE"
Writing from the Venice Film Festival last month, Stephanie Zacharek posted a review of Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity for the Phoenix New Times, calling Cuaron "one of our greatest living directors." Zacharek states, "I'm thoroughly sick of 3D movies and I would have been happy to never have to look at one again. But I wasn't prepared for the way Cuarón uses it to explore both wonder and despair, in Gravity. Forget stretched-out blue people, Peter Max-colored flora and fauna, and explosions comin' at you: This is what 3D was made for."

Zacharek compares Gravity to Brian De Palma's Mission To Mars, as well as to Philip Kaufman's adaptation of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, the latter of which she calls "superb." Here are the last three paragraphs from her review:
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Gravity is both lyrical and terrifying, and sometimes Cuarón even merges the two, sending us into free fall along with his characters. No space movie arises from a vacuum, and the obvious comparative pulse points for this one include The Right Stuff and Brian De Palma's sorely underloved Mission to Mars. The Right Stuff isn't so much about space as about the space program, but Cuarón — who co-wrote the script with Jonés Cuarón, his son — captures the mingling of duty and curiosity that motivates any human being who actually makes it into space. And Cuarén, just as De Palma was, is alive to the empty-full spectacle of space and to the workaday poetry of the words astronauts use to describe it. At the time Mission to Mars was released, detractors made fun of the allegedly stiff dialogue. But have you ever heard astronauts — who are usually men of science, not Iowa Workshop grads — speak when they get that first long-distance view of planet Earth as a glowing orb? They grab for the simplest words, which are often the best...

Cuarón is even more of a romantic than De Palma, if such a thing is possible. He finds all kinds of ways to link survival in space with life on Earth. There, as here, anyone might have reason to feel loneliness, despair, fear, or exaltation, and homesickness — for a place, a person, a planet — is universal. Incidentally, the first person who tries to tell me Gravity is "unrealistic" or "implausible" is going to get a mock-Vulcan salute and a kick in the pants.

Given the amount of balderdash we have to swallow just to get through a typical summer movie season, taking a small leap of faith and imagination with Cuarón should hardly be a problem. Gravity is harrowing and comforting, intimate and glorious, the kind of movie that makes you feel more connected to the world rather than less. In space, no one can hear you scream. But a whole audience can hear you breathe. And that is a wondrous thing.

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The New Zealand Herald's Dominic Corry also brings up Mission To Mars in his review of Gravity:
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[Cuarón's] Children of Men famously features a bravura action sequence during which the camera maintains a single shot for almost four minutes without cutting. It's one of the coolest action scenes in cinema history, and when word emerged that Cuarón would be employing similar techniques in Gravity, film fans the world over rubbed their hands together in delight. Gravity isn't all long tracking-shots, but they make up the majority of the film, and enhance the tension to no end.

One of cinema's biggest proponents of the extremely long tracking shot is Brian De Palma, who I wrote about last week. Long tracking shots are a cool idea, but can be very difficult to pull-off without calling attention to the filmmaking. Hitchcock was a fan too; as was Robert Altman; but De Palma's voyeuristic style always best suited the technique in my mind - until Children of Men came along, that is.

Brian De Palma was also behind a widely-derided (but secretly awesome) film which now stands as a noteworthy antecedent to Gravity - 2000's Mission To Mars.

There's a full-on sequence near the beginning of the film which involves a space walk and a desperate attempt to grab on to a satellite. When details about Gravity started emerging, I hoped that it would be a movie-length version of this scene. And it is. In the best possible way.

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Posted by Geoff at 1:19 AM CDT
Updated: Thursday, October 3, 2013 1:20 AM CDT
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