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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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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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Thursday, February 20, 2014
CINE-FILE ON 'BODY DOUBLE'
"RELAX" SEQUENCE IS "DE PALMA'S 'BROADWAY CITY BALLET,' IF YOU WILL"


Body Double was screened at Chicago's Doc Films Brian De Palma Retrospective last night. In preparation, last Friday's Cine-File posted a recommendation of interest by Jamie Stroble. "No points for catching the Hitchcock nods," Stroble figures. "De Palma's allusions to (or outright theft of) works like Rear Window and Vertigo are so overt as to signal jumping off points rather than ends in themselves. In a surreal segue toward the end of the film, a lip-synching Holly Johnson of the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood leads Scully, suddenly decked out in thick-rimmed glasses and argyle, onto a porno set to the tune of 'Relax.' The sequence functions as a movie-within-a-movie; it's De Palma's 'Broadway Melody Ballet,' if you will, except Gene Kelly didn't find Cyd Charisse behind a door labeled 'SLUTS.' The 'Relax' scene marks a tonal crossroads in Body Double. Soon after, the proceedings begin to accelerate at an almost nightmarish rate and the tightly plotted thriller De Palma fashioned in the film's first half starts to unravel as the limits of internal plausibility are pushed to the extreme. If you're on De Palma's wavelength though it's a worthy tradeoff, as tension gives way to near mania. When the film was released, Roger Ebert characterized Body Double as having De Palma's 'most airtight plot' yet--an assertion it's hard to imagine Ebert leveling without cracking a slight smile. The virtue and, dare I say, greatness of Body Double come not from bulletproof narrative or even rudimentary character development, but instead from a messier place. De Palma synthesizes a multitude of disparate references into a scathing critique of nice-guy chauvinism, critical Puritanism, and countless other -isms, all under the guise mindless genre fare."

Posted by Geoff at 9:54 PM CST
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Wednesday, February 19, 2014
ARROW'S 'SISTERS' BLU-RAY APRIL 14
MORE DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED CLOSER TO RELEASE DATE


According to Twitch, Arrow Video announced its "Q2 line-up" today, and it includes a release date for its Blu-ray edition of Brian De Palma's Sisters, which will be released April 14th. Along with a high-definition digital transfer of the film, the edition will have "newly created exclusive content- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys- Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film, archive content and more!- More to be announced closer to the release date." Arrow's Blu-ray of Phantom Of The Paradise is officially released Monday (February 24th).

Posted by Geoff at 5:10 PM CST
Updated: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 5:13 PM CST
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Monday, February 17, 2014
R.I.P. RAY KENNEDY
RECORDED THE SINGING VOICE OF BEEF IN 'PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE'


Ray Kennedy, who memorably sang "Life At Last", the song that Beef performs in Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise, died yesterday. He was 67. Gerrit Graham lip-synced to Kennedy's recorded vocal in the film. Kennedy, who had also released a solo single and a couple of solo albums between 1965 and 1980 (see video below), co-wrote two of my favorite songs by The Babys, "Isn't It Time" and "Everytime I Think Of You." He also wrote "Sail On, Sailor" with the Beach Boys, who recorded it in 1973. The latter song was used on the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's The Departed. An earlier, unreleased album Kennedy recorded with Jon Misland in 1962 was co-produced by Phil Spector. According to the Swan Archives, "Kennedy was very happy with how Phantom had turned out," and "had only a few days ago agreed to visit Winnipeg for a screening of the film this coming October." A memorial website for Kennedy can be found here.


Posted by Geoff at 8:07 PM CST
Updated: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 12:02 AM CST
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Friday, February 14, 2014


Posted by Geoff at 7:37 PM CST
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Thursday, February 13, 2014
'CARRIE' IN PORTLAND MARCH 1ST
Q&A, AUTOGRAPHS WITH NANCY ALLEN, PIPER LAURIE, P.J. SOLES

Posted by Geoff at 1:14 AM CST
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Wednesday, February 12, 2014
'NURSE 3D' INVITES DE PALMA COMPARISONS
GONZALEZ: 'PASSION' IS "A FIZZY SYMPHONY OF TERROR THAT COMMENTS ON PERSONALITY AS MEDIATED BY IMAGE RECORDING"


Doug Aarniokoski's Nurse 3D opened in theaters and on VOD last Friday, and several reviews have mentioned Brian De Palma. Here are some links:

Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com
"If you ever wondered what the result might be if the screenplay for a Brian De Palma thriller somehow landed in the hands of the late, great Russ Meyer, Nurse 3D is the film for you. Director Douglas Aarniokoski and co-writer David Loughery have concocted a film that plays like an explosion in a warehouse of grindhouse film prints. Within the course of a mere 86 minutes, they jam in gallons of blood, ridiculously ripe performances, tons of beyond-purple dialogue (with the tone set early on when Abby narrates Danni's first encounter with a gory fatality with the instant classic 'She lost her virginity and the blood flowed') and so many scenes involving showers, locker rooms and fetishy outfits that it sometimes feels as if All Saints may be the first hospital to require a two-drink minimum along with proof of insurance."

Devin Faraci, Badass Digest
"If Brian De Palma had directed Nurse 3D it probably could have been something amazing. In the hands of Doug Aarniokoski it’s more of a campy delight. The film straddles the line between serious and silly in all the right ways, never being tongue-in-cheek but also not taking itself too seriously. The film was inspired by the photography of Lionsgate’s chief marketing officer Tim Palen, and every now and again there’s a composition so striking and so well-done that I wonder if Palen lent his eye on the day. A scene where Abbie watches Danni in the hospital shower is perfectly shot, as is one where two characters run down a spiral staircase. Many of the scenes between these gorgeous set pieces are flat (and like, really flat, a problem with a 3D movie), lit with garish reds and blues like Creepshow.

"But the movie is a blast. It’s absolutely over the top, and while it has real slow spots (like every single legit exploitation movie) by the end it is so crazy - Abbie goes on a pointless killing spree in the ICU during a chase - that you’ll be clapping and hollering, just like a grindhouse crowd in 1974. This is definitely a film to watch with a crowd (or at least some friends; the 3D is so useless that seeing it at home will make no difference. Also, it’s only playing in a handful of theaters), and it’s definitely a movie that could have a future as a midnight staple."

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
"While the film might have been a guilty pleasure had it been made by the likes of Brian DePalma or Larry Cohen -- not to mention Abel Ferrara, whose similarly themed Ms. 45 is a classic of the genre -- director Doug Aarniokoski and co-screenwriter David Loughery fail to infuse the overly familiar elements with the necessary dark humor."

Ed Gonzalez, Slant
"No sense of moral complication arises from the elaborate and conspicuously far-from-evidence-free bloodbaths that Abby sets into motion against her pussy-blockers. Rather than capture truly pained souls tangled in exuberant horror tropes, the filmmakers settle for retrograde anguish and warmed-over artistry. This isn't idea-rich trash like Passion, a fizzy symphony of terror that commented on personality as mediated by image recording. Capturing evidence of Danni's accidentally cheating ways doesn't complicate Abby, only reveals her to be cut from the same crazy quilt as your garden-variety movie psychopath. Of course, that Nurse 3D suggests a worst-case-scenario gene splice of Orphan and Side Effects, which is to say it's exactly the film that Brian De Palma's naysayers think they see whenever they patronize one of the auteur's works, it at least succeeds in proving the adage that one man's trash is another's treasure."

Jason Shawhan, Nashville Scene
"Director/cowriter Douglas Aarniokoski has a gift for stylish sleaze. There’s one sequence involving a pas de deux on a spiral staircase that has all the elegance of Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill museum pursuit — and in 3D, it’s magnificent. There are also moments that flail about and thud against the walls of cheap studios. You never really know what exactly is going to happen visually, which certainly makes Nurse a different kind of suspense film."

Ryan Turek, Shock Till You Drop
"De La Huerta’s Abby Russell is a nurse by day and a man-eater by night until she meets Katrina Bowden’s Danni, who she develops an unhealthy relationship with – one that involves bad decisions, a three-way, photographs and blackmail. When Danni ultimately rejects Abby’s advances, the story takes a De Palma-esque turn and Abby begins to set Danni up for a string of murders."


Posted by Geoff at 12:41 AM CST
Updated: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 5:19 PM CST
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Tuesday, February 11, 2014
SPEAKING OF NICOLAS CAGE...
NBC'S 'COMMUNITY' CLASS SIGNS UP FOR "NICOLAS CAGE: GOOD OR BAD?"
Last month, NBC's Community returned to the network for its fifth season, and with creator Dan Harmon thankfully back in control of the series. In episode 2, titled "Intro To Teaching", several of the main characters sign up for a class called "Nicolas Cage: Good or Bad?" The instructor, ensuring the class on day one that "there is no answer," gives them the task of watching five Nicolas Cage films, "no marathons-- space out your viewings." Abed, of course, goes on a marathon, and drives himself crazy trying to work out the answer that clearly does not exist. At one point, he has run wires in his apartment with the names of Cage's films clipped onto them in a seemingly endless flow of titles. Crazed, he tells his concerned friends, "If you watch closely at the seven-minute mark in Snake Eyes, you'll notice the moment where an alien arm could have come up and..."

[Annie interrupts] "Abed, it's not worth it! Maybe Nicolas Cage is just... crazy."

Abed responds, "All actors are crazy, Annie. Some crazy actors are good, some are bad, but none of them are neither. There's no such thing as both. Which one is Nicolas Cage, huh? Huh, oh--" [Abed ends in a Nicolas Cage-type spasm].

A year ago, after Harmon was ousted from the show (he missed all of season four), he had lamented at CommuniCon that he never got to do the Nicolas Cage episode he'd wanted to do.

Vulture quoted Harmon discussing the idea: "The thing about Nicolas Cage movies is … unless you’re a total cynical dick, you have to embrace the fact that Nicolas Cage is a pretty good actor. He's done a lot of weird, dumb movies, but that was supposed to be the point of the episode — that Nicolas Cage is a metaphor for God, or for society, or for the self, or something. It’s like — what is Nicolas Cage?"

Perhaps taking an obsessive cue from Abed, I captured the frame at the seven-minute mark of Snake Eyes... as well as every seven minutes after that. You can see the frames below:


Posted by Geoff at 11:02 PM CST
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Monday, February 10, 2014
NICOLAS CAGE ON 'PHANTOM', IN 2009:
"THAT'S THE FILM THAT MADE ME WANT TO MAKE MOVIES"
I hadn't seen this before, but stumbled upon it just now. It's an article by HitFix's Drew McWeeny from March 2009, in which McWeeny visits the set of Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass. We have previously noted Vaughn's love of some of De Palma's gangster movies, but here McWeeny notes the resemblance of the mask worn by Nicolas Cage in Kick-Ass to that of the Phantom in Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise. The mask complements a costume that was inspired by Batman's, and both mark a change from the comic book version of the Big Daddy costume, which was more a sort of ski mask and a trench coat.

In McWeeny's article, he writes about seeing Cage walk onto the set in costume. "My first thought when I see him is Phantom Of The Paradise," writes McWeeny. "The costume looks like someone's homemade attempt to duplicate the black-sculpted body armor look of the new Batman movies, but the mask, especially when you see it in profile, is absolutely a nod to Phantom. There's no missing that crazy pointed beak face thing. So just seeing Cage, I start to smile. It's not what Big Daddy looked like in the comics, and Cage isn't trying to look paunchy or fat the way the character was drawn. Instead, he looks like a guy who takes this all really, really seriously."

Watching Cage working on the set, McWeeny notes that his character seems to be talking, in costume, like Adam West, who played Batman in the '60s TV series. This leads to a very interesting couple of conversations between the two. Here's an excerpt from McWeeny's article:

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Now, keep in mind... before I arrived on set, I was sent an e-mail explaining that I had full access to the set, but I was going to have to keep away from Nic Cage while there because his working process demanded it. Okay. Fair enough. Knowing that, though, I was a little surprised to see Cage walking towards me, taking off the helmet, right after Matthew called cut. I thought he was going to yell at me for laughing during the take, no matter how quiet I was, and for a moment, I envisioned Cage actually having me thrown off the set while he was working.

Instead, he put out his hand and introduced himself. I did the same, and he asked what it was that made me laugh. I could feel Matthew watching me, curious to see what I'd say, so I explained that the choice to use Adam West's cadence was so crazy but so inspired that the laughter was involuntary.

"And I gotta say," I continued, "I love the 'Phantom of the Paradise' mask." He gave me a sharp look, then looked at the mask again and smiled.

"You think so, eh?" He held it sideways for me, so the profile was visible again. Unmistakable. "Do you know that film well?"

"I do," I said. "It's one of my faves. I love De Palma, but that's one of his that I have a special affection for."

"That's the film that made me want to make movies," Nic replied.

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After another take, Cage comes back to discuss with McWeeny the possible influence of Phantom on Darth Vader:
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As Vaughn called cut so they could move the camera for the next round of shots, Nic walked back over to where I was. I could see he had something on his mind, something I assume he'd been thinking about for a while.

"Okay. Let me ask you something. What year was 'Phantom of the Paradise' released?"

"Uhhh... 1974, I think?"

"And what year did 'Star Wars' come out?"

"1977. Definitely."

"Do you think the design of the Phantom had any influence on the design of Darth Vader?"

"Well, sure. All in black. Helmet. Breathing device on the chest. Cape. De Palma was a friend of George's back then. I can totally see that being an influence."

He smiled and, without saying anything else, headed back onto the set. I felt like I'd passed a test of some sort.

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Posted by Geoff at 3:12 AM CST
Updated: Monday, February 10, 2014 3:14 AM CST
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Saturday, February 8, 2014
BONG JOON-HO CITES DE PALMA AS INSPIRATION
DURING DOUBLE-INTERVIEW WITH TARANTINO AT BUSAN FEST LAST FALL
Posting the other day from the Berlin International Film Festival, Jeffrey Wells stated that "Journos with geek-leaning tastes are trying to get into the Berlinale screenings of Joon-ho Bong‘s Snowpiercer. I know it’s not going to do it for me so I couldn’t care less. I concluded after seeing Mother that Joon-ho Bong is basically a Brian De Palma pretender. He might not be as 'bad' as Park Chan-wook (Stoker) but he’ll do until the next Chan-wook film comes along."

This led Film Freak Central's Bill Chambers to tweet, "Wells calling Bong Joon-ho a Brian De Palma pretender might be the most ill-informed thing he's ever written in the last two days." (See the whole tweet with responses below.) As we noted in 2009, Wells caught a screening of Mother at that year's Cannes Film Festival, and, writing again at his Hollywood Elsewhere blog, called it "a richly stylized Brian De Palma-esque thriller about a mom who mightily endeavors to prove that her mentally handicapped son, accused of killing a young girl, is innocent. There's no doubting that Bong Joon Ho is a De Palma devotee in the same way that De Palma was a Hitchcock acolyte in the '70s and '80s. Mother was by far the most interesting sit because of his immaculate and exacting composition of each and every element. The result is consistently flourishy and at times operatic -- deliberately unnatural, conspicuously acted, very much a director's film. Ho is coming, however, from a fairly well-worn genre place, although I'll give him points for delivering a surprising third-act twist."

And it turns out that perhaps Wells is on to something with the De Palma comparison. At last fall's Busan International Film Festival, according to Twitch, Joon-ho mentioned that as a kid, he was inspired by American films that he later learned were made by the likes of De Palma and John Carpenter. The trick is that Joon-ho did not yet understand English, and so he developed his imagination by reconstructing the stories of the films in his head.

Joon-ho mentioned this during a double-interview with Quentin Tarantino, moderated by Scott Foundas. Tarantino headed out to the festival just to meet Joon-ho after he'd heard from a mutual friend that they were hanging out with Joon-ho at the fest. Twitch's Kwenton Bellette, who posted the selective transcription of the discussion, wrote that, reportedly, "insiders" were suggesting that Joon-ho had been "extremely unhappy" with edits to Snowpiercer, apparently mandated by the notoriously edit-happy Weinstein Company. Bellette speculated that, as "Weinstein stock", Tarantino had been sent there to calm Joon-ho down, but it seems more likely that Tarantino was simply there because he enjoyed Joon-ho's films.

Joon-Ho's citing of De Palma and Carpenter came after Tarantino answered Foundas' question about which filmmakers from Asia had been an inspiration. Here is What Joon-ho said: "I must say my hero in Korean film must be the director of the original Housemaid, Kim Ki-young. Other than this, when I was a kid we have a Korean American broadcast station. At midnight I would sneak out and watch these very sexual and very violent movies. Later I learned these were films by directors like John Carpenter and Brian De Palma, but at the time I could not understand any English so I reconstructed the stories of them in my head, which greatly helped my imagination."


Posted by Geoff at 4:25 PM CST
Updated: Saturday, February 8, 2014 4:29 PM CST
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Friday, February 7, 2014
NANCY ALLEN 'THROWBACK THURSDAY' PIC
WITH TRAVOLTA & LITHGOW, POST-'BLOW OUT' GET TOGETHER


Nancy Allen posted the above photo to her Facebook page yesterday, with the comment, "Throwback Thursday: Post Blow Out get together with John Travolta and John Lithgow."

Posted by Geoff at 1:06 AM CST
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