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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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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

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The Master Of Suspense

Alfred Hitchcock Films

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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
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Motion Pictures Comics

Diary of a
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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.
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Ambrose Chapel
Are Snakes Necessary?
BAMcinématek
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Carlito's Way
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Columbo - Shooting Script
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Cop-Out
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Dionysus In '69
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Fire
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Fury, The
Genius of Love
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Get To Know Your Rabbit
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Iraq, etc.
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Laurent Bouzereau
Lights Out
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Mod
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Wednesday, March 30, 2016
'CARRIE' MIDNIGHTS APRIL 1 & 2 AT IFC, NEW YORK
40th ANNIVERSARY SCREENINGS KICK OFF MONTHS-LONG MIDNIGHT STEPHEN KING SERIES
Brian De Palma's Carrie will have midnight screenings this Friday and Saturday, April 1 and 2, at the IFC Center in New York City. The screenings, which will be from DCP, kick off a thirteen-film midnight series, "Stephen King on Film." The IFC description of the series reads, in part, "Presented in honor of the 40th anniversary of Carrie (1976, Brian De Palma), the horror classic adapted from King’s first novel and the first of what would be countless films and TV productions derived from King’s work, the series showcases more than three decades of terrifying cinema inspired by the writer—an extensive, but by no means exhaustive selection."

Posted by Geoff at 9:13 PM CDT
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Sunday, March 27, 2016
'CARRIE' TUESDAY IN SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA
SHORT FILM 'THE BIRTHDAY', INSPIRED BY 'CARRIE', WILL PLAY BEFOREHAND
This Tuesday night (March 29) at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, California, Frida volunteer Trevor Dillon will present his short film The Birthday at 8pm, and then right after, Dillon will present a screening of one of the films that inspired his "70s horror-themed" short: Brian De Palma's Carrie. The night of horror is also the launch of Dillon's indie horror company, Ghost Party Productions.

Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, March 28, 2016 12:08 AM CDT
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Saturday, March 26, 2016
'WAR DOGS' POSTER PARODIES 'SCARFACE'
TAGLINE: "AN AMERICAN DREAM"; RELEASES AUGUST 19 2016

Posted by Geoff at 2:34 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, March 26, 2016 2:36 AM CDT
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Friday, March 25, 2016
GUILLERMO DEL TORO TWEETS 'PHANTOM' ART



Posted by Geoff at 2:37 AM CDT
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Tuesday, March 22, 2016
'DE PALMA' AT HOT DOCS IN TORONTO MAY 2, 3, 6
SHANE SMITH: "LIVELY & UNEXPECTEDLY MOVING DOCUMENTARY"
The full schedule for Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto was posted today. Jake Paltrow and Noah Baumbach's De Palma is set to play Monday, May 2 (6:15pm), Tuesday, May 3 (10am), and Friday, May 6 (9:30pm).

On the film's event page, Shane Smith writes of the film: "One of the most talented, influential and iconoclastic filmmakers of all time, Brian De Palma started his career in the 1960s. It has included such acclaimed and diverse films as Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito's Way and Mission: Impossible. In this lively and unexpectedly moving documentary, directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow engage in a personal and candid discussion with De Palma, exploring not only his life and work but also his singular approach to the craft of filmmaking. Touching on his remarkable experiences navigating the film business, from his early days as the bad boy of New Hollywood to his more recent years as a respected veteran of the field, what emerges is a funny and incisive portrait of a truly one-of-a-kind artist. It's an exhilarating look at the last 50 years of film through the eyes of someone who's truly seen it all."

Posted by Geoff at 8:26 PM CDT
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Sunday, March 20, 2016
DE PALMA TO GIVE MASTERCLASS AT THRILLER FEST
BEAUNE THRILLER FEST WILL ALSO PAY TRIBUTE TO DE PALMA, SCREENING 6 OF HIS FILMS


The Beaune International Thriller Film Festival, celebrating its 8th annual edition this year, will pay tribute to Brian De Palma on April 1st. De Palma will present a Cinema Masterclass at the fest on April 2nd. As part of the tribute, the festival, which takes place in Beaune, France, from March 30 to April 3, will screen six of De Palma's films: Dressed To Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito's Way, and his latest, Passion. (The festival organizers may have missed a serendipitous opportunity, as Sandrine Bonnaire, who has a cameo as herself in De Palma's Femme Fatale, is their jury president this year.)

The festival's selected filmography for De Palma lists The Key Man along with Lights Out as a film currently in development. While De Palma had been announced as director for The Key Man back in 2011, it was reported the following year that De Palma was no longer attached, and that Oskar Thor Axelsson was then negotiating to direct. Here in 2016, nothing seems to be going on with that project with either director, and one wonders if its inclusion in the Beaune fest's filmography for De Palma is simply a mistake.


Posted by Geoff at 7:42 PM CDT
Updated: Sunday, March 20, 2016 7:45 PM CDT
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Thursday, March 17, 2016
'SCARFACE' REMAKE IS LARRAIN'S DREAM PROJECT
ALAS, PROJECT IS CURRENTLY STUCK IN DEVELOPMENT
The Guardian's Danny Leigh posted a profile on Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín. Two years ago, it was first reported that Larraín was in negotiations to direct a new remake of Scarface, and then a year later (otherwise known as a year ago), it was announced that Straight Outta Compton screenwriter Jonathan Herman had been hired to write the Scarface remake. Now Leigh reports that this would be Larraín's dream project, but that it is currently stuck in development. Here's an excerpt from The Guardian article:
Larraín’s films aren’t just politically alive, they’re bracing as cinema. No was shot on U-matic tape to imitate lo-fi 80s Chilean TV news; The Club unfolds in ashen half-light, as if the moral rot had got into the sun. He shrugs at the idea that, as a director, moving into the English language is inevitable. “I just want to be able to control the story, and for it to mean something to me.” But he is making his first American film: Jackie, a portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy in the days after John F Kennedy’s assassination. Before that will be another Chilean movie, Neruda, about the 1940s hounding of the communist poet Pablo Neruda. “The scale is big. The money. Here, you might not think it was big, but it’s big for us in Chile.”

The money may get bigger still. Larraín’s dream project, marooned in development, is a remake of Brian De Palma’s Scarface. It would be set in Los Angeles, with a Mexican kingpin replacing the Cuban Tony Montana: quite something in Trumpian times. Larraín is coy. “I could never talk about a movie I haven’t made yet.” It would be a hell of a risk, remaking a film whose every line is someone’s favourite ever. There’s a laugh and an eye roll. “Tell me about it!”


Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, March 18, 2016 12:11 AM CDT
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Wednesday, March 16, 2016
AV CLUB LOOKS AT DE PALMA'S 'OBSESSION'
"DE PALMA FINALLY WENT FULL HITCHCOCK WITH THIS 'VERTIGO' RIFF"
In honor of the new movie Midnight Special, which apparently pays heartfelt homage to the films of Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter, A.V. Club's "Watch This" column is "recommending excellent homages to other films and filmmakers" this week. In today's post, Noel Murray looks at Obsession, Brian De Palma and Paul Schrader's direct homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

"Obsession is both crazy and quasi-relevant," states Murray, "as well as being the most boldly Hitchcock-derived movie in De Palma’s filmography. (Body Double is a close second, with Dressed To Kill lurking just behind.) Screenwriter Paul Schrader patterned the story directly after Vertigo, a movie that circa 1976 was out of circulation, and had a mixed critical reputation. But Schrader and De Palma weren’t trying to fool anybody. They just both loved Vertigo, and rather than writing an essay for some film journal, they made a movie together that expressed what fascinated them about it."

And in his closing paragraph, Murray writes, "Obsession doesn’t exactly plumb any depths that Vertigo didn’t hit first, nor do its insights into one dangerously driven man differ much from what Hitchcock and screenwriters Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor had already done. But the movie’s extended, dialogue-free set pieces are mini-masterpieces of cinematic choreography. And the heightened luridness of Obsession does succeed in making Vertigo’s twisty plot seem all the more inessential to that film’s power. What both movies do is cut a tale of murder and madness down to its essence, exploring characters who’ve been damaged by social expectations and their own desires. The difference is that in Vertigo, James Stewart’s Scottie Ferguson is, deep down, probably a decent guy—while [Cliff] Robertson’s Michael is an empty suit, defined only by his wants. That’s the De Palma touch."


Posted by Geoff at 11:57 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, March 17, 2016 12:03 AM CDT
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Tuesday, March 15, 2016
'DE PALMA' ADDED TO HOT DOCS FILM FEST
AND ARNAUD DESPLECHIN GUSHES ABOUT THE MINIMALIST WAY IT'S SHOT & CONSTRUCTED


Hot Docs, the Canadian international documentary festival, today revealed that Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow's De Palma will screen at this year's fest, as part of its Special Presentations sidebar. The festival runs in Toronto from April 28 through May 8, and the final slate/schedule of films will be announced on March 22nd. "From Carrie to Mission: Impossible to Scarface and beyond," reads the Hot Docs description, "Brian De Palma has created some of cinema’s most iconic work. In this career-spanning, funny and candid conversation, he reveals his unique perspective on life, work and the past 50 years in film." This announcement comes less than a week after it was announced that De Palma will screen at the 18th annual RiverRun International Film Festival on Wednesday, April 13, at 7:30pm.

Meanwhile, Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days opens this Friday. You may recall that De Palma, Baumbach, Paltrow, and Wes Anderson all attended that film's premiere last fall at the New York Film Festival (NYFF director Kent Jones also appears in the group photo above with Desplechin). Sounds like Desplechin got a chance to catch De Palma, as well-- Here's the beginning part of Metro's Matt Prigge article, posted today:

Arnaud Desplechin loves talking film so much he doesn’t only talk about his own films. The French director (of "Kings and Queen" and "A Christmas Tale") is in New York to promote “My Golden Days,” a prequel-of-sorts to his 1996 film “My Sex Life…or How I Got into an Argument,” visiting two of its characters, Paul and Esther (Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos, though only Amalric appears), when they were young and first in love (and now played by Quentin Dolmaire and Lou Roy-Lecollinet).

But he just saw “De Palma,” Noah Baumbach and Jake [Paltrow]’s doc about filmmaker Brian De Palma, and he gushes about the minimalist way it’s been shot and constructed. Soon we’re talking about Woody Allen, and it’s a miracle we quickly steered things back to his own (excellent) new film.

De Palma is someone who’s sometimes written off as trashy, but he has a strong critical fanbase. Are there other filmmakers you think are underrated?
Woody Allen. For years, decades he was underestimated. Film buffs are often half-and-half with him. But what he achieved with 12 films in 12 years between the ’80s and ’90s was just amazing — films like “Another Woman,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Zelig.” Some American critics are reluctant to like him — they think he’s too New York, too Caucasian, too whatever. Now we can see people really taking him seriously. Ten years ago I felt lonely when I was discussing Woody Allen with American critics.

Even some of his films from the last 20 years are very interesting.
I love “Deconstructing Harry.” “Magic in the Moonlight” is a good film. “Blue Jasmine” — I know American critics loved it because of the performances, which are stunning. But I saw it again on TV a few weeks and [shrugs]. “Magic in the Moonlight” was better.

Even Woody Allen is hard on Woody Allen. He openly disparages his own work.
There is a trend that I love in cinema, where people who are passionate about it say the same thing, which is silly, which is: It was so much better before. The cinema was silent, and soon as sound and dialogue came in, people said cinema was dead. Then came [Ingmar] Bergman, and Bergman said, “What I do is nothing compared to [Victor] Sjostrom or [Carl Theodor] Dreyer.” Then you come to Woody Allen and he says, “What I’m doing is nothing compared to Bergman.” It’s always about complaining that things are the same — but actually, cinema is always different. I love that people always complain that cinema is always done, and then it finds a way to reinvent itself with each generation.


Posted by Geoff at 7:39 PM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 7:42 PM CDT
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Monday, March 14, 2016
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER ASKS:
"WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TONY MONTANA'S 'LITTLE FRIEND'?"


Last week, The Hollywood Reporter's Pete Keeley posted an informative article with the headline, "'Scarface': Whatever Happened to Tony Montana's 'Little Friend'?" Here's an excerpt:
The M203 grenade launcher was introduced in 1969 and used extensively by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. But Tony's had to be fabricated by the studio props department because Scarface prop master John Zemansky couldn't find a manufacturer willing to sell him an actual, live-firing M203. The launcher is not technically illegal to possess (or at least it wasn't in California in the early '80s), but it is classified as a "destructive device" under the National Firearms Act and requires a special license to own.

"I basically manufactured one that looks exactly like the real one except that I put a different trigger system in so it would fire a blank cartridge," says Zemansky, who had five duplicate launchers made for the production. "We put a sleeve in [the barrel] to accept what kind of cartridge we wanted." Because the fabricated weapons weren't capable of firing actual 40mm grenades (Zemansky recalls that it was outfitted to fire shotgun shells), they weren't subject to the same onerous regulations as a real M203.

Still, after Scarface wrapped, the fake M203s were sold off to Stembridge Gun Rentals, an armory that supplies weapons to Hollywood productions. "I didn't want it because I didn't want to have a problem with the ATF or anybody! It was easier just to get it out of my possession," says Zemansky.

Stembridge rented out Tony's "Little Friend" to other films and TV shows over the years. Most notably, it appeared in Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge (1986) and John McTiernan's 1987 action classic Predator, where Arnold Schwarzenegger himself toted it in several scenes. It even appears on the one-sheet.

Stembridge Gun Rentals' Syd Stembridge says he no longer has any of the Scarface M203s in his collection, but one of the launchers sold at auction in November (attached to a replica AR-15) for $54,400. A big number for a little friend.


Posted by Geoff at 9:06 PM CDT
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