De Palma a la Mod

Sunday, July 28, 2013

TWO DIFFERENT LISTS OF DE PALMA'S BEST
ONE GOES MOSTLY PERSONAL, THE OTHER MOSTLY ADAPTATIONS

Earlier this month, Hey U Guys' Dave Roper posted his six favorite Brian De Palma films, and they were very interesting, idiosyncratic picks, as only one of them was a film that was both written and directed by De Palma, and even that pick was unusual (Raising Cain). Here are Roper's rankings:

1. Carrie
2. Mission: Impossible
3. The Untouchables
4. Casualties Of War
5. Carlito's Way
6. Raising Cain

Meanwhile, today The Chicago Reader's Drew Hunt posted his top five picks for best De Palma films (part of his "Weekly Top Five" series), and there are at least a couple that you might not expect. Here they are:

1. Blow Out
2. Sisters
3. Femme Fatale
4. Greetings
5. Snake Eyes

Both articles include great explanations of the critics' choices, so be sure to check those out, too. I have my own top five De Palma films:

1. Blow Out
2. Carrie
3. Phantom Of The Paradise
4. Femme Fatale
5. Dressed To Kill

Tell us your top five in the comments below.

Posted by Geoff at 11:23 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, July 29, 2013 5:50 PM CDT
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Thursday, July 4, 2013

Posted by Geoff at 11:39 AM CDT
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Monday, June 17, 2013

1998 DE PALMA SCENE-BY-SCENE BOUNCES AROUND
AND A SNIPPET OF A 2002 RADIO INTERVIEW FROM 'FEMME FATALE' JUNKET

I posted about the video above here at De Palma a la Mod years ago, but it has been bouncing around the internet the past few days, as it seems to have been rediscovered by several outlets, including The Playlist and The Film Stage. The video is an episode of Mark Cousins' BBC series Scene By Scene, in which he interviews Brian De Palma about his life and background before showing him some scenes from his films and discussing them with him.

Meanwhile, Hollywood Outbreak's Greg Srisavasdi, in posting about the upcoming release of De Palma's Passion, added a SoundCloud clip from a radio interview De Palma did at a press junket for Femme Fatale. In the clip, De Palma says: "Well, I'm very influenced by music, so I tend not to listen to it very much at all. Because it too emotionally kind of grabs me. And when I make movies I have to, you know, listen to a lot of orchestral music to figure out what... the composer should write. So I tend to keep away from listening to music. You know, I live in an apartment that has literally nothing much on the walls. I can't be... I'm best in some kind of motel room with nothing around me, because those kinds of things influence what's going on in my head. So I don't tend to expose myself to stimulus like that."

Posted by Geoff at 6:51 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, June 17, 2013 6:52 PM CDT
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Sunday, May 26, 2013

'PHANTOM' TOPS ARROW LIST OF DE PALMA FILMS
TOP 10 CHOSEN IN POLL CONDUCTED AHEAD OF NEW 'BLOW OUT' BLU-RAY

Phantom Of The Paradise has topped a list of top 10 Brian De Palma films at Arrow Video's "Video Deck" blog. The eleven voters included Kim Newman, whose book Nightmare Movies analyzes De Palma's work in its "Auteurs" section. Here's the full list (visit the Arrow blog to read their blurbs for each film)--

1. Phantom Of The Paradise
2. [Tie] Blow Out
[Tie] Sisters
4. Carrie
5. [Tie] The Untouchables
[Tie] Body Double
7. [Tie] Scarface
[Tie] Dressed To Kill
9. [Tie] Carlito's Way
[Tie] Obsession

Arrow's Blow Out Blu-Ray is out tomorrow, and DVD Beaver's Gary Tooze has provided a very helpful comparison between it and the Criterion edition that came out two years ago. He says the picture is a little brighter on the Arrow edition, which definitely holds its own against Criterion's. However, as each one has its own bevy of wonderful extras, it seems more than worth it to own both.

Meanwhile, Tomas Lucien has posted an audiovisual remix of Carlito's meeting with Lalin from Carlito's Way that gets pretty crazy towards the end.

Posted by Geoff at 1:34 PM CDT
Updated: Sunday, May 26, 2013 1:37 PM CDT
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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

MR. BEAKS SPEAKS DE PALMA
AS SPECIAL GUEST ON PODCAST "HELL IS FOR HYPHEN-ATES"

From the description at Hell Is For Hyphen-ates: "Film critic and commentator Jeremy Smith (Mr Beaks on Ain’t It Cool News) joins the Hyphenates to debate the films of April 2013, discuss the all-too-brief career of filmmaker Fabián Bielinsky, and explore the expansive and surprising filmography of director Brian De Palma."

Posted by Geoff at 7:00 PM CDT
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Saturday, April 13, 2013

'SINISTER' FILMMAKER PERPLEXED BY DE PALMA
AND 'BLACK DAHLIA' SCREENWRITER JOSH FRIEDMAN CHIMES IN, AS WELL

Posted by Geoff at 12:21 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:32 AM CDT
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Sunday, March 31, 2013

VIDEO: JEAN DOUCHET ON FOUR DE PALMA FILMS
'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE', 'BLOW OUT', 'DRESSED TO KILL', 'CASUALTIES OF WAR'
French film critic and historian Jean Douchet does an annual lecture series at Institut Lumiere, and this year focused on four films of Brian De Palma. Videos of the analyses, which took place March 15 and 16, were posted online this past week. (Thanks to Alexandre!)

Posted by Geoff at 2:09 PM CDT
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Sunday, February 17, 2013

LAGIER CELEBRATES 'PASSION' WITH NEW VIDEOS
SPECIAL DE PALMA EDITION OF "RECUT"
Luc Lagier celebrated the release of Brian De Palma's Passion this past week with a special edition of "Recut", a video series on his blog, Blow Up. Lagier posted four new videos focusing on various themes in De Palma's films. Here they are below...

"who killed the kennedys?"

"dreams are my reality"

"rain and tears"

"stairway to heaven"

Posted by Geoff at 9:04 PM CST
Updated: Sunday, February 17, 2013 9:47 PM CST
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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

DE PALMA: THE LAST 10 FILMS I'VE SEEN
IN CURRENT ISSUE OF 'FILM COMMENT'

Film Comment includes a regular sidebar in its opening pages every month called "The Last 10 Films I've Seen," in which a filmmaker provides a simple list of what they've recently viewed. The current issue (November-December 2012) features just such a list from Brian De Palma (as well as one from Christian Petzold). Here's De Palma's list:

1. Therese Raquin (Charlie Stratton, 2012)
2. You, the Living (Roy Andersson, 2007)
3. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)
4. Pieta (Kim Ki-duk, 2012)
5. Premium Rush (David Koepp, 2012)
6. A Woman Of Affairs (Clarence Brown, 1928)
7. Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)
8. Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)
9. Nightfall (Jacques Tourneur, 1957)
10. Men In War (Anthony Mann, 1957)

Posted by Geoff at 12:29 AM CST
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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

CAHIERS' DE PALMA REVIEWS TRANSLATED
ON 'PASSION': "ONE OF THE MOST INTENSE PLEASURES OF THE FESTIVAL"

A big thanks to David Davidson at Toronto Film Review, who yesterday posted summarized translations of Cahiers du cinéma's reviews of Brian De Palma films from the 2000s. A couple of weeks ago, Davidson posted a translation of a Cahiers roundtable discussion from 1981, which he described as "the catalyst to take De Palma seriously at the magazine, which would last to the present day."

Davidson notes in yesterday's post, "De Palma is usually brought up in relation to Cahiers du cinéma, where the main reference point being how Carlito’s Way was voted to be the number one film of the 90’s. But little is actually written about what their critics have actually written in their reviews of De Palma’s films and what they have to say about the auteur himself." To that end, Davidson provides edited translations (he leaves out the synopsis, mostly) of the Cahiers reviews of Mission to Mars, Femme Fatale, The Black Dahlia, Redacted, and a festival brief about Passion.

Also check out an edited version of Davidson's recent speech, "The Fakery of Brian De Palma: Truth Hinging Upon the Absurd," which was delivered at this month’s edition of the Toronto lecture series "What We Talk About."

Posted by Geoff at 1:11 AM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 1:11 AM CDT
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