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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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De Palma interviewed
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Scarface: Make Way
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italkyoubored

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De Palma a la Mod
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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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Wednesday, September 11, 2013
PFEIFFER RECALLS 1ST TIME SHE SAW 'SCARFACE'
TELLS FALLON SHE WAS DISTRACTED BY FACT THAT COUPLE HAD BROUGHT CHILD

Posted by Geoff at 10:58 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 10:59 PM CDT
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Friday, September 6, 2013
DE PALMA/PACINO AT THE NEW BEVERLY FRI/SAT
'SCARFACE' 30TH ANNIVERSARY / 'CARLITO'S WAY' 20TH ANNIVERSARY

Posted by Geoff at 11:48 PM CDT
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Saturday, August 3, 2013
DAVID YATES IN TALKS FOR 'SCARFACE' REDO
AFTER SEVERAL SCREENWRITERS, UNIVERSAL HIGH ON CURRENT DRAFT
Deadline's Nikki Finke took time out of her vacation this past Wednesday to post a story about Universal's Scarface "reboot." "There’s a ton of curiosity and criticism about Universal‘s Scarface reboot since both the 1932 Chicago bootlegging film and 1983 Miami cocaine-dealing versions were so iconic," Finke states. "Understanding that, the studio according to my sources has been refining the script with several screenwriters and drafts while keeping all names and details under wraps."

One of Finke's sources is quoted, “Universal has been through a couple of drafts and now is very high on the current draft. The first stop is the director. This is before any conversations on talent or timing.” Finke says she has learned that British director David Yates, who is high in-demand after directing the final four "Harry Potter" movies, is in final talks with the studio to direct the picture. "Though he normally works at Warner Bros," states Finke, "Yates has been the subject of considerable chatter over which film projects he’d do next."

Posted by Geoff at 8:48 PM CDT
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Tuesday, July 16, 2013
DE PALMA TO APPEAR ON STROMBO WEDNESDAY
STEVEN BAUER LAST NIGHT: "EVERY SINGLE DAY IS A SCARFACE DAY"


Brian De Palma is a scheduled guest for Wednesday's edition of CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight. The web site description states, "Director Brian De Palma is here to talk about his new movie Passion and his long career in the movie biz. From Carrie, his breakthrough feature which redefined 'prom night disaster' to the iconic Scarface, this is a director who keeps the audience's attention."

De Palma's appearance comes just two days after Steven Bauer appeared on the show (see video above). Bauer is making the rounds for his role on the new Showtime series Ray Donovan, but spent most of his interview talking about Scarface. Stroumboulopoulos asked Bauer, "Does the Manny from Scarface thing happen every day in your life?" To which Bauer replied, "Every single day is a Scarface day." In discussing his role on AMC's Breaking Bad, Bauer mentioned that, again, Scarface came through for him, because creator Vince Gilligan, a fan of De Palma's film, had the idea to basically take Manny and put him in the show.

Bauer was also interviewed by Parade's Joel Keller, and dicussed screenwriter Oliver Stone getting banned from the Scarface set: "There was so much disagreement on some points that Oliver Stone was banned from the movie. He was banned from the set. Brian [De Palma] didn’t want him around. For the most part, Al [Pacino] didn’t either, because Oliver would show up with a big fat script under his arm and he’d say ‘Have you shot this today?’ And he would always find me: ‘Steve. Steve. Come here. Have you shot this scene?’ And I’d say, ‘No. They cut it. We’re not doing it.’ And he’d go crazy and he’d run into Al’s dressing room and he’d be nuts. He would have a big battle with Brian De Palma and Brian was just like ‘You know what? You did your job. You let us make the movie.’"

Bauer also told Keller about the initial bad reviews: "Some of them were really horrible on Al, on his acting. They were like ‘Oh, he’s over the top. He’s become operatic. He should go back to acting school.’ It was really, really terrible, and it’s funny because he had prepared me for it. We were together all the time and I used to speculate. I used to drive him crazy and say, ‘What do you think? Can you imagine…’ because we’d finish a scene and it would be so out there, so crazy. He always kept me with him and I would make him laugh and stuff. We’d joke about stuff and I’d say ‘What do you think your fans are going to think of this Montana character?’ He used to say, ‘All I can do is do what I do every day and try not to think about their responses.’ He said ‘They’re either going to love it or they’re going to hate it. It’s not going to be middle ground.’ And that’s exactly what happened."


Posted by Geoff at 11:35 PM CDT
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Wednesday, July 10, 2013
OLIVER STONE PRESENTS 'SCARFACE' SCREENING
AT KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL LAST WEEK
Oliver Stone was at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival last week, where he received a Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Stone presented several of his films, including an "Ultimate Cut" of Alexander, and Scarface, for which he wrote the screenplay.

Stone posted the following about the fest on his Facebook page:
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Wonderful week long film festival. Was honored with the lifetime achievement award and was able to show "Alexander: The Ultimate Cut" in a large hall with wonderful projection. The film played out well for the first time. The Shanghai Film Festival projection was too dark almost by two full stops of exposure. Also able to show Chapter. 3 & 10 of "Untold History of the United States" to a very responsive young crowd.

They also screened "Scarface" (1983) at a packed screening of 1,500 people. The film doesn't feel dated. In fact, it seems slower, and was more able to concentrate on the acting of Al Pacino and wonderful supporting cast. Kudos to Miriam Colon and Robert Loggia. Also showing "Wall Street."

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In other Scarface happenings, a 36-minute video has been popping around the internet during the past few days. It seems to be the same video from the Scarface DVD special features. The video, broken down into three parts and posted to YouTube, was embedded in a post at The Playlist the other day, along with a terrific 1983 De Palma interview segment from The Movie Channel that was embedded here a couple of years ago.

Posted by Geoff at 12:26 AM CDT
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Monday, May 6, 2013
R.I.P. MARIO MACHADO
L.A. NEWS ANCHOR HAD ROLES IN SEVERAL FILMS, INCLUDING 'SCARFACE'


Mario Machado, seen at left in the above still from Scarface, died Saturday in California of complications from pneumonia, according to the Los Angeles Times. He was 78. Machado had roles as anchormen or TV interviewers in several other films, including, most memorably, in the RoboCop series of films. The L.A. Times obituary notes that Machado "had been ill for some time with Parkinson's disease."

Posted by Geoff at 6:50 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, May 6, 2013 6:51 PM CDT
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Sunday, March 24, 2013
R.I.P. JAROSLAV 'JERRY' GEBR
ARTIST HAD LONG HOLLYWOOD CAREER, WORKED ON 'SCARFACE'


Deadline reported this week that Jaroslav “Jerry” Gebr, a highly sought-after artist who worked in film and television for over 50 years, passed away last month at the age of 86, after a long illness. It was during his time at Universal Studios that Gebr, according to Thomas Gebr, worked on Brian De Palma's Scarface, presumably painting the portrait on display in the still above. Gebr may have done more than just portrait work on Scarface, as well, since he could mimic many styles, and also did murals, story boards, and various types of illustrations. He was still at Universal when De Palma and Al Pacino re-teamed for Carlito's Way at that studio.

Gebr is said to have been commissioned to paint replicas of beloved works of art for many in Hollywood. "They’d put the originals in safe storage and hang Jerry’s versions on the wall," his son-in-law Kevin McMahon told Deadline. "Nobody could ever tell the difference."

In 1966, Gebr painted a full-scale replica of Michelangelo´s Sistine Chapel for the film Shoes of the Fisherman. That same year, he created paintings for the pilot episode of his friend Rod Serling's Night Gallery (for which the Deadline obituary states that Gebr is perhaps best known). Gebr also did the memorable Norman Rockwell-ish titles and story chapter works for George Roy Hill's The Sting. According to Gebr.art, he painted a western scene on a semi-truck trailer in Smokey And The Bandit, and completed portrait work for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "and all works delivered within a film production window of one to two weeks." Gebr also worked on David Lynch's Dune, and Robert Wise's The Sound Of Music, among countless others.


Posted by Geoff at 12:14 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, March 24, 2013 12:16 AM CDT
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Tuesday, March 19, 2013


Posted by Geoff at 7:22 PM CDT
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Sunday, March 17, 2013
'SPRING BREAKERS' HAS 'SCARFACE' ON REPEAT
WILMINGTON: LIKE OLD-STYLE SOFT-CORE PORN BLENDED WITH TEEN-SLANTED 'SCARFACE' PASTICHE


In Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, which was shot by frequent Gaspar Noe cinematographer Benoit Debie, James Franco's plays a meth dealer who, while showing his new spring break girls around his crib, boasts about having everything he needs, including Brian De Palma's Scarface on repeat. Here are some of the reviews:

Michael Wilmington, Movie City News
"It may be the apotheosis or culmination of all the Korines: a picture that starts off, as many have noted, like an arty Girls Gone Wild video, inflated to Hieronymus Boschian or Pieter Brughelian Beach Party proportions, and ends up doing a riff on the Al Pacino-Brian De Palma 1983 Scarface, mashed up into Charlie‘s Angels gone homicidal...

"A lot of Spring Breakers is shot and shaped like old-style soft-core porn show– even to the old cheapo porn trick of repeating some scenes and lines over and over. It’s blended with what plays like a teen-slanted ‘83 Scarface pastiche. But, as long as Franco is on screen, it’s a good movie, and there’s also something crazily compelling about the scenes of that huge outdoor dance-a-thon. The ending is beyond ridiculous, and not funny enough to save things. And the four femme stars could have used better parts and better lines, but what the hell. The movie‘s credibility vanishes after the restaurant robbery scene anyway, which is shot flashily, in a Gun Crazy-style single take. But as the man says, who needs credibility? Just pretend…"

David Edelstein, Vulture
"Spring Breakers switches gears midway through with the arrest of these bacchanalians (bikinis behind bars!) and the arrival of James Franco as a flamboyant meth dealer with silver teeth and red-tinted cornrows. He watches them go before a judge and, enraptured, bails them out. 'Sprang break … Sprang break … ' he intones, attempting to lull us with his sexy outlaw incantations. In his lavish manse, he shows off his arsenal, invokes Scarface, and says, 'This is the fuckin’ American dream, y’all.' Every one of Franco’s lines could be the prelude to a rap song too moronic for airplay. 'Sprang break ... Sprang break … ' I wanted to spring-break his silver teeth, but at least he’s more committed here than in his other movie on screens now, Oz the Great and Powerful — a Disney production."

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
"Already swollen with girl-on-girl flirtation, criminal fantasy and naive dreaminess, the movie explodes into Tampa Bay–set skankitude, where our leads are never out of bikinis, even when flung in jail for trashing a hotel room. They’re bailed out by Alien (James Franco, more alive than ever in the film’s only actual performance), a cornrowed, heavily armed wanksta rapper who nakedly desires them for his posse.

"It all plays out in a final flourish of DayGlo Scarface wish fulfillment, and you can’t really believe what you’re watching. Alien—and Korine—tell us it’s the American dream come true, and even if you resist going there with them, the have-your-cake-and-fling-it-too stupidity is breathtaking. It takes some kind of cracked artistry to put coeds in hot-pink ski masks and have them twirl around to a Britney Spears ballad toting machine guns. Spring Breakers is either an inspired satire of the youth movie or the most irresponsible comedy mainstream Hollywood will never make. The bros in your crowd will call it rad—and radical it is."

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"Too bad the movie itself is rarely as outrageous as he is. The promise of nudity and girl-on-girl action among Disney hotties Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical), Selena Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place) and Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars) is just a porny tease. Candy (Hudgens), Brit (Benson), Faith (Gomez) and Cotty (Rachel Korine, the director's wife) are merely college BFFs yearning for a spring break. Everyone but Faith (she's into Christian studies) agrees to rob a local chicken shack to finance a Tampa getaway. Here's your chance to hear the chirpy Hudgens say, 'Give me your motherfucking money or I'm going to shoot your fucking brains out.' And they're off.

"Alien laps them right up. At his crib, where bongs and blow are plentiful and Al Pacino's Scarface plays on a continuous loop, the coeds live the dream. Violence looms in the form of Archie (Gucci Mane), Alien's gangsta enemy. No sweat. When Alien isn't going down on a gun barrel in a homoerotic domination game, he sits at his poolside piano and croons Britney Spears ballads to the girls, who wear pink ski masks and dance around waving AK-47s."

Katie Calautti, Comic Book Resources
"Sure, it has the aesthetic of a Girls Gone Wild video mashed up with Scarface (and there’s certainly a portion of the film’s audience that will be all too happy to take it at that face value), but deep beyond its epic one-liners, brazen nudity, omnipresent drug use and stylized scenes of criminal activity, there’s a core that reveals an all-too-terrifying truth about the desensitization of youth and the moral quandaries it presents...

"That is to say, after watching Spring Breakers, you’ll have Britney Spears and Skrillex stuck in your head on a loop, you’ll quote (and re-quote, and re-quote) James Franco’s dialogue (his crooning repetition of 'spring breeeeeeak' will haunt your nightmares), you’ll never watch High School Musical the same way again, you’ll feel the crushing urge to view Scarface on repeat, you’ll realize you’re inadequately prepared (abdominally speaking) for swimsuit season, and you’ll suffer the after-effects of an onslaught of so much perverse and perverted imagery that you’ll want to disinfect yourself by taking a bath in (and swallowing shots of) tequila."


Posted by Geoff at 11:51 PM CDT
Updated: Saturday, March 23, 2013 11:25 PM CDT
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012
RUMOR: NEW 'SCARFACE' TO BE MEXICAN
FACT: 'DONNIE BRASCO' WRITER PAUL ATTANASIO HIRED TO REWRITE SCREENPLAY


This past October, Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr. posted the news that Universal had hired Paul Attanasio to rewrite David Ayer's original draft of the new Scarface film being produced by Marc Shmuger and Martin Bregman. Fleming wrote that "the film is not intended to be a remake or a sequel. It will take the common elements of the first two films: An outsider, an immigrant, barges his way into the criminal establishment in pursuit of a twisted version of the American dream, becoming a kingpin through a campaign of ruthlessness and violent ambition. The studio is keeping the specifics of where the new Tony character comes from under wraps at the moment, but ethnicity and geography were important in the first two versions."

Latino Review's El Mayimbe took the "keeping under wraps" part of that paragraph as a challenge, and claims to have discovered, via unnamed sources, that the new Tony "is actually Mexican and the remake takes place in the world of drug cartels." We shall see.


Posted by Geoff at 11:52 PM CST
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