"DAMAGED Viewing, inspired by the absolute litany of Louis Fowler’s DAMAGED outings (DAMAGED Magazine, the DAMAGED Hearing radio show and the DAMAGED Viewing movie podcast), is a fun and funny live version of the absolutely insane world of trash and cult cinema, presented without pretension or prejudice.

"Hosted by Fowler and Patrick Crain, two cinema obsessives whose love of obscure film goes far beyond the realms of the silver screen and into the dumpster behind it, DV’s mission is to bring these classic (and not-so-classic) movies out of obscurity and present them, warts and all, for a public eager for something they’ve never seen before. DAMAGED Viewing explores a world of wild cinema that only the dark and dirtiest of us even knew existed."

"Phantom of the Paradise could well have represented a pyrrhic victory of style over substance, beating its audience into submission with all of its chromatic fireworks and brouhaha, yet there is a touching romance as its core...

"Of course the film is anchored in the 70's and wonderfully so, and yet it feels strangely timeless, as if it was already so over the top for the era it was made that it has transcended it. Flamboyant and frankly insane, Phantom of the Paradise is an absolute delight and a must-see for a cult fans."

The Unloved - Phantom of the Paradise from RogerEbert.com on Vimeo.

Above is the twelfth edition of Scout Tafoya's video series, The Unloved (found at RogerEbert.com), which examines Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise. The series takes films that were received indifferently upon initial release and reveals the artistry that seemed to be overlooked in the critical and public dismissals of their time.

"Cult movies usually have to do something wrong in order to miss out on a first-run audience," Tafoya states in the video. "Idiosyncrasies and eccentricities pile up, and only a handful of people can see them as integral to the film's success as a crowd-pleasing oddity. In the case of Phantom Of The Paradise, the indifference that greeted it from critic and public alike seems much more baffling than its continued success in Winnipeg.

"It's easy to why Rocky Horror failed with mainstream audiences at first. It's entirely too pleased with itself, and features nothing in the way of sex or violence that audiences couldn't find in movies without self-conscious glam-rock all over the soundtrack. Phantom Of The Paradise had something to say, not to mention something to prove. Though it's rarely lumped in with many of its landmarks, the Phantom came out of the New Hollywood movement. By 1974, American artists were finally digging in and starting to take advantage of the creative autonomy offered by more adventurous studios. 1974 was a watershed year in particular, because it was when passion projects started flowing out of major studios. Directors were taking immense formal risks left and right, telling dark stories in daring ways, bowing to no one but their muse. There were huge successes, films that changed everything. And then there were films like Phantom Of The Paradise.

"Up until this point, Brian De Palma had been making bizarre little movies that mixed Godard and Hitchcock with abandon. Phantom Of The Paradise was his biggest film to date, and it remains his best. Perhaps sensing that he was the right man to make a crazed irreverent hash of classic literature, he grabbed his own pet influences to make a film that did for rock and roll what fellow enfant terrible Ken Russell had been doing for classical music."

In response to Estefan's tweet above, Williams tweeted, "I don't have language skills sufficient to describe Emilio and Gloria's generosity. Old Souls. Angels." Emilio is Gloria's husband, a musician and producer who was with her in Miami Sound Machine. Their son, Nayib Estefan, is the man behind Miami's Secret Celluloid Society, which has programmed De Palma's film several times in recent years, culminating in last night's 40th anniversary screening.

According to a report at FOX News Latino, last night, "Estefan acknowledged that she has been a great fan of [Phantom Of The Paradise] since it came out 40 years ago and especially of its music, which was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe award."

Last month, the members of Sc Mira discussed their love of Phantom Of The Paradise with Sam Tweedle at Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict:

Sam: So this is a gem you’re sitting on. Now I read you have a Halloween project in the works.

Tyler: Yeah. We just had a Halloween EP released about a half an hour ago. We recorded a couple of our favorite Halloween tunes.

Sc: Yeah. It’s free on-line as a Sound Cloud stream, but Exclaim! did an article on it. We did it as a free release to get some content out there because we are sitting on the EP. Its three songs. Two are covers from the soundtrack of The Phantom of the Paradise.

Tyler: Oh yeah.

Sam: Phantom of the Paradise is one of my top three all-time favorite films!

Sc: Nobody usually knows what it is.

Sam: What songs did you do?

Sc: We did

Life at Last and Somebody Super Like You because the themes are very Halloweeny. The last song we did is Halloween by the Misfits.

Sam: Now it’s Winnipeg that has that strange Phantom of the Paradise cult following, right?

Tyler: That’s defiantly Winnipeg.

Sam: Yeah – that film was a hit in Winnipeg and nobody else in the world.

Sc: Yeah. I grew up watching Phantom of the Paradise. I’ve seen it so many times. My Dad would show it to us and my siblings. I guess Tyler watched it as a kid too.

Tyler. Yeah. It was also my Dad’s favorite musical film.

Sc: So it just seemed natural because Phantom of the Paradise is common ground for both of us. We both already knew the songs. I listen to the record year round.

Sam: So do I. I have it on my computer in my office. It’s one of my all-time favorite film soundtracks.

Tyler: When we were working on the EP in Montreal last year we ended up in a vintage store and ended up finding the record just lying around.

Sc: I had been looking for that record for a long time. We found it for three dollars in some shop that we went into. We both went in and thought I might find something worth taking home and I found it at the very back of the stack.