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Recent Headlines
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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, July 27, 2017
'DOMINO' LOCATION SCOUTING IN COPENHAGEN
INSTAGRAM PICS FROM 2ND UNIT



Posted by Geoff at 11:45 PM CDT
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Wednesday, July 26, 2017
PODCAST - 'AMERICAN FRIGHT' DE PALMA EPISODE
DISCUSSES SISTERS / PHANTOM / CARRIE / OBSESSION / THE FURY

Posted by Geoff at 7:36 AM CDT
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Tuesday, July 25, 2017
ALCAINE TO RECEIVE LOCARNO VISION AWARD
AUG 10 TRIBUTE INCLUDES SCREENING OF 'PASSION', FILMS BY ALMODOVAR, MASTER CLASS AUG 11
José Luis Alcaine will be honored at the 70th Locarno Festival next month, where he will be presented the Vision Award TicinoModa in Piazza Grande. The prize is "dedicated to those who have used their talents to trace new perspectives in the world of film," according to the Locarno website. The tribute will include a screening of Alcaine's first collaboration with Brian De Palma, Passion. Here is the rest of the Locarno news item:
José Luis Alcaine, noted for his strong colors and photography that highlights shade and form while remaining always believable, even at extremely high contrast, has worked with some of the most important and influential auteurs in Spanish and international filmmaking. Among many: Pedro Almodóvar, Victor Erice, Montxo Armendáriz, Basilio Martìn Patino e Fernando Fernan Gomez. Further fundamental collaborations in his career were those with Vicente Aranda, with whom he made a dozen films, including Amantes (1991), and, again in Spain, with Fernando Trueba (El sueño del mono loco, 1989 and Belle Epoque, 1992), with Carlos Saura (¡Ay, Carmela!, 1990 and Sevillanas, 1992) and Bigas Luna (Jamón Jamón, 1992, Huevos de oro, 1993 and La teta y la luna, 1994). Outside Spain, apart from his various forays in the U.S., Alcaine worked several times with Italian filmmakers, directing photography for Alberto Lattuada (Così come sei, 1978), Fabio Carpi (Barbablù, Barbablù, 1987) and Giovanni Veronesi (Il mio West, 1998). He is currently engaged on set for Domino, the new thriller from Brian De Palma, with whom he previously made Passion (2012), and on a new project by Asghar Farhadi, with Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz.

José Luis Alcaine will receive the Vision Award TicinoModa in Piazza Grande on Thursday 10 August. He will also be holding a Master Class on Friday 11 August at the PalaVideo at 3.30 pm. The Festival tribute will include a screenings of the films La piel que habito (Pedro Almodovar, 2011), Passion (Brian De Palma, 2012), Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Pedro Almodóvar,1988) and Belle Epoque, (1992).


Posted by Geoff at 7:48 AM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, July 25, 2017 6:32 PM CDT
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VAN HOUTEN IN AMSTERDAM WORKING ON 'DOMINO'
PRESS CALLS AFTER HER RETURN APPEARANCE ON 'GAME OF THRONES' SUNDAY NIGHT


Carice van Houten's return to HBO's Game Of Thrones Sunday night as Melisandre caused enough of a stir that she was doing interviews by phone from Amsterdam on Monday, where, according to the Los Angeles Times' Sarah Rodman, she is at work on Brian De Palma's Domino. Below is an excerpt from that article, followed by one from the Hollywood Reporter, both posted yesterday afternoon:

Sarah Rodman, Los Angeles Times

We recently chatted with Van Houten to find out what she sees in the flames for the rest of this season. Reached by phone from Amsterdam, where she’s at work on the upcoming Brian De Palma thriller “Domino,” Van Houten was stoked to be co-starring with none other than Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, with whom she has yet to share a scene on “Game of Thrones.”

“Even I am like, ‘Look at me, I am here filming a scene with Jaime Lannister,’ ” she said. “It’s so cool!”

Paths are finally crossing this season, and you were able to interact with a number of actors for the first time in Sunday’s episode. Was that exciting?

It’s very exciting. Because I’m always on my own with Stannis and Davos [Liam Cunningham]. That was my little gang, and it was fun because it was like being around Laurel and Hardy a little bit sometimes — two funny, completely different, opposite actors, and I had such a great time with them. But this was like a completely different show! And I was starstruck myself. Again I felt like, “Look at me, and I am here with the dragon girl and Peter Dinklage and Missandei!” Wow! I was quite impressed with everyone, and I just had a baby six weeks before, so I was in a state.


Josh Wigler, The Hollywood Reporter
You're shooting a Brian De Palma movie, Domino, with a Game of Thrones co-star right now: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. What can you say about that experience?

It's really great. It's very scattered so far. We'll have a week here and two weeks there. There's a lot of time in between. It's very great. It's funny to meet two completely different characters, where we've never met on the show. It's funny for people to see us, extras and the like. We're shooting in Spain, where the fan base is so huge. It's been very sweet and funny. People will look at me sometimes like I can scare them a little bit. These big, grown-up men who look at me: "You're not really going to do anything, right? You don't really have fire powers?" They're sort of joking, but I can sense that feeling I had when I first met [Jack Gleeson, who plays] Joffrey. I was very scared of him! He was really scary! (Laughs.) It's funny, the effect this show has on people.


Posted by Geoff at 1:21 AM CDT
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Monday, July 24, 2017
SMARTLIGHTS ON GLASS ELEVATOR SHAFT
PATRICK HAEGEMAN INSTAGRAM PIC FROM ANTWERP 'DOMINO' SET

Posted by Geoff at 11:45 PM CDT
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Sunday, July 23, 2017
JOHN HEARD HAS DIED
CAREER INTV w/ILLEANA DOUGLAS PODCAST LAST TUE, BACK SURGERY WED, PASSED AWAY FRIDAY


John Heard, who portrayed a Trump-like Atlantic City casino/arena owner in Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes, was found dead on Friday in a hotel room in Palo Alto. He was 71. According to Martha Ross at The Mercury News, "His family said he was staying at the undisclosed hotel while recovering from the [back] surgery, which was described as 'minor.'" Just four days earlier, on Tuesday, July 18th, Heard had been the guest on Illeana Douglas' podcast I Blame Dennis Hopper, in which Douglas asked him questions about his entire career (she ran out of time before she'd had a chance to ask him about working on Snake Eyes, which she called a great film and urged everyone to seek out, along with Martin Scorsese's After Hours). But Heard had told Douglas he was having back surgery the next day. Ross' article quotes a post Douglas made to her Facebook page after learning of his death on Friday: "He was filled with optimism and hope that he would get this back surgery and begin to start working again. That’s where he was happiest. Like any actor, he just wanted a job. He just wanted to work."

Heard was a theater actor (he originated the role who, by his own admission, never really took his work in film seriously. He is best known for the Home Alone movies, but his early film career was made up of lead roles in independent films such as John Byrum's Heart Beat (an Edward R. Pressman production in which Heard portrayed Jack Kerouac and co-starred with Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte, with production design by Jack Fisk), Ivan Passer's Cutter's Way, Joan Micklin Silver's Head Over Heels and Between The Lines, and Paul Schrader's Cat People. He also had a significant role in Penny Marshall's Big.

An obituary by The Guardian's Ryan Gilbey includes this bit about Heard's theater days:

At the Long Wharf theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1976 he originated the role of Billy, the gay soldier, in the first staging of David Rabe’s controversial play Streamers, and was disappointed not to have been retained for Mike Nichols’s subsequent New York production. He won an Obie award in 1977 for his performance in G.R. Point, in which he played a man processing dead soldiers from Vietnam before burial, and won another three years later for his combined work in Othello and Split.

Heard was married to Margo Kidder for six days in 1979. He had supporting roles in many films and TV series in the late part of his career. Ross article quotes some more from Douglas' Facebook post:
In her Facebook post, Douglas said she was devastated to hear about Heard’s death. She described him as a “great, great actor” who inspired her in her career. She said she had been trying to line him up for an interview for a long time; he was hesitant, thinking no one was that interested in him. “I convinced him that there was real interest in him. That people loved him, and wanted to hear from him,” she wrote.

This past March, Richard Luck posted a review of Snake Eyes at Right Casino, noting the similarities between Heard's role in the film and Donald Trump:
Of particular interest is the flamboyant Gilbert Powell. Played by John Heard of Cat People and Home Alone fame, Powell is very clearly the film’s equivalent of Donald Trump; The Donald being among the biggest names operating in Atlantic City around the time the movie was shot and set. Indeed, as the future president’s Historic Atlantic City Convention Center had played host to WrestleManias IV and V, so the man with the hypnotic hair had brought many a major box-office to the East Coast. Trump would also be instrumental in bringing MMA to Atlantic City, a bold move that led to UFC hefe Dana White being among the more unlikely speakers at the 2016 Republican Convention.


Posted by Geoff at 1:35 PM CDT
Updated: Sunday, July 23, 2017 11:32 PM CDT
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Friday, July 21, 2017
COSTER-WALDAU POSTS VIDEO FRIDAY MORNING
ROAD TRIP IN SPAIN, #ALMERIA, "50KM OF GREENHOUSES"


Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, star of Brian De Palma's new thriller Domino, posted a video on his Instagram page Friday morning with the caption, "A different kind of greenhouse effect. 50km of greenhouses. Feeding all of europe. #almeria #roadtripinspain". Domino had previously been scheduled to film in an area of greenhouses near Almería this weekend, but those plans had been in doubt when De Palma and company left Almería last weekend prior to a planned shoot at the airport.

UPDATE: July 23 2017
Two days after posting the video from Spain on Friday, Coster-Waldau posted a video from Luzech, France.

Posted by Geoff at 8:09 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, July 23, 2017 1:47 PM CDT
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Thursday, July 20, 2017
ERIC KOHN ON DE PALMA'S 'SCARFACE'
"A MOVIE THAT DERIVED ITS POWER LESS FROM WHAT IT WAS ABOUT THAN HOW IT WAS ABOUT IT"
A week ago today, IndieWire posted email exchanges between Eric Kohn, Anne Thompson, and Kate Erbland, discussing whether Universal should abandon the new Scarface movie, now that David Ayer has become the latest in a long line of directors to leave the project. Kohn in particular wrote some inspired words about Brian De Palma's 1983 version:
Setting aside narrow production schedules and one director’s priorities, the biggest problem with “Scarface” is that the material never gelled with studio priorities in the first place. Howard Hawks’ 1932 original was a Hollywood gangster saga that generated controversy for its violence but was otherwise pretty straightforward; Brian De Palma’s 1983 reimagining, however, was a jolt to the system, a high style indictment of the drug lord fantasy that culminated in one of the most outrageous shootouts ever captured on film. “Say hello to my little friend” was an astonishing, subversive battle cry, both cartoonish and mortifying at once, and it crystalized the mania of power-hungry drug dealing better than any journalistic expose.

It was a breed unto itself, a movie that derived its power less from what it was about than how it was about it. So it was especially intriguing when Chile’s Pablo Larrain was attached to direct the remake three years ago. This endlessly innovative filmmaker, whose projects range from the allegorical horror movie “Tony Manero” to last year’s elegant period drama “Jackie,” clearly doesn’t compromise. His version, according to reports at the time, aimed to cast a Latino actor in a “mythic origin story” set in modern times, one that would expose the cycle of violence that brings the war on drugs from Mexico to America. Call it whatever you want — “Scarface” is just a placeholder — this is a powerful concept with the prospects of resonating on many levels at once. Of course, America’s relationship to Cuba continues to evolve in trepidatious ways that could make the original backdrop resonate with renewed topicality.

But it’s not the kind of material that a studio, eager for a blockbuster success, might want to take a risk on. (Thankfully, Larrain moved on to more original concepts.) De Palma and Al Pacino made their surreal, iconic look at a drug-fueled capitalist psychopath at a moment where it seemed as though they could get away with anything; short of Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino, few American directors could pull off the same feat today within the confines of the Hollywood system. Needless to say, De Palma’s movie didn’t exactly go over perfectly when it first came out, only gaining acclaim with time; it has since been co-opted by gangsta rap, novelizations, and video games. When a movie resonates this strongly in popular culture, it doesn’t beg for a remake so much as a second visit. Here’s an idea: Pop it back in theaters and audiences might flip, as “Scarface” no less immersive and unsettling than it was over 30 years ago.

Ultimately, the best home for a gangster saga might be the medium best suited for long-form, immersive storytelling — television. “Breaking Bad” did a fine job of mapping out the process through which, in Vince Gilligan’s famous terms, “Mr. Chips becomes Scarface.” So before we argue any further about whether the studio should remake “Scarface,” it might be worth considering the possibility that somebody already beat them to it.


Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, July 20, 2017 11:50 PM CDT
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Wednesday, July 19, 2017
'VERTIGO' / 'BODY DOUBLE' FINALES - INSTAGRAM
POSTED BY ardavan_sh2006

Posted by Geoff at 5:53 PM CDT
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Tuesday, July 18, 2017
'DOMINO' SHOOTING PLANS CHANGED OVERNIGHT
FOR NOW, OFF TO DENMARK; 2-WEEK SHOOT IN ALMERIA CUT AFTER JUST ONE WEEK
Brian De Palma left Almería on Sunday and flew to Denmark after cutting short plans to continue filming Domino in Almería for about nine more days. According to Diario de Almería's D. Martínez, Domino shot in the Plaza de Toros and in the port of the capital, but plans to shoot at the airport were abandoned. "Although he announced last Sunday at noon, when he received the replica of the Star, that they will probably return in late August to shoot some sequences, the truth is that something has happened so that all the shooting plans have changed overnight," states Martínez. "The key to this change could be in certain disagreements between the different producers of the film," Martínez continues. "No one explains what happened, although everything could be on an economic issue and the lack of agreement between producers."

NotiCine today reports that filming of Domino "broke off abruptly on Friday, according to some sources due to the abandonment of one of the co-producers, while others argue that it was a change in the production plan, which are not necessarily contradictory reasons." Citing an article from earlier today by La Voz de Almería's Marta Rodríguez, the NotiCine article continues:
It was said that the filming would take place in three stages of the capital - the Plaza de Toros, the Port and the Airport - and in an area of greenhouses of Adra. However, in the end they have only recorded in the first two. Spanish co-producer Antonio Pérez (Maestranza Films) told the local newspaper on Saturday that it was only a change of plans and a second unit of the team will return to the city in August to finish, but Joan Franco, coordinator of extras for the film, confirmed that from day one the rumors about the cancellation of the film were continuous in the set. "The last day was a very tense environment, because everything was known to be hanging in the balance. In the end, we were informed that the project was suspended because the Belgian company that was going to contribute part of the funds had withdrawn," he told La Vox.

One of the extras who was at the Plaza de Toros last week, Beatriz Molina Puertas, took to Facebook yesterday to complain that yet another film production has left Almería, chased away by the "exorbitant price". "The filming of DOMINO has left because supposedly in addition to what was reported in the news, the airport in Almería has asked the production for a lot of money to be able to shoot in their installations and enclosure," Puertas wrote in the post. "For the exorbitant price they have decided to leave and film again at the airport in Belgium, I say supposedly, as those are the rumors that run and tell us, it is not something that I'm inventing, apart from other reasons that are making echos in all local newspaper publications !!"

Franco then commented on Puertas' post, "What a reason you have, my friend, unfortunately there are regulations by the national and local politicians, especially in the economic area that make it impossible for high-level film companies to come to work in Spain and Almería. That's how it goes with us."

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau surprised unsuspecting Game Of Thrones fans at a Copenhagen theater yesterday-- the fans had gathered to watch the HBO series' season 7 premiere.

To finish off, here is a Google-assisted translation of an excerpt from Marta Rodríguez' article from this morning at La Voz de Almería:

Initially, the shooting in Almería of this action thriller was to take place between July 10 and 24 and to be developed in four different locations: three in the capital - the Bullring, the Port and the Airport - and one in a set of greenhouses in Adra. However, in the end they only filmed in the first two and although Antonio Pérez, producer of Maestranza Films, indicated this Saturday to LA VOZ that it is only a change of plans and a second unit of the team will return to the city in August to finish, other sources say that the project has fallen when one of the producers, the Belgians of Zilvermeer, puled out.

As explained to LA VOZ, Joan Franco, coordinator of extra for the film, hired by the Seville company CNG, from the first day rumors about the cancellation of the film were continuous on the set. "On Friday the atmosphere was especially tense, a meeting was held in high places and it was known that everything hung in a thread. In the end we were informed that the project was being suspended because the Belgian company that was going to contribute part of the funds had withdrawn, "he says.

According to Franco's story, with the passing of the days the demands of the shooting of 'Domino' were coming down because it was already foreseen that something like this could happen. Thus, of the 2,000 extras that the company CNG Casting included in its database (the tests ended up dilating for eight days) because they "were necessary", they have not called more than 350. And the cuts came to the point of removing from the script scenes of some complexity as a chase," says the extras coordinator.


Those 350 extras, Rodríguez notes, "have their fees guaranteed" -- they will be paid for their five days of filming, Franco told her.

Posted by Geoff at 11:57 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, July 19, 2017 12:39 AM CDT
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