WITH SCREENINGS OF EARLY WORKS JAN. 13-Feb. 10
The Austin Film Society is running a program this month called First Blood: The Early Films Of Brian De Palma. The program kicks off this Tuesday, January 13, with a screening of the DVD of Murder a la Mod (the 7pm screening is already sold out, but there are still tickets left for the 9pm screening). The 7pm screening of Greetings (also from a DVD) on January 17th is also sold out, as is the 7pm screening of Dionysus In '69 (from a DVD) on January 24th. The 9pms are still available in both cases. The other films being screened are Hi, Mom! (35mm print from the MGM archive screens January 20th), Sisters (35mm print from the Academy archives screens January 27th), Phantom Of The Paradise (digital version from Criterion Pictures to be screened via DVCam February 3rd), and Carrie (35mm print from the MGM archive screens February 10th). See the website for specific screening locations, but also to read the terrific summaries provided by the Austin Film Society's Guest Curator Bryan Poyser, who writes the following as part of an introduction to the program: The seven films presented here display a provocative, free-wheeling, politically subversive sensibility, rich with sarcasm and gleeful satire, bent on jolting the audience into thinking about what they’re seeing rather than lulling them with fantasy or romanticism. Undoubtedly, it is this rigorous and contrarian agenda that keeps most audiences and critics from fully embracing De Palma, but perhaps also makes him both the most frustrating and addictively watchable filmmaker of his generation.