"CLASSIC OF THE WEEK"
IndieWire's "Criticwire Classic of the Week", posted earlier today, is Brian De Palma's Blow Out. "John Travolta is presenting at the Oscars this weekend," writes Max O'Connell, "no doubt in an attempt to make fun of that 'Adele Dazeem' slip-up that stopped being funny about a week after it happened. Before he became an irrepressible ham and punchline with questionable taste in scripts, however, Travolta was one of the most exciting stars to emerge in years, and he got the best showcase for his talents in Brian De Palma's masterpiece Blow Out. Mixing the hooks of Antonioni's Blow-Up (murder mystery caught via photograph) and Coppola's The Conversation (murder plot uncovered via sound recording), De Palma made his best film about the power and the limits of film and voyeurism, as well as his most emotionally devastating work." O'Connell writes a bit more about the film, and then includes excerpts from several reviews of Blow Out over the years.