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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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De Palma discusses
The Black Dahlia 2006


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italkyoubored

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De Palma a la Mod
site

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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Thursday, September 12, 2013
THEATER UPDATES FOR 'PASSION' IN U.S.
OPENS IN CANADA & TAIWAN TOMORROW
Brian De Palma's Passion opens tomorrow in Canada and Taiwan, and also continues in U.S. theaters, keeping some and adding others. Passion will continue at Chicago's Music Box Theater and at Brooklyn's Nitehawk Cinema for two more midnight shows at each venue Friday and Saturday. It also continues at New York's IFC Center and Miami's Koubek Theater. Theaters that we know (so far) will be adding Passion beginning tomorrow are the Criterion Cinemas at Movieland in Richmond, Virginia, Criterion Cinemas in New Haven, CinemaSalem, and the Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood.

Posted by Geoff at 6:58 PM CDT
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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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EMILY MORTIMER CAST IN DE PALMA'S NEW SBS FILM
DESCRIBED AS LOOSE ADAPTATION OF ZOLA'S 'THERESE RAQUIN'
Screen Daily's Geoffrey Macnab posted an article yesterday about the upcoming slate of films from Saïd Ben Saïd's SBS Productions, providing more details about De Palma's next project with his Passion producer. For starters, the article states that the fantastic Emily Mortimer will play the lead in the film, which is described as a "loose adaptation of Emile Zola's Therese Raquin, featuring both period and contemporary elements." Macnab reports that "the story is about a film director and two actors shooting a movie version of Zola's novel and finding that it reflects experiences in their own lives."

Back in February, we linked to an article from CineObs' Nicolas Schaller (the original article appears to be defunct at this time) in which Ben Saïd is quoted about a new project he was then developing with De Palma, but without providing any title. "This is a film about cinema that is not devoid of humor or cruelty," Ben Saïd told Schaller. "It happens on a shoot between a director, an actor and an actress. De Palma wrote it by drawing on things that have happened to him. It is a kind of film testament."

Ben Saïd, whose upcoming slate also includes films by Joe Dante, David Cronenberg, David Mamet, Philippe Garrel, and Pascal Bonitzer, tells Macnab, "I am very much director-driven. I like to produce movies I enjoy to watch."

(Thanks to Chris and David!)


Posted by Geoff at 12:30 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, December 8, 2013 3:57 PM CST
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Tuesday, September 10, 2013
DE NIRO QUOTES CAPONE IN 'THE FAMILY' TRAILER
(OR MAYBE HE'S PARAPHRASING)


Back in June, when the first trailer for Luc Besson's The Family appeared, we noted that it opens with Robert De Niro, who played Al Capone in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, narrating, "There was a time when I had it all. People would ask me, 'What was it like being untouchable?'" The line simultaneously brings to mind the De Palma film, as well as, perhaps, Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas, in which De Niro also starred, but which ended with main character Henry Hill, who narrates about having it all, joining the witness protection program. The Family, which Scorsese has lent his name to as executive producer, finds De Niro's character stuck in a similar situation, and wanting his old life back.

In this new trailer (above), De Niro at one point, apparently reading from his character's memoir, tells us, "Al Capone always said, 'Asking politely with a gun in your hand is better than just asking politely.'" What Capone actually is quoted as saying in real life (and what De Niro says as Capone in The Untouchables) is, "You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."


Posted by Geoff at 6:05 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 11:38 PM CDT
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PODCAST CRITICS WATCH 'BLOW OUT' & 'PASSION'
ALL EXPERIENCE 'BLOW OUT' FOR FIRST TIME, AND LOVE IT, GREAT DISCUSSION
"THE GUY FROM 3RD ROCK IS AFTER YOU"; BAFFLED BY 'PASSION'


Posted by Geoff at 12:37 AM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 12:58 AM CDT
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Monday, September 9, 2013



Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist
"Imagine the Paul Thomas Anderson of There Will Be Blood making a Brian De Palma movie, or Claire Denis directing Christopher Nolan’s Memento. While those superlatives do give you a taste of the striking, sensual disposition simmering in the French-Canadian filmmaker’s engrossing and provocative psychological thriller, it actually does a disservice to Villeneuve’s superb craft and darkened vision that truly has coalesced into something extraordinary this year."

Posted by Geoff at 5:34 PM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 12:44 AM CDT
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'PASSION' REVIEWS & OTHER WRITINGS
LA TIMES ON DE PALMA & DANCING; FORCES OF GEEK IN DEFENSE OF 'PASSION'
Here is another batch of links to reviews of Passion, as well as an article from the Los Angeles Times' David Ng about the dancing in some of Brian De Palma's films. Of the ballet sequence in Passion, Ng writes, "The spare production, in which a man and a woman approach and repel each other, is a ballet about the ballet, in much the same way as De Palma's movies have always been about the movies.

"[Jerome] Robbins had his two dancers look directly at the audience, a deliberate attempt to break the fourth wall. De Palma replicates this by having the dancers -- Polina Semionova and Ibrahim Oyku Onal of the Staatsballett Berlin -- look directly into the camera. (The split screen acts as a kind of theatrical proscenium.)

"Their direct gaze is the visual inverse of the action in the second half of the screen -- a grisly murder sequence shot from the point of view of an intruder, with the camera assuming the killer's eyes. The effect is twofold: On the left side of the screen, we are being watched; on the right, we are doing the watching."

Here are some other Passion reviews:

Todd Sokolove, Forces Of Geek ("In Defense of Passion")
"I've never been an apologetic Brian De Palma fan and I'm not about to start apologizing. Recognized and celebrated by many a film geek, and seemingly the entire country of France, De Palma makes polarizing films that often split audiences and critics down the middle. His latest release, Passion, is no exception. It's a kaleidoscope of the auteur's prominent themes and performed tricks. It too, is not for everyone. This new "erotic thriller" has current Rotten Tomatoes score of 36%, but I'd be willing to bet it only fuels DePalma's indifference. Passion presents some sly critique on technology's ability to make anybody an entertainment content creator. I highly doubt he cares about technology's influence on the anybody-can-be-a-film-critic world wide web."

Sokolove also advises to "watch for some great in-joke moments in Passion, including an exact reproduction of a set up from Psycho."

Noel Murray, The Dissolve
"Before Passion ends, De Palma comes through with two sequences (neither of which originated with Love Crime) that can stand among his best: one where Christine is stalked on half a split-screen while the other half shows a fourth-wall-breaking performance of The Afternoon Of A Faun, and another that wordlessly sends four characters in pursuit of each other inside and outside Isabelle’s apartment.

"That latter scene—Passion’s big finish—doesn’t make much literal sense, given what precedes it. The ending is a complete De Palma invention, serving as a loosely related epilogue to the main story, much like the codas De Palma added to his films Carrie and Dressed To Kill. The scene is also a complete hoot. Passion makes glancing comments about ethics, cronyism, and a corporate culture that encourages employees to be cutthroat so long as it helps the company, but as always with De Palma, he’s more riffing on these ideas than making coherent, illuminating statements. He’s primarily interested in choreographing masterful setpieces, where every camera move is precise and the tone is heightened to the point of being tongue-in-cheek.

"Which isn’t to say that Passion is empty. De Palma gets some comic mileage out of the differences between the extroverted, brightly attired Christine and the chillier Isabelle—who can’t even work up a convincing 'I love you' when she has to—which is a sly way of confounding the convention of the femme fatale. (Depending on the viewer’s perspective, the villain of Passion could be Christine, Isabelle, or even Isabelle’s sycophantic assistant Dani, played by Karoline Herfurth.)"

Joshua Brunsting, Criterioncast
"A film chock full of melodramatic twists and turns, this film may be as close to the cinematic manifestation of everything De Palma believes aesthetically, and in that this becomes one of De Palma’s liveliest and most engaging works in at least 20 years. And in that De Palma truly becomes this film’s guiding light and inarguably the most interesting and important factor. Lavishly shot by Jose Luis Alcaine, this piece of work truly seems to be De Palma working at not so much the height of his aesthetic powers, but getting down to the pure seemingly animalistic core of his appreciation for things like German expressionism and, especially, film noir. There are stunning sequences here of beautifully lit sets that seem ripped right out of the cake noir that is Fritz Lang’s Ministry Of Fear, that film’s energy and aesthetic vitality seemingly injected straight into De Palma’s DNA. We also get various handheld sequences and seemingly first person shots that De Palma has been working with since his masterpiece, Blow Out, and even finding De Palma giving love to his key calling card, the brazen aesthetic shocker that is then split diopter shot. Passion is, at its very best, a stunningly shot meditation on the style of film noir, giving a deliciously De Palma sense of eroticism to things that would have become perfect fodder for a filmmaker like the aforementioned Lang."

Ray Pride, New City Film
"From reel to reel, Passion plays less like a succession of expected De Palma setpieces, than as individual, shorter films, each in their own volatile, sometimes clumsy fashion."

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
"In Passion, Brian De Palma attempts to bring his trademark style of psycho-sexual thrills to the arena of corporate politics. The result is a ridiculous but entertaining mess. The movie teeters on the edge of camp for awhile, then plunges in headlong."


Posted by Geoff at 1:16 AM CDT
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Sunday, September 8, 2013


Posted by Geoff at 4:59 PM CDT
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Saturday, September 7, 2013

On "The Week's Best Sound Bites" page of its current issue (September 13, 2013, with Breaking Bad on the cover), Entertainment Weekly sees fit to highlight a line from Passion spoken by Rachel McAdams. (I apologize for the not-so-great image quality, but I don't have a scanner right now.) The film itself was reviewed by Owen Gleiberman in last week's issue.

Posted by Geoff at 10:00 PM CDT
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Posted by Geoff at 9:36 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, September 7, 2013 10:49 PM CDT
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