The prologue spiritually anticipates Żuławski’s Possession - thanks to its disturbing, free-flowing wide-angle dollies - and is visually reminiscent of John D Hancock’s brilliant Let’s Scare Jessica To Death with its eerily idyllic soft light. Carrie (Sissy Spacek) gets her first period in the school shower and panics, unsure of what’s happening. Her classmates seize the moment for cruelty. Already within these first voyeuristic minutes, the supernatural surfaces, as does De Palma’s bravura visual eclecticism.

The remaining premise is dead simple. Penalised for the abuse, Carrie’s classmates scheme to get even with her via public humiliation. The story doesn’t keep us waiting for the main event long: the Prom with a capital-P. This sequence is to Carrie what the post-iceberg section is to Titanic; tragedy is foretold, but De Palma guides us to invest emotionally elsewhere, to keep rooting for Carrie. She makes a playful pact with the devil earlier, and so do we, surrendering to the director's choreography of spectatorship. One scene in particular is unforgettable: the camera swirls around Carrie and Tommy (William Katt), the popular boy who asked her to Prom, on the dance floor, not merely observing but pulling us into the rhythm, the dreaminess of it. It’s a pure, immersive moment that feels miraculous amid all the sweetly trashy sacrilege De Palma pioneers across the film.

The irreverent score, the gothic art direction, and Mario Tosi’s kaleidoscopic, slithering cinematography coalesce into something mesmeric. At one point, De Palma speeds up the footage and sound as Tommy and co. try on their Prom suits. It should come off as cheap and jarring. Instead, we’re so in sync with the film’s flow and confidence that we accept it without hesitation, and adore it for its audacity. This was one of those rare screenings at Warsaw's Timeless Film Festival with no guests, no Q&A, just a plain festival slot, that ended with a spontaneous ovation. That’s the enduring power of Carrie: a film so so alive with invention it stirs up astonishment, and love, decades on: the Prom Queen of the greatest decade in horror, still ruling.

"Each of us is a great mystery writer. Every night we create our stories. The dream is a mystery that only the dreamer can solve. And yet, in the solution lies knowledge that the dreamer may not wish to have."
Brian De Palma's unproduced screenplay AMBROSE CHAPEL.

Coming in May

On Friday, Kenney tweeted another teaser for the upcoming book:

Previously:
De Palma's Ambrose Chapel screenplay to be published in May, by Sticking Place Books

In some ways, Warfare is like the rash of war-on-terror pictures that appeared 20 years ago, such as Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker or Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha, or indeed Brian De Palma’s interesting, underrated film Redacted. But Warfare doesn’t have the anti-war reflex and is almost fierce in its indifference to political or historical context, the resource that should be more readily available two decades on. There is almost no conventional narrative progression: Erik gets rattled and has to cede command to someone else, but it makes no real difference to the dramatic shape, the white-noise blizzard of chaos. Similarly, the two Iraqi scouts become scared when they realise that they are to be the first out of the door for the planned evacuation, but there is no real tribal division between them and the Americans. Periodically the men will radio for a “show of force” to keep the jihadis at bay: a fighter plane whooshing terrifyingly low along the street leaving behind an eardrum-pulverised silence which scours the screen of thought.

And those civilians? They have an odd role to play in those weird photos over the final credits. Some of the real-world soldiers have their faces blanked out, presumably due to ongoing security considerations. But the film also shows a picture of an Iraqi family, evidently the occupants of the house, with their faces blanked out as well. Because … Garland and Mendoza tried to locate these people and ask for their memories too? And were unable to find them? Maybe. But they just remain blank – and irrelevant. The movie is its own show of force in some ways, surely accurate in showing what the soldiers did, moment by moment, though blandly unaware of a point or a meaning beyond the horror.

And now, this weekend, Drop is opening in theaters. Here's a look at some of the reviews:

Andrew Parker, The Gate

As a director, Landon looks like he’s having a blast getting his De Palma on (with a healthy nod to Wes Craven’s underrated/also implausible thriller Red Eye). As a stylistic exercise, Landon delivers his best outing behind the camera yet, which is fascinating for something that takes place in a single location for ninety percent of the film’s running time. The camera moves swiftly around the tightly packed room, zooming in from above, looking from below (the low angle shots of Violet looking up at her waiter are low key hilarious), and flowing through the space with ease. The little touches (like the bougie washroom and the ribcage mimicking corridor into the dining room that feel like entering the belly of a beast) are what matters here. Landon also does everything in his power to make the usually tedious image of people texting back and forth into a halfway compelling visual. It all comes together nicely, and Landon has put more thought into how the film should look than the sum of the plot’s parts.

And honestly, Drop is a case where that is absolutely the right call. Landon has a flair for allowing the viewer to giggle at dark situations, and he’s not afraid to get theatrical or unsubtle about it, like his use of some dramatic mood lighting swings throughout. He also finds ways to balance the dark humour with deeper character touches, with a heart to heart conversation between the stressed out lovebirds where all of the restaurant’s bustle and background noise pleasingly drifts away and the viewer locks into a tender moment that carries a great degree of poignancy for something that’s otherwise a silly movie.

More importantly: Have I made this sound like a bad movie? It’s actually largely a blast, not because Landon is as talented as De Palma, or even Collet-Serra, but because he works real hard to make up the difference. Moreso than the bright, montage-heavy, performance-dependent (and, to be clear, delightful) Happy Death Day pictures, he and cinematographer Marc Spicer go all in on visual tricks, with short but elegant room-surveying tracking shots, canted angles, impressionistic lighting effects to spotlight individual characters, and the occasional flips and spins for extra disorientation. This could have come across as sweaty, but it’s assembled with a glee that can’t be faked; the obvious effort becomes part of the fun.

This puts Drop well in the zone of Collet-Serra’s recent (and structurally similar) Carry-On, no small praise for the neo-Hitchcockian exercise. What keeps the new movie from further ascension to De Palma levels of bliss is its inability to push those attempts at virtuosity into a state of feverish cinematic overdrive, where the show-off fakeness somehow becomes more viscerally real. If this were easy, De Palma might not look like such a genius. As-is, Drop has a few brief moments of near-operatic derangement, a couple of flashbacks that experiment with bad-taste exploitation, and one climactic gag with a semi-twisted kick. Mostly, though, it trades in predictable stuff about Violet overcoming her past traumas as she navigates this brand new one.

Landon can flip this into a strength; just as the Happy Death Day movies are disarmingly sweet amidst jokes about gruesome slapstick demises, this movie obviously feels warmly toward Violet and he treats a few side characters here, like a too-much server (Jeffrey Self) on his first-ever shift, with similar affection. Drop is ultimately a nice movie about an abuse survivor being terrorized by seemingly omniscient forces, loaded with moments that don’t really hold up to scrutiny and well-sold by Fahy’s performance. To work so well in the moment is its own perfectly ephemeral achievement.

#DroptheMovie is a hard driving nail-biter, that keeps you hanging on the edge. Christopher Landon channels his inner De Palma, in a fresh take on the classic whodunnit. While it takes its time getting there, the climax is worth the wait. Thrill seekers will rejoice.

Early this morning, Kenney tweeted:

In the mood for an old-school Brian De Palma thriller?

Written between CARLITO'S WAY & MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.

Brian De Palma’s wildest vision: AMBROSE CHAPEL

Coming in May from Sticking Place books.

From my intro to Brian De Palma's unproduced 1994 screenplay AMBROSE CHAPEL: "The set pieces are pure De Palma...A sequence involving a misused TV remote...escalates into a revenge fantasia that feels like Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 restaged by Jacques Tati"

Coming in May from SPB.

The announcement included a quote from De Niro upon hearing the news: "I have such close feelings for Festival de Cannes… Especially now when there’s so much in the world pulling us apart, Cannes brings us together — storytellers, filmmakers, fans, and friends. It’s like coming home."

Also included was a brief bio - here are the first five paragraphs:

There are faces that stand in for the 7th Art, and lines of dialogue that leave an indelible mark on cinephilia. With his interiorized style, which surfaces in a gentle smile or a harsh gaze, Robert De Niro has become a cinematic legend.

His screen debut sealed the fate of a historic generation of directors in New York City, who would become the next generation of Hollywood filmmakers. From the very first films of a just-graduated Brian De Palma, Robert De Niro lent his features to anti-hero characters. The Wedding Party, Greetings and Hi, Mom! give form to Brian De Palma’s style as much as to Robert De Niro’s acting, in which violence springs from a charismatic calm. From his bohemian youth as the son of painters in New York, he drew on a streetwise attitude which, with its codes of conduct and ethics, would spice up his early performances and later blossom in front of Martin Scorsese’s camera. This legendary cinematic friendship began in 1973 with Mean Streets, in which they depict their Little Italy neighborhood.

Throughout his career, De Niro has lent his natural authority to characters from the Italian-American Mafia, from petty thug to major mafioso, making them his signature characters, beginning the following year. Then, he took on one of the most significant roles in his career and in the world of cinema: the young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, and succeeded in the challenge of interpreting the early years of Marlon Brando’s character without imitating him. His performance earned him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

The years that followed confirmed Robert De Niro’s talent, with a string of films and successes. In 1976, he presented two masterpieces of the 7th Art in the Official Selection at the Festival de Cannes: Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d’or. His perfectionistic acting had a lot to do with this award, between preparation (he obtained a New York cab driver’s license) and improvisation (the mirror scene is beyond description).

His commitment to his roles became legendary as his collaboration with Martin Scorsese continued: he learned to play the saxophone for New York, New York, took up boxing and gained 30 kilos for Raging Bull, which was his own idea and which won him the Oscar for Best Actor. To exorcise his conflicted relationship with fame, he brought the screenplay for The King of Comedy to his fellow lead, and went as far as to interview his own fans when he was to play this character obsessed with a talk show host. The film opened the Festival de Cannes in 1983. The following year in Cannes, Robert De Niro presented Once Upon a Time in America, Sergio Leone’s last film, before returning to the Croisette with Roland Joffé’s The Mission. A rare occurrence for an actor, only 10 years after Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro played the lead role in a second Palme d’or.

PREVIOUSLY:
New Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning teaser calls back to De Palma's film

“It definitely began with a conversation about what kind of movie we both wanted to make. Because it’s not just about what I want to do as a director, but also what you want to do as an actor,” Sloan said, gesturing to Mastroianni. “What kind of role are you not gonna get cast in unless we make that movie?”

“It started with Ryan sharing with me all of the films that really excited him, and revisiting those films.” Mastroianni added, explaining that they were primarily inspired by classic thrillers like “Blow-Up,” “Blow-Out,” “The Conversation,” “The Third Man,” “Vertigo,” and “Chinatown.”

“We were like ‘What is the through line here?’” Sloan said. “And we found out there’s a structure that many of these films follow called the Spiral Structure, where there’s a character that’s traveling through but every time they hit this spiral, it’s something from their past that they can’t escape.”

That structure gave them the narrative core of “Gazer,” with Mastroianni’s Frankie constantly running into lapses in memory caused by her dyschronometria that make it harder to solve the larger mystery she has become immersed in. And much like their fictional protagonist, Sloan and Mastroianni found themselves working with incomplete information throughout the production process. The self-financed film was sporadically shot between April 2021 and April 2023, with the duo opting to jump into principal photography before they had an entire script written.

“We started writing basically as soon as the lockdown happened. And that went a full year, and then in November I just said to Ariella ‘We’re gonna get into production in April 2021.’ And she was just like ‘Uhh… okay,’” Sloan said. “We weren’t even done with the script yet. We went in with an unfinished script. We knew we had the beginning and the end, so we said we’ll do two weekends in April and we’ll do the beginning and the end of the movie, because we know what we want.”