De Palma a la Mod

Monday, December 31, 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR, FULL OF 'PASSION'
BARCELONA FILM CRITIC PICKS DE PALMA'S LATEST AS THIRD BEST OF 2012

Manu Yáñez, a film critic from Barcelona who writes for Fotogramas, posted his finalized list of top ten films from 2012 today on Twitter. While Brian De Palma's Passion will not be officially released until the spring of 2013, it made Yáñez' list at number 3, right in between the latest works from David Cronenberg and Kathryn Bigelow. Richard Linklater's Bernie tops the list at number one. On his Twitter page, Yáñez wrote a tweet for each title, each tweet beginning with the word "because." For Passion, he wrote, "Because mi amigo Brian goes about his business: think of the cinema doing cinema. More loose, more free."

Here is Yáñez full top ten:

1. Bernie (Richard Linklater)
2. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)
3. Passion (Brian De Palma)
4. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)
5. Ensayo final para utopía (Andrés Duque)
6. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
7. Bleak Night (Yoon Sung-hyun)
8. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)
9. Enero 2012 (O la apoteosis de Isabel la Católica) (Colectivo Los Hijos)
10. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

Posted by Geoff at 8:05 PM CST
Updated: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 1:19 AM CST
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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

R.I.P. CHARLES DURNING
APPEARED IN DE PALMA'S 'HI, MOM!', 'SISTERS', & 'THE FURY'; VOICE DUB IN 'SCARFACE'

Charles During, who appeared in three Brian De Palma films, passed away on Christmas Eve of natural causes, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 89. Durning was a World War II veteran who was part of the D-Day invasion, and received a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts, the Hollywood Reporter article states.

One of his earliest film roles was as the snarly superintendent who shows Robert De Niro's character a New York apartment at the beginning of De Palma's Hi, Mom! in 1970. De Palma cast Durning in 1973's Sisters as the private detective who helps Grace track down the body of the man she sees murdered from her apartment window.

In De Palma's The Fury (1978), Durning took a serious turn as the director of the Paragon Institute, who studies psychic abilities, and who tries in vain to protect Gillian from the sinister grasp of Childress, played by John Cassavetes. Following an intense episode with Gillian on the stairs of the institute, Durning is chilling as, shot from above, he orders his staff to take precautions around the powerful psychic. Durning also provided an uncredited voice overdub as an immigration officer in the opening interrogation scene of De Palma's Scarface (1983).

Prior to Scarface, Durning had worked with Al Pacino on Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon. He would work with Pacino again in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. Durning also worked with De Niro again in 1981, for Ulu Grosbard's True Confessions, which was based on the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short, later the subject of De Palma's The Black Dahlia.

Rutanya Alda appeared in both Hi, Mom! and The Fury. A year after the latter, Durning and Alda both appeared in the cult movie When A Stranger Calls (and Durning later reprised his role in the 1993 made-for-TV sequel). In 1986, Durning appeared in Cassavetes' Big Trouble (Cassavetes would take acting jobs in films such as De Palma's The Fury in order to help finance his own independent features). That same year, Durning appeared in Tough Guys, which starred Kirk Douglas, the big name star of The Fury.

Just prior to the incident on the stairs in The Fury, Durning's character tells Gillian that at her age, his one great ambition was to be Fred Astaire. In fact, Durning was once a dance instructor at the Fred Astaire Dance Studios, where he met his first wife, Carol, a fellow dance instructor. Their daughter Jeanine Durning is a New York-based choreographer and modern dancer.

Durning is perhaps best known for his roles in George Roy Hill's The Sting and in Sydney Pollack's Tootsie, but he was nominated for supporting actor Oscars two years in a row: in 1983, for his role in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas (for which Durning sang and danced), and, in 1984, for his role in To Be Or Not To Be. Durning also appeared in two Coen Brothers films, The Hudsucker Proxy and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, as well as a film by Billy Wilder, The Front Page. Durning was also a friend of Burt Reynolds, and collaborated with him on several projects.

Posted by Geoff at 6:18 PM CST
Updated: Wednesday, December 26, 2012 12:53 AM CST
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Sunday, December 23, 2012

'CARRIE' SOUNDTRACK IN LIMITED RE-RELEASE
THIS TIME, JUST ONE-DISC EDITION FROM KRITZERLAND

A couple of years ago, Kritzerland released a two-disc limited edition of Pino Donaggio's soundtrack from Brian De Palma's Carrie, which sold out rather quickly. Now, the company is releasing a one-disc edition, limited to 1000 copies. The second disc on the previous edition consisted of the original LP release from 1976. Since the first disc featured new remixes of the entire score from Carrie, plus instrumental versions of the two songs Donaggio had provided music for, the new release consists of only that disc. And what more is needed, really?
(Thanks to Randy!)

Posted by Geoff at 12:26 PM CST
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Saturday, December 22, 2012

'PHANTOM' TO PLAY AT PAUL WILLIAMS FILM SERIES
WITH WILLIAMS IN ATTENDANCE, AT MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE IN JANUARY

The Museum Of The Moving Image in New York will hold a concentrated retrospective of Paul Williams films the weekend of January 25-27, 2013. Williams will be present for each film screening, which kicks off at 7pm Friday, January 25, with Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise. The other films are The Muppet Movie, Ishtar, and the recent documentary, Paul Williams: Still Alive.

Posted by Geoff at 3:43 PM CST
Updated: Saturday, December 22, 2012 3:45 PM CST
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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

VIDEO - NOOMI BRIEFLY TALKS 'PASSION' & RACHEL
"IT WAS A REALLY INTENSE JOURNEY FOR ME"

In the video above, Noomi Rapace is interviewed at the British Independent Film Awards, and at one point is asked about working with Rachel McAdams on Brian De Palma's Passion. "Oh, we had such a great time," replies Rapace. "We were in Berlin for three months. And I love working with her, we had such a… it was fun, even though we didn’t really like each other on screen, but... [laughs, then looks serious again]. And it was a really intense journey for me."

Posted by Geoff at 6:41 PM CST
Updated: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 6:44 PM CST
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Sunday, December 9, 2012

SAGNIER EAGER TO SEE 'PASSION'
SAYS HER MEMORY OF 'LOVE CRIME' IS TAINTED BY THE PAIN OF CORNEAU'S DEATH

The Guardian's Xan Brooks interviewed Ludivine Sagnier about her career and her work on Alain Corneau's Love Crime. Here is the passage in which they discuss that film, and Brian De Palma's remake of it:
---------------------------------
In her latest film, Love Crime, Sagnier plays a corporate worm that turns. For the first half she's the supplicant, sweating through an agonising, quasi-sexual relationship with her implacable boss (Kristin Scott Thomas). For the second she's the agent of change, apparently martyring herself in the service of committing the perfect crime. "Human beings are so complicated," grumbles the detective called in to clean up the mess.
Sagnier explains that she actually shot Love Crime three years ago and that her memory of it is coloured by the subsequent death of its director, Alain Corneau. "I mean, I do like the movie," she stresses. "But for me it's tainted by frustration and so much pain, because he died on the very week it got released in France." Corneau, she now realises, was suffering from lung cancer while the picture was being shot. In hindsight this explains a lot.
"In France we have a saying: 'He never put his arms down.' Forward, forward, never stop, which was very difficult for me and Kristin. He was like a little boy playing with iron soldiers and we were the soldiers. He wouldn't talk, wouldn't listen, and we had to do exactly what he wanted. It was like he only had so much energy to spare. He must have known he did not have much time left."
The film, she adds, has just been remade by Brian De Palma, as Passion. She's eager to see it; she wants to know if the sexual undercurrent has been brought to the fore.
What if the new version is better than hers? Wouldn't that make her mad? She gives an airy shrug. "I would not be surprised."

Posted by Geoff at 12:00 PM CST
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Saturday, December 8, 2012

PAUL WILLIAMS TEAMING UP WITH DEL TORO
FOR STAGE MUSICAL VERSION OF 'PAN'S LABYRINTH', & ANIMATED 'DAY OF THE DEAD'

Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr. posted the other day that Paul Williams has just signed on to write lyrics for a stage musical version of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, which del Toro has been quietly working on for four years. The music is being written by Gustavo Santaolalla. "I admire and love Gustavo and Paul wrote the perfect album in Phantom Of The Paradise, which I have loved for decades," del Toro told Fleming. In 2010, Harry Knowles wrote about how one night, del Toro had spent "hours" telling Knowles why he wanted to remake Phantom Of The Paradise, which is one of his very favorite films.

Del Toro also revealed to Fleming that Santaolalla and Williams are writing songs for the animated film Day Of The Dead, which del Toro is producing for Reel FX. That project is being directed and co-written by Jorge R. Gutierrez, and will be released in the fall of 2014.

Since 2009, Williams has been working with Brian De Palma and Edward R. Pressman on a stage version of Phantom Of The Paradise, something they have taken stabs at off and on for years. De Palma and Williams had tried to get a stage version going in 1987, and in 2003, Antonio Banderas discussed the possibility of taking on the title character for a stage version. For now, however, we have the incredible film from 1974. And, of course, the Baltimore Rock Opera Society.

Posted by Geoff at 7:51 PM CST
Updated: Monday, January 27, 2014 7:54 PM CST
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Friday, December 7, 2012

'FEMME FATALE' AT NY MUSEUM OF MOVING IMAGE
SCREENED FRIDAY AS PART OF SERIES "THE CINEMA AND ITS DOUBLES"

Sorry about catching word of this too late (the screening is happening as I write this), but I had to note that Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale is screening tonight at New York's Museum Of The Moving Image, as part of the series "The Cinema and its Doubles." I especially like the quote at the Moving Image site from Jonathan Rosenbaum, which I don't recall ever reading before. According to the site, Rosenbaum called Femme Fatale "a synthesis of every previous Brian De Palma film... I enjoyed every minute of it, maybe because De Palma took such obvious pleasure in putting it together."

Posted by Geoff at 8:40 PM CST
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

RUMOR: NEW 'SCARFACE' TO BE MEXICAN
FACT: 'DONNIE BRASCO' WRITER PAUL ATTANASIO HIRED TO REWRITE SCREENPLAY

This past October, Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr. posted the news that Universal had hired Paul Attanasio to rewrite David Ayer's original draft of the new Scarface film being produced by Marc Shmuger and Martin Bregman. Fleming wrote that "the film is not intended to be a remake or a sequel. It will take the common elements of the first two films: An outsider, an immigrant, barges his way into the criminal establishment in pursuit of a twisted version of the American dream, becoming a kingpin through a campaign of ruthlessness and violent ambition. The studio is keeping the specifics of where the new Tony character comes from under wraps at the moment, but ethnicity and geography were important in the first two versions."

Latino Review's El Mayimbe took the "keeping under wraps" part of that paragraph as a challenge, and claims to have discovered, via unnamed sources, that the new Tony "is actually Mexican and the remake takes place in the world of drug cartels." We shall see.

Posted by Geoff at 11:52 PM CST
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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

CRUISE TRIBUTE TO INCLUDE 'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE'
DEC 17-20 INCLUDES CAREER DISCUSSION AT LINCOLN CENTER IN NEW YORK

Tom Cruise will discuss his film career with the New York Film Festival's director of programming, Kent Jones, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's An Evening with Tom Cruise on Monday, December 17. The conversation will be followed by a preview screening of Jack Reacher, the potential Cruise franchise vehicle-starter directed by Christopher McQuarrie that opens in theaters that following Friday. In between those days, the Tom Cruise tribute continues with seven films programmed by Scott Foundas, including Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible, which will screen at 6:30pm on Thursday, December 20. The other films are Tony Scott's Top Gun, Paul Brickman's Risky Business, Barry Levinson's Rain Man, Oliver Stone's Born On The Fourth Of July, Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire, and Ed Zwick's The Last Samurai.

Last month, Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr. posted that McQuarrie will direct the fifth Mission: Impossible film, which will be produced by Cruise and JJ Abrams. Writers were still to be hired for the project, according to Fleming, but it would seem likely that McQuarrie himself would be involved in the writing, as he has written every film he has directed so far, including the screenplay adaptation of Jack Reacher, from the Lee Child novel One Shot. McQuarrie also co-wrote the screenplay for Valkyrie, which starred Cruise and was directed by Bryan Singer.

Posted by Geoff at 7:18 PM CST
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