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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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« May 2020 »
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Interviews...

De Palma interviewed
in Paris 2002

De Palma discusses
The Black Dahlia 2006


Enthusiasms...

De Palma Community

The Virtuoso
of the 7th Art

The De Palma Touch

The Swan Archives

Carrie...A Fan's Site

Phantompalooza

No Harm In Charm

Paul Schrader

Alfred Hitchcock
The Master Of Suspense

Alfred Hitchcock Films

Snake Eyes
a la Mod

Mission To Mars
a la Mod

Sergio Leone
and the Infield
Fly Rule

Movie Mags

Directorama

The Filmmaker Who
Came In From The Cold

Jim Emerson on
Greetings & Hi, Mom!

Scarface: Make Way
For The Bad Guy

The Big Dive
(Blow Out)

Carrie: The Movie

Deborah Shelton
Official Web Site

The Phantom Project

Welcome to the
Offices of Death Records

The Carlito's Way
Fan Page

The House Next Door

Kubrick on the
Guillotine

FilmLand Empire

Astigmia Cinema

LOLA

Cultural Weekly

A Lonely Place

The Film Doctor

italkyoubored

Icebox Movies

Medfly Quarantine

Not Just Movies

Hope Lies at
24 Frames Per Second

Motion Pictures Comics

Diary of a
Country Cinephile

So Why This Movie?

Obsessive Movie Nerd

Nothing Is Written

Ferdy on Films

Cashiers De Cinema

This Recording

Mike's Movie Guide

Every '70s Movie

Dangerous Minds

EatSleepLiveFilm

No Time For
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The former
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.
All topics  «
Ambrose Chapel
Are Snakes Necessary?
BAMcinématek
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Books
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Carlito's Way
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Cop-Out
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Dionysus In '69
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Dressed To Kill
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Fire
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Fury, The
Genius of Love
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Get To Know Your Rabbit
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Happy Valley
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Hi, Mom!
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Inspired by De Palma
Iraq, etc.
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Key Man, The
Laurent Bouzereau
Lights Out
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Mod
Montreal World Film Fest
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Murder a la Mod
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Print The Legend
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Raising Cain
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Saturday, May 16, 2020
DE PALMA'S 'HOME MOVIES' TURNS 40
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FILM MADE WITH STUDENTS AT SARAH LAWRENCE, RELEASED IN NYC MAY 16, 1980
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/hmposter.jpg


Posted by Geoff at 5:37 PM CDT
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Friday, May 15, 2020
PODCAST JUXTAPOSES 'BODY DOUBLE' & 'PRETTY WOMAN'
'HAPPILY EVER SLASHER' LOOKS FOR LINKS BETWEEN ROM-COM & HORROR
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/bdspiral1.jpg

"He kills her with spirals," giggles one of the two hosts in the latest episode of the podcast Happily Ever Slasher. "All’s fair in love and gore" is the tagline for the podcast, hosted by Amanda and Tara, which looks at one romantic comedy film and one horror film every week, "to find out just how much the two have in common."

The latest episode links Garry Marshall's Pretty Woman and Brian De Palma's Body Double, which, Amanda and Tara note, both take place in Los Angeles, with shared themes of authenticity and performance. "Can we call ourselves feminists and still enjoy these movies?" they ask in the episode description. "(We can and we do.) But we can admit it’s a BIG problem. BIG. HUGE. The lesson this week: Life is not a fairytale. Princesses need to save themselves. So pry yourself away from the telescope and join us."


Posted by Geoff at 9:04 PM CDT
Updated: Saturday, May 16, 2020 1:05 AM CDT
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Thursday, May 14, 2020
LUCA GUADAGNINO IS LATEST DIRECTOR FOR 'SCARFACE'
ALSO, HE COUNTS DE PALMA'S 'THE FURY' AS ONE OF THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/scarface.jpgLuca Guadagnino, director of the recent high-profile remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria, and who included Brian De Palma's The Fury on his top ten for the 2012 Sight & Sound greatest films of all time poll, "is now set to direct Universal Pictures’ reimagination of Scarface," according to Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro. "The new movie will be set in Los Angeles," D'Alessandro adds. "The pic’s shooting script will be off of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen’s version, who’ve been with the project for at least three years, with earlier drafts by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, Jonathan Herman and Paul Attanasio."

In fact, when Antoine Fuqua came back a second time as director of this "reimagination" in 2018, Dunnet-Alcocer was brought in to rewrite the Coen Brothers' 2017 draft. It sounds like that draft has since left the building along with Fuqua. Right around the first time Fuqua had left the project, in January of 2017 (prior to the Coen Brothers' involvement), Diego Luna was attached to play the lead. However, Diego confirmed to Collider's Jeff Sneider at Sundance this past January that he is no longer attached to Scarface.

Previously:

With Fuqua back, new writer for Scarface remake

Fuqua circles back to Scarface remake

David Ayer drops out of Scarface remake

David Ayer in talks for Scarface remake

Coen Brothers will rewrite Scarface script

Fuqua drops out of Scarface remake; Diego Luna will play lead

Terence Winter to tackle Scarface script

The Scarface remake just got a lot less interesting

Scarface remake is Larraín's dream project

The Scarface remake just got a lot more interesting

 


Posted by Geoff at 7:37 PM CDT
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Wednesday, May 13, 2020
VIDEO - THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROBERT DE NIRO
EDITED BY LUIS AZEVEDO, BEAUTIFULLY COVERS ENTIRE CAREER IN 4 MINUTES

Posted by Geoff at 7:35 AM CDT
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Tuesday, May 12, 2020
'WE WERE TALKING EARLIER ABOUT BRIAN DE PALMA'
WATCHING DIMITRI'S WALK IN 'GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL', WES ANDERSON SAYS IT FEELS INSPIRED BY DE PALMA
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/adrienwalk.jpg

Late last month, Criterion released a special edition of Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, which features a new audio commentary from a group made up of Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jeff Goldblum, and Kent Jones. Yesterday, Film School Rejects' Rob Hunter posted a list of things he learned from listening to the commentary track, including this tidbit:
Anderson notes that Dmitri’s (Adrien Brody) walk down the hotel hall feels inspired by Brian De Palma. “We were talking earlier about Brian De Palma,” he adds a beat later.

Posted by Geoff at 8:10 AM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, May 13, 2020 7:40 AM CDT
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Thursday, May 7, 2020
LISTEN TO DE PALMA'S DISCUSSION WITH ALEC BALDWIN
"SO HERE I AM AT 116TH STREET AT 3 IN THE MORNING, STARING INTO AN EMPTY TUNNEL, SAYING, I'M GOING TO DIRECT THIS NOW"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/baldwinpodcast.jpgThis week, Alec Baldwin's Here's the Thing podcast features last October's on-stage conversation with Brian De Palma at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Baldwin provides an intro to the episode:
The Untouchables, Casualties of War, The Bonfire Of The Vanities, Raising Cain, Carlito's Way, Mission: Impossible... Brian De Palma didn't just make all those movies, he made all those movies... in a row. Nobody balances suspense, action, and character better than he does. Each film is a master class in building tension, with tracking shots, disconcerting angles, and split screens. And then he releases that tension with the blunt shock of violence. In any De Palma film, the camera is ultimately the star. De Palma is the son of a surgeon, and he went to Columbia for physics. But he quickly discovered where his true passion lay. You know him as a virtuosic movie director, but before that, he was a fixture of the experimental Greenwich Village movie scene of the 1960s. That's where he cast a then-unknown actor named Bobby De Niro. Fitting, since De Palma later became known for working with all the greatest actors. His very first Hollywood movie starred Orson Welles. Last summer, the Hamptons International Film Festival gave Brian De Palma the Lifetime Achievement Award. I was honored to speak with him in front of a live audience when he came to accept it.

At the start of the conversation, Baldwin says to De Palma, "Directing is an unbelievably difficult task. When did you know you could do that?"

De Palma responds: "This is a long funny story. I was head of the Columbia players. And the Varsity Show is a very big thing at Columbia. So there were two shows up to be voted for. And I was just an apprentice that was going to take over the Columbia Players the following year. So, in these situations, everybody's, you know, got their own sort of corrupt intent, because, if you do my play, I get to play the lead, and you get to direct, da da da. I knew nothing about this. There were two really good scripts. One by Steve Rossen, who was one of my school mates at Columbia, and the other one by Terry McNally, a very funny comedy." [A Columbia College obit of McNally, who passed away earlier this year, notes that "McNally wrote the 66th Annual Varsity Show, The Streets of New York, in 1958."] "And they fought for hours, and they were deadlocked, you know, like six-to-six, and it was getting late, and it was about midnight, and they said, they looked over to me, because I had read both scripts, and they said, well, let the kid decide. So I said, well, I think that Terry McNally's script is funny, let's do that one. 'Great!' Everybody leaves.

"That night, I was shooting my first short, which consisted of Pan coming out of the tunnel at 116th Street. I was not the director, I was just author and cinematographer. I get to the location and my director arrives, Gene Marner, I'll never forget his name. And he comes with his very Sicilian girlfriend named Charley. And she comes over to me, and she says, 'You fucking idiot! You didn't vote for the Rossen play? Didn't you know that Gene was going to direct it?' And I go, 'Huh?' [Baldwin laughs] And then they walked off. And they took the lead actor with them. So here I am, at 116th Street, at three in the morning, staring into an empty tunnel, saying, 'I'm gonna direct this now.'

Baldwin: "And that's it."

De Palma: "That's it."

Baldwin: "And you found some waitress at an all-night diner and said, 'Come with me, you're my lead!' You didn't need any actress for the shot?"

De Palma: "No, I had to go out and find my own actors and start all over again."


Posted by Geoff at 8:43 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, May 9, 2020 11:07 AM CDT
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Saturday, May 2, 2020
'MISSION IMPOSSIBLE' ON CBS SUNDAY MAY 17
BLOCKBUSTER CORONAVIRUS PROGRAMMING, AS SERIES PRODUCTION COMES TO A HALT
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/cbssundaymovie.jpg

With many regularly scheduled TV series falling short of production in the wake of Coronavirus shut-downs all over the place, CBS is bringing back its Sunday Night At The Movies beginning this weekend, and all through May. You might say the network is looking to bring back the sort of time when everybody seemed to be watching The F.B.I. on ABC every Sunday night, as in Quentin Tarantino's latest, Once Upon A Time In... Hollywood. Bookended by two of Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones movies (Raiders Of The Lost Ark May 3rd, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade May 31st), Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible will air smack dab in the middle, on May 17th. The other two films are Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump (May 10th) and James Cameron's Titanic (May 24th).

""It's a five-week programming event with epic films, iconic stars, and brilliant stories that viewers love—and love to watch together," CBS programming exec Noriko Kelley states in the CBS press release. CBS also put together a retro-fashioned promo commercial that can be watched on its Facebook page.

"All hail the return of CBS ‘Sunday Night at the Movies’ in May," reads a San Francisco Chronicle headline from this past week. Forbes' Scott Mendelson expects that a new commercial for Paramount's upcoming Tom Cruise-starring Top Gun: Maverick will air during the Mission: Impossible slot May 17th. At The Stranger, Bobby Roberts writes:

It's so bizarre to see the CBS Sunday Night Movie come back to brodcast TV after being made more-or-less obsolete by cable back in the '90s. And then cable was made obsolete in the '00s by the internet, and now because the movie industry doesn't know what it's going to be in the near future, media companies like Viacom/CBS are looking at all these watch parties, looking at their network programming, noticing their large back catalogs, and boom: The Sunday Night Movie returns with a slightly different name at 8pm tonight, presenting a perfect excuse for everyone to get together at the same time, in the same place, and watch 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, maybe the most perfectly constructed film in cinema history. Maybe. I’m sure someone out there has an argument on deck, but I’m betting their champion of choice doesn’t include a giant pit of snakes; a fight inside, on top of, and hanging off the front of a truck at 50 mph; a holy box that melts Nazi faces like Totino’s Party Pizza; and—most importantly—the presence of peak Harrison Ford in all his sweaty, smirky, silly-yet-sexy glory.

Meanwhile, Rickey Fernandes Da Conceição at Goomba Stomp & Sordid Cinema posted his subjective list of the "40 Best Movies of 1996" today. De Palma's Mission: Impossible comes in at number 8. "One man has one chance to do the impossible," reads the quick-tag under the film's title. The description then reads, "An American agent, under false suspicion of disloyalty, must discover and expose the real spy without the help of his organization."

Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man gets the top spot on this list.


Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, May 3, 2020 1:34 AM CDT
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Thursday, April 30, 2020
'SHE'S ALLERGIC TO CATS' FREE SCREENING TONIGHT
"RECREATION OF THE CARRIE PROM SCENE WITH A BEWILDERED TIARA-CLAD TABBY" WORTH WATCHING, SAYS CRITIC
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/shesallergictocats.jpg

Michael Reich's She's Allergic To Cats hit film festivals three or four years ago, but has just been released this year to several streaming platforms. I haven't seen it yet, but by all accounts, the film's main character is a dog groomer and aspiring filmmaker whos dream project is a remake of his favorite horror film, Carrie, done with live-action cats. The film, starring Mike Pinkney and Sonja Kinski (the daughter of Nastassja Kinski and granddaughter of Klauss Kinski), screens for free at 7pm eastern tonight courtesy the Laser Blast Digital Society in association with Spectacle Theater.

"Shot on high quality digital and downgraded through analogue processes to give the appearance of VHS," writes The Movie Waffler's Eric Hillis, "She’s Allergic to Cats is a movie that seems determined to alienate as many viewers as possible from the off. Its eventual audience will likely be small enough to fit in its protagonist’s cramped apartment, but give yourself over to its grimy aesthetic and absurdist humour and you’ll find it a charming piece of punk filmmaking. You might even find some of its lo-fi images quite beautiful, and if nothing else, its recreation of the Carrie prom scene with a bewildered tiara-clad tabby is worth the rental price alone."

Update: I watched the free screening tonight, enjoyed it very much. In the chat alongside the movie, Reich mentions that the version screened tonight at Twitch was the original cut ("slightly different" than the version streaming on iTunes and Amazon Prime). He said part of the reason the movie is being released in 2020 instead of in 2017 is because he had to change some of the songs he had used in the original cut due to issues in getting the rights. He also mentioned that the dog who plays Karma in the film was Sonja Kinksi's real dog, Audrey, who has since passed away. Reich is now working on a Christmas-themed horror movie.


Posted by Geoff at 8:45 AM CDT
Updated: Thursday, April 30, 2020 7:22 PM CDT
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Wednesday, April 29, 2020
EDGAR WRIGHT DOUBLE BILL - ARGENTO & DE PALMA
TWEET FROM TUESDAY
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/tweetedgardouble.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 11:44 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 11:45 PM CDT
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Tuesday, April 28, 2020
DEVITO - FROM 'WISE GUYS' TO DIRECTING HIS OWN FILMS
3 YEARS LATER, HE WAS WORKING WITH BURUM & SPLIT DIOPTERS ON 'WAR OF THE ROSES'
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/wiseguysdiopter3small.jpg



After starring with Joe Piscopo in Brian De Palma's Wise Guys in 1986, Danny DeVito began directing films of his own. For 1987's Throw Momma From The Train, DeVito even brought Joe Napolitano along from Wise Guys to be first assistant director. Crítico Cítrico points out on Twitter that by the time of The War Of The Roses in 1989, DeVito was "utilizing bifocal lenses even at lunch. This last expression is literal." The War Of The Roses was shot by Stephen H. Burum, who was De Palma's go-to cinematographer from around that time, and all the way through the year 2000. Wise Guys was shot by Fred Schuler, who had been a camera operator on many of the most beloved films of the 1970s (Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, Network, Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter) before becoming a cinematographer on films by the likes of John Cassavetes (Gloria) and Martin Scorsese (The King Of Comedy), among many others.

Here are two of the four split-diopter frames from The War Of The Roses that were posted by Crítico Cítrico:


Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, August 12, 2023 9:28 AM CDT
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