Hello and welcome to the unofficial Brian De Palma website.
Here is the latest news:

De Palma a la Mod

E-mail
Geoffsongs@aol.com

De Palma Discussion
Forum

-------------

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

-------------

Exclusive Passion
Interviews:

Brian De Palma
Karoline Herfurth
Leila Rozario

------------

AV Club Review
of Dumas book

------------

« April 2025 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30

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
Love, Dr. Jones!

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
Bart De Palma
Beaune Thriller Fest
Becoming Visionary
Betty Buckley
Bill Pankow
Black Dahlia
Blow Out
Blue Afternoon
Body Double
Bonfire Of The Vanities
Books
Boston Stranglers
Bruce Springsteen
Cannes
Capone Rising
Carlito's Way
Carrie
Casualties Of War
Catch And Kill
Cinema Studies
Clarksville 1861
Columbia University
Columbo - Shooting Script
Congo
Conversation, The
Cop-Out
Cruising
Daft Punk
Dancing In The Dark
David Koepp
De Niro
De Palma & Donaggio
De Palma (doc)
De Palma Blog-A-Thon
De Palma Discussion
Demolished Man
Dick Vorisek
Dionysus In '69
Domino
Dressed To Kill
Edward R. Pressman
Eric Schwab
Fatal Attraction
Femme Fatale
Film Series
Fire
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Fury, The
Genius of Love
George Litto
Get To Know Your Rabbit
Ghost & The Darkness
Greetings
Happy Valley
Havana Film Fest
Heat
Hi, Mom!
Hitchcock
Home Movies
Icarus
Inspired by De Palma
Iraq, etc.
Jack Fisk
Jared Martin
Jerry Greenberg
Keith Gordon
Key Man, The
Laurent Bouzereau
Lights Out
Lithgow
Magic Hour
Magnificent Seven
Mission To Mars  «
Mission: Impossible
Mod
Montreal World Film Fest
Morricone
Mr. Hughes
Murder a la Mod
Nancy Allen
Nazi Gold
Newton 1861
Noah Baumbach
NYFF
Obsession
Oliver Stone
Palmetto
Paranormal Activity 2
Parker
Parties & Premieres
Passion
Paul Hirsch
Paul Schrader
Pauline Kael
Peet Gelderblom
Phantom Of The Paradise
Pimento
Pino Donaggio
Predator
Prince Of The City
Print The Legend
Raggedy Ann
Raising Cain
Red Shoes, The
Redacted
Responsive Eye
Retribution
Rie Rasmussen
Robert De Niro
Rotwang muß weg!
Sakamoto
Scarface
Scorsese
Sean Penn
Sensuous Woman, The
Sisters
Snake Eyes
Sound Mixer
Spielberg
Star Wars
Stepford Wives
Stephen H Burum
Sweet Vengeance
Tabloid
Tarantino
Taxi Driver
Terry
The Tale
To Bridge This Gap
Toronto Film Fest
Toyer
Travolta
Treasure Sierra Madre
Tru Blu
Truth And Other Lies
TV Appearances
Untitled Ashton Kutcher
Untitled Hollywood Horror
Untitled Industry-Abuse M
Untouchables
Venice Beach
Vilmos Zsigmond
Wedding Party
William Finley
Wise Guys
Woton's Wake
Blog Tools
Edit your Blog
Build a Blog
RSS Feed
View Profile
You are not logged in. Log in
Thursday, March 13, 2025

https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/m2mcoffee2.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 12:08 AM CDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Wednesday, March 12, 2025

https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/m2mheadspin45.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 7:52 AM CDT
Updated: Thursday, March 13, 2025 4:45 PM CDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
DE PALMA TALKED TO BILL FENTUM ABOUT 'MISSION TO MARS'
THREE DAYS INTO THE FILM'S THEATRICAL RELEASE, 25 YEARS AGO
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/bfbdp.jpg

De Palma: "...we were always attempting to be as scientifically realistic as possible. We had all kinds of NASA advisors so that everything was as real as could be."

Posted by Geoff at 12:16 AM CDT
Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink | Share This Post
Monday, March 10, 2025
25 YEARS AGO TODAY - 'MISSION TO MARS' OPENED IN THEATERS
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/mission2mars155.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 7:43 AM CDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Sunday, March 9, 2025
GARY SINISE POSTS 'MISSION TO MARS' PHOTOS ON REDDIT
DE PALMA'S FILM HAD ITS PREMIERE AT THE EL CAPITAN THEATRE IN HOLLYWOOD ON MARCH 6, 2000
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/mission2mars14.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 12:00 AM CST
Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink | Share This Post
Monday, March 18, 2024
35MM 'MISSION TO MARS' AT MUSIC BOX THURSDAY NIGHT
CINEMA MORRICONE IN CHICAGO
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/tweetm2m35mm.jpg


Posted by Geoff at 10:34 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, March 18, 2024 10:43 PM CDT
Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink | Share This Post
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
'MISSION TO MARS' TO LAUNCH MORRICONE FILM SERIES IN MARCH
WITH UNTOUCHABLES SCREENING THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, AT MUSIC BOX IN CHICAGO
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/m2mspacewalk1.jpg

Part of what makes Brian De Palma's Mission To Mars so great is the out-there, innovative score that Ennio Morricone composed for the film. The programmers at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago surely recognize this, as Mission To Mars is scheduled to launch a week-long "Cinema Morricone" series on the evening of Thursday, March 21 (6:45pm start time). The series then continues the following afternoon with a 2pm screening of De Palma's The Untouchables. Here's the theatre's description of Mission To Mars:
In 1975, Disneyland opened Mission to Mars, a cost-conscious update of their Flight to the Moon attraction, which simulated interplanetary travel using vibrating seats and multiple 16mm projectors. It closed in 1992, and was eventually replaced by Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port. Eight years after its closure, Mission to Mars would enjoy the distinction of being the first Disneyland ride to receive a theatrical film adaptation (preceding The Country Bears, Pirates of the Caribbean, and two different iterations of The Haunted Mansion). If Mission to Mars the attraction was a thrifty repurposing of a Disney holding past its prime, its movie adaptation, an all-ages tentpole budgeted at $100 million and helmed by Scarface and Dressed to Kill director Brian De Palma, was anything but. It’s the year 2020 and the first manned expedition to Mars has successfully landed on the planet’s surface, an unforgivingly hostile landscape that summarily terminates the entire crew, save commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle). Luke’s best friend Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise), a classic space melodrama hero with a dead wife to make proud, charges ahead on an equally disastrous rescue mission which will kill more of his friends and end with the secrets of the cosmos revealed to the bedraggled survivors. Upon release, Mission to Mars ran afoul of mainstream American critics affronted by its undiluted sentimentality and genial space woo-woo, their dismissals stoking full-throated defenses from Cahiers du Cinéma (who placed it in their top ten of the year alongside films by Chantal Akerman and Edward Yang) and assorted De Palma auteurists for whom the film’s excellence was inextricable from its director’s formal trademarks. Featuring a stately and lush score from frequent De Palma collaborator Ennio Morricone.

Preceded by: “Our Lady of the Sphere” (Lawrence Jordan, 1969) – 10 min – 35mm from Canyon Cinema



Posted by Geoff at 11:59 PM CST
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Friday, November 17, 2023
TIM ROBBINS' 'REWARDING' PERFORMANCE IN 'MISSION TO MARS'
THE FILM IS A "WORTHWHILE REVISIT WHOSE INFLUENCE ON SUBSEQUENT SCI-FI EPICS IS UNDENIABLE"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/m2mvid10.jpg

A little out of the blue, seemingly, but at High On Films, Elliott Kendal includes Mission To Mars on his list of the "Top 10 Films of Tim Robbins" -
Though he does not have the reputation of Brad Pitt or the acclaim of Sean Penn, in the 1990s, Tim Robbins rapidly established himself as the most reliable leading man in Hollywood, equally adept as both a vulnerable audience insert and a smirking anti-hero. With his slicked-back hairdo and sizeable stature (standing at 2 meters tall), Robbins had a naturalistic watchability that made him the perfect anchor for some of the most acclaimed films of the decade and a muse for vaunted auteurs from Robert Altman to Brian De Palma.

In the 21st century, the aging Robbins has shrewdly shifted his attention to supporting roles, including one in Mystic River (2003), which earned him a much-deserved Academy Award. Recently, it has been the role of independent filmmakers to utilize most of his talents and producers at HBO, who cast Robbins as the Secretary of State in the cruelly overlooked miniseries The Brink. And then, of course, there’s his respectable output behind the camera: 1992’s Bob Roberts adapted a cult comedy caricature from Saturday Night Live into one of the finest political satires of the post-Cold War era, whereas Dead Man Walking’s musings about life on death row earned leading lady Susan Sarandon an Oscar.

This top 10 list will act as both an overview of Robbins’ decades-long contributions to American cinema and an evaluation of his finest performances to date, including stone-cold classics and underrated gems.

10. Mission to Mars (2000)

 

Mission to Mars is certainly the gutsiest film ever to take its name from a Disneyland ride. Brian De Palma‘s direction is typically virtuosic, Ennio Morricone’s score imbues the entire film with sweeping spectacle, and the cast is stacked with some of the era’s most reliable performers. The result is a film both admirable in its ambition and visual clarity but restrained in its execution due to studio interference and shoddy visual effects. Whilst Gary Sinise leads the cast, it’s Robbins who, as Commander Blake, gives the most rewarding performance with a distinctive character arc ending with the ultimate sacrifice and the movie’s most memorable scene.

As Saving Private Ryan realizes, in a story centering on the recovery of a person, the audience’s desire to see the character found is as much motivated by the search party’s likability as it is sympathy for the missing person. For all of its myriad flaws, Mission to Mars understands this, and the dynamics between the traveling space crew are fully realized, and the chemistry between the performers is palpable. Don’t be dissuaded by the poor reviews from some critics. Mission to Mars is a worthwhile revisit whose influence on subsequent sci-fi epics (The Martian in particular) is undeniable.


Posted by Geoff at 7:13 PM CST
Post Comment | View Comments (5) | Permalink | Share This Post
Friday, May 19, 2023
AUTHOR VICTOR LaVALLE ON 'MISSION TO MARS'
TWEETS "A MORE HOPEFUL VERSION OF PROMETHEUS"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/tweetm2mprometheus1.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink | Share This Post
Saturday, November 26, 2022
'MISSION TO MARS' SET PHOTO
TWEETED BY 'BEHIND THE CLAPPERBOARD', VIA AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/missiontomarsset55.jpg

Mission to Mars (2000). Brian De Palma
Cinematography: Stephen H. Burum
Camera Operator: Gordon Hyman.
Boom Operator: Charles O'Shea
Script Supervisor: Portia Tickell
Actor: Gary Sinise
Photo by: Rob McEwan
Via American Cinematographer

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Sunday, November 27, 2022 9:09 AM CST
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

Newer | Latest | Older