now is time for the Brian De Palma's best film

o dude u know what we do to people who dont like full metal jacket around here

Gouge out my eyeballs and skull-fuck me? I do like it, especially (obviously) the first 40 minutes. But I think COW is better.

lol was gonna go w/unscrew yr head and shit down yr neck

Carlito's WAy is sooooooooooooo much better than Scarface. It actually has an anti-hero that you don't think is a complete piece of shit, for one.

Fuck you all, The Fury is fucking great.

I loved it too much as a kid to let it go forever, but is there something to the idea that transgressive shifts of tone and over-the-top slow-mo and otherwise toying with audience expectations in a new way have a shelf life? Because once I rejected those things, I just saw one-dimensional characters and Penthouse cinematography.

Still haven't seen Snake Eyes. Should I?

Why did you reject "toying with audience expectations in a new way"?

xpost Snake Eyes is pretty silly, esp the third act, but a lot of fun DePalma stuff in it - one of his best opening long takes and NICOLAS CAGE

The Fury is a deeply silly movie and yeah, if you "reject" all the bells and whistles and weirdness you're left with a pretty generic Carrie-government-conspiracy movie.

lol didn't even realize I wrote "silly" two posts in a row - now three!

I'd watch every De Palma I've seen again (Snake Eyes included) except The Black Dahlia, but then I avoided Bonfire (the book was fun for its descriptions, not its "ideas"). I rejected the De Palma-isms of The Fury the second time around because they seemed dated and indulgent. I sometimes think there's this De Palma switch where you're either in the palm of his hand or laughing at the hand, and he seems to want both reactions at once sometimes, except it's a true binary. And so much of his horror is hysterical, like the treatment of pretty much any real-life phenomena (mental illness, anonymous hook-ups) in Dressed to Kill.

Casualties of War, I don't know. It's been 20 years, but I felt as if the film was lurid, and about a crime that could happen in any war. The great movie about Vietnam crimes remains the documentary Winter Soldier, which was about how policy changed the way war was waged.

Sorry to put ideas in scare quotes, I just can't imagine a good movie of that book being made.

Taglines:
What kind of guys gamble with the boss's money, swipe a killer's Cadillac, and party on the mob's credit card?

Memorable quotes
Harry Valentini: [in the bathroom at the racetrack] Golden brown Knishes. Mmmmmmm. Can you smell 'em Moe, huh? Can you? Can you smell 'em?
Moe Dickstein: [a toilet flushes] It's the guy in the next stall Harry!

Carlito's WAy is sooooooooooooo much better than Scarface. It actually has an anti-hero that you don't think is a complete piece of shit, for one.

Yeah I love John Leguizamo too.

there's this De Palma switch where you're either in the palm of his hand or laughing at the hand

That's De Palma, right there.

i saw him on the street on his birthday!

No one should be homeless on their 70th birthday.

I'll always be mystified as to how anyone considers Scarface anything but laughably bad.

― clemenza, Saturday, September 11, 2010 11:49 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im vaguely mystified that people take scarface at face value

― ice cr?m, Saturday, September 11, 2010 11:57 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

veer wildly btwn both but it doesn't stop me enjoying it nonetheless.

Casualties of War, I don't know. It's been 20 years, but I felt as if the film was lurid, and about a crime that could happen in any war. The great movie about Vietnam crimes remains the documentary Winter Soldier, which was about how policy changed the way war was waged.

I felt like this was a problem in Redacted, but Casualties Of War didn't feel as aggressive about extrapolating something about that specific war from the crime. I felt like the earlier film dealt more with the lead's guilt and complicity as a witness (BIIIIG DePalma subject) where Redacted got really shrill and WAKE UP AMERICA WAKE UP about it in comparison.

I saw Winter Soldier a couple of years ago. Someone spoke that night--maybe someone from the film, I can't remember. I thought it was good, but it didn't hit me like Casualties of War, and I find it difficult to compare them anyway.

not to mention that Casualties Of War (which isn't any more lurid than any of his Nancy Allen movies, though arguably more uncomfortable because it's not set in an updated Hitchockville) really uses the breadth of DePalma's visual gifts (those rack focuses!) while a lot of Redacted consists of guys screaming at each other beneath security cams.

xpost based on that comparison, did people at the time see Casualties Of War as DePalma's attempt to outdo Platoon or something? Because I think its more impressive as DePalma's taking on something heavier than serial killers than his EXPLAINING VIETNAM

I forget if I already said it in this thread, but the first 1/3 of Redacted is pretty outstanding, more like if DePalma had made a Hi Mom! about Iraq. It only melts down when it tries to throw Casualties into the mix and winds up doing a disservice to both.

Both that and Black Dahlia had just enough great stuff among the bad bad bad ideas that I still get excited for his next film even if I can't actually recommend the previous ones to anyone other than hardcore DePalma fans.

I can't bring myself to defend Redacted. Parts of it were "worst movie ever" territory.

sometimes think there's this De Palma switch where you're either in the palm of his hand or laughing at the hand, and he seems to want both reactions at once sometimes, except it's a true binary.

I really disagree with this being a "true binary" - there are plenty of horror movies where I know the tricks they're using, but they're getting me excited all the same.

Yeah, it's not a true dichotomy. Dressed to Kill and Raising Cain are scary-funny.

People have differing levels of tolerance for it though - Raising Cain trips into the "no, this is just bad" category for me - and it really does seem like movies that play with the "is this bad or just shameless and campy" - Snakes On A Plane, Drag Me To Hell, A-Team - are destined to underwhelm at the box office.

I'd say Carrie is really scary-funny--some of Travolta and Allen's back-and-forth is fantastic.

Same here. I find Carrie genuinely scary-funny, Raising Cain just insanely over-the-top, which is easier and rarely as worthwhile (Strangelove and some other things pull it off).

as much as DePalma gets slighted by his peers (I wonder how he felt when his old drinking buddies Speilberg, Lucas and Coppola gave Scorsese his belated Oscar), all these directors wrestling with self-awareness and the marketplace really need to tip their hat to him.

Raising Cain just insanely over-the-top, which is easier and rarely as worthwhile (Strangelove and some other things pull it off)

Meaning it's OK to be over the top when reality is JUST AS INSANE, MAN?!

I lost you there. Maybe I tried to overthink something very simple: Strangelove is funny, Raising Cain isn't.

Mostly I was wondering why Cain and Strangelove were being compared in the first place. (And parts of Cain are pretty funny imo.)

I find RC hilarious, even John Lithgow's hamminess. I was wrong upthread to call it scary.

I still think it's hilarious that anybody thought to cast Hilary Swank as Madeleine in Black Dahlia. Like I've always thought she's cute, but she's nobody's doppleganger, least of all Mia Kirschner.

I've heard nothing but bad things about the movie, which is a shame as I loved Ellroy's book. I think it'd make for a great miniseries.

you can hear some good things right now- it's weird but has a compelling vibe (though it's really inconsistent in tone)- but i've never read the book so prob enjoyed it better for that

Strangelove and Cain are probably a bad comparison. I just meant that they both have over-the-top performances, and that in one film they work (for me) but not in the other.

I just bought a budget DVD of Dahlia. I'll probably pick it up numerous times over the coming months, think "Do I want to give this a try?", and end up watching something I've seen six or seven times already instead.

What kind of maniac votes for Bonfire?

exercising their right to vanity

I still think it's hilarious that anybody thought to cast Hilary Swank as Madeleine in Black Dahlia. Like I've always thought she's cute, but she's nobody's doppleganger, least of all Mia Kirschner.

The audition reels of Kirschner talking with an off-screen DePalma are GREAT, but oh god Swank is the wrong kind of campy. Originally DePalma wanted Fairuza Balk for the role which would have been so much better, but I guess the producers wanted some of that Oscar magic.

Dahlia was butchered to all for release, wasn't it? I was watching it again a few months ago, and while I don't think a longer cut could save its problems (Swank, for instance), it definitely might improve it.

jennifer connelly would have been a proper doppelganger

black dahlia was pretty painful for me. feel like there is a *great* movie (maybe even a great depalma movie) lurking in there, but it was just bad. if i had voted in this poll, i might've voted Sisters.

the last thing a batshit OTT novel like the black dahlia needed was a batshit OTT director, it kinda brought out the worst in both the core story and the filmmaker.

^^ batshit OTT post

the last thing a batshit OTT novel like the black dahlia needed was a batshit OTT director, it kinda brought out the worst in both the core story and the filmmaker.

I think a bad cast was a much bigger problem with this movie than an OTT director - the most entertaining scene was the OTT dinner sequence!

josh hartnett is just the worst

yeah, he really is. so dull. at least the worst of depalma's other movies still have pretty great off the wall performances (cage in snake eyes, for ex.), but Hartnett is so boring.

I try to actively avoid movies he's in. It was also funny hearing him say the opening lines to Sin City in bad pseudo-noir speech

it's funny cuz when I read Black Dahlia, I pictured people much tougher and less pencil-dicked than Eckhart and Hartnett. I mean Hartnett a former boxer? Dude looks like the kind of guy who freaks out if you tussle his hair.