Go pet a puppy, deeznuts.
― Eric H., Thursday, 15 May 2008 13:58 (sixteen years ago) link
Referring to him as a legitimate peer of Scorsese, Coppolla, etc. is nuts.
No shit. Those two suck compared to De Palma.
― Eric H., Thursday, 15 May 2008 14:00 (sixteen years ago) link
I think he's more then a glorified grindhouse director...I think as a craftsman he's as good as anybody, regardless of originality or script or any of that stuff.
the telescope scene and mall-chase scenes in Body Double (1984)
that's the best!
http://acuterecords.com/BodyDouble.mp3
― dan selzer, Thursday, 15 May 2008 14:04 (sixteen years ago) link
the day after i watched body double this summer i spent like 6 hours trying to track down a copy of the soundtrack
― max, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:03 (sixteen years ago) link
body double is really crazy.
― latebloomer, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:12 (sixteen years ago) link
carlito's way still rules.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:15 (sixteen years ago) link
so many incredible movies on this list.
so many terrible ones too but who cares.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Where is the love for Phantom of the Paradise?
BEEF
― emil.y, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:19 (sixteen years ago) link
xp: The incredible ones ARE the terrible ones, or at least the ridiculous ones.
Eric, that is weird re Rosenbaum and Obsession (which I like) -- he didn't write exactly what I said about FF, but look...
I'd always been annoyed by De Palma's intricate borrowings from Alfred Hitchcock, which I've tended to see more as mangled tributes than as perceptive appreciations. My misgivings were only reinforced when his biggest fans, especially Pauline Kael and her most literal followers, implied that Hitchcock was a bit of a hack next to the genius De Palma -- suggesting that Hitchcock churned out dross, which his disciple somehow turned into the pure gold of sublime trash... Say what you will about Hitchcock's calculation, his work displays an almost limitless curiosity about human behavior, whereas De Palma's shows an interest in people (as opposed to types and figures) that approaches zero.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/archives/2002/1102/021108.html
How does that square w/ putting one of those "mangled tributes" on an all-time 100 list?
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:27 (sixteen years ago) link
when did kael and her most literal followers imply that?
― max, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:28 (sixteen years ago) link
(genuine interest not passive-aggressive zing attempt)
― max, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:29 (sixteen years ago) link
like wise guys and raising cain?
― s1ocki, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:29 (sixteen years ago) link
i agree that de palma is colder, perhaps less "interested in people" than hitchcock... or a lot of other director's. he's no renoir. but i don't really care. i like him for different reasons. not everyone has to be a great expansive humanist.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:30 (sixteen years ago) link
Haven't read Kael/Kaelites on BdP recently enough to know where JR's coming from...
I find the ridiculousness in The Fury to be about 40% entertaining and 60% annoyingly empty tech moves.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:35 (sixteen years ago) link
I think movies like Dressed to Kill are more "meta Hitchcock" rather than just "borrowing from Hitchcock".
― latebloomer, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:36 (sixteen years ago) link
I didn't like The Fury.
― dan selzer, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:44 (sixteen years ago) link
-- latebloomer, Thursday, May 15, 2008 4:36 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
ya, this. they go beyond homage or allusion into their own weird category.
― s1ocki, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Phantom of the Paradise by leaps and bounds.
― methanietanner, Thursday, 15 May 2008 21:06 (sixteen years ago) link
Blow Out! One of my favorite films. Alfred's right about Craig Sheffer (feh) in Body Double. And The Black Dahlia is the worst, not just of DePalma, but of everything ever.
― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Thursday, 15 May 2008 21:19 (sixteen years ago) link
It would be really hard to choose between these two for a worst poll.
― Eazy, Thursday, 15 May 2008 21:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Craig Sheffer
Craig Wasson! Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors!
― Savannah Smiles, Thursday, 15 May 2008 22:37 (sixteen years ago) link
Redacted is pretty safely in the lead as De Palma's worst.
― Eric H., Thursday, 15 May 2008 23:40 (sixteen years ago) link
What's that thing Orson Welles said, something about how being a director is like a child having a huge Erector set at its disposal? More than any Hollywood film this decade, Femme Fatale comes closest to conveying the excitement in that statement. So that one.
― Kevin John Bozelka, Friday, 16 May 2008 20:33 (sixteen years ago) link
What an odd but cool career this guy has had. I saw the Fury for the first time a few months ago, and it was pretty wacked-out.
I haven't seen Sisters since I was, like, 13 years old or something, but I remember it being super-creepy.
― dell, Friday, 16 May 2008 20:58 (sixteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― ILX System, Friday, 23 May 2008 23:01 (sixteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― ILX System, Saturday, 24 May 2008 23:01 (sixteen years ago) link
Didn't expect a Hi Mom! vote.
― C0L1N B..., Sunday, 25 May 2008 00:56 (sixteen years ago) link
haha, less voters = better results
― Eric H., Friday, 6 June 2008 23:08 (sixteen years ago) link
Got my copy of the Criterion version of Blow Out yesterday: will watch again tonight. Beautiful packaging.
― My mom is all about capital gains tax butthurtedness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 30 April 2011 18:32 (thirteen years ago) link
ha yeah i picked that up yesterday too, can't wait to watch it!
― shamefully blowable (latebloomer), Saturday, 30 April 2011 22:00 (thirteen years ago) link
i bought a vhs of obsession at a book sale for $.50 today
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 30 April 2011 22:59 (thirteen years ago) link
Not a huge fan of it, myself.
― scissorlocks and the three bears (Eric H.), Sunday, 1 May 2011 04:27 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm trying to come up with a parallel for calling Bri underrated. Derek Jeter, maybe.
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 May 2011 04:43 (thirteen years ago) link
got this on Blu-Ray and am very much looking forward to see how it looks. i did watch the Baumbach/De Palma interview and it had its moments. funny for revealing bits like "what was that movie we watched the other day? how they did that thing, TERRIBLE!". guess they're pals.
this has been pretty solidly my favorite De Palma film, but it's been a while. looking forward to a re-watch.
― circa1916, Sunday, 1 May 2011 09:04 (thirteen years ago) link
Really, this movie is political? Uh-uh.
btw, aside from Obsession on TV, probably the first film of his I saw, on initial release.
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 May 2011 09:25 (thirteen years ago) link
there's a Criterion of Blow Out?! man i've gotta get that. how is it?
i think Blow Out is one of the saddest fictional films ever made by anyone; so sad and so amazing.
― piscesx, Sunday, 1 May 2011 11:25 (thirteen years ago) link
It's political like JFK is political...
― My mom is all about capital gains tax butthurtedness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 1 May 2011 11:33 (thirteen years ago) link
i.e. entertaining
― scissorlocks and the three bears (Eric H.), Sunday, 1 May 2011 15:10 (thirteen years ago) link
and with no politics besides "They're out to get me."
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 May 2011 16:14 (thirteen years ago) link
no, c'mon, it's nowhere as dumbass as JFK.
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 May 2011 16:15 (thirteen years ago) link
The Untouchables: Capone Rising (2008) (in production)
um I'm guessing this didn't happen?
― suge knight rider (Neanderthal), Sunday, 1 May 2011 16:23 (thirteen years ago) link
You really don't want to watch the Baumbach-De Palma interview, in which DP shows that he stopped paying attention to politics in Nov. 1963.
― My mom is all about capital gains tax butthurtedness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 1 May 2011 16:59 (thirteen years ago) link
that's unsurprising, I'm sure Dario Argento has been neglecting Italian politics too.
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 May 2011 17:03 (thirteen years ago) link
After weeks of Shoah and Satantango and Week End and Sans Soleil, I just wanted to turn off my mind, relax, and float downstream the other night, so I finally took Femme Fatale off the shelf. Not that I don't think De Palma's made some very smart films: Carrie, Blow Out, and Casualties of War are three all-time favourites. Anyway, I thought he'd scraped bottom with Raising Cain--where at least Lithgow was comically bizarre--but Femme Fatale is much, much worse.
― clemenza, Thursday, 23 August 2012 21:10 (eleven years ago) link
I remember liking it. It's way better than Black Dahlia certainly.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, 23 August 2012 21:15 (eleven years ago) link
All I remember is the scene in which the subtitles get big, bigger, BIGGEST.
― Earth, Wind & Fire & Alabama (Eazy), Thursday, 23 August 2012 21:17 (eleven years ago) link
I bought that a while back too...Not singling you out or anything, Alex--it got two votes above, and does pretty well on the IMDB rating--but what did you like about it? I found it was one big overblown set-piece after another; De Palma has always had those, but in the three films I mentioned above, he was also careful to develop the story between those sequences. And the script...there was a certain epithet that kept getting hurled at Rebecca Romijn; it was like whenever he was stuck for the next line, he'd just pencil in the same two words.
― clemenza, Thursday, 23 August 2012 21:22 (eleven years ago) link
it's been a long time since I saw Femme Fatale but I liked it, and definitely am skeptical at any kind of "worse than raising cain" reading. Not really worried about thin story between the set pieces.
― da croupier, Thursday, 23 August 2012 21:31 (eleven years ago) link
wouldn't put it above his '70s & '80s classics though
― da croupier, Thursday, 23 August 2012 21:32 (eleven years ago) link