De Palma's 'Femme Fatale' C/D

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Made the cover of Film Comment in the States; went straight to video (defunct expression?) in the UK. Fit leading lady.

― Mike Skinner (Enrique), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 07:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Classic but folks could search like demonlover instead

― Scott & Anya (thoia), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Seeing it next Thursday. At the poncey ICA.

― Mike Skinner (Enrique), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 09:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Classy trash, the worst thing in the world.

I think things that go straight to video probably go to more videos than DVDs.

haha the first review at IMDB should make your mind up pretty easily.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 09:27 (twenty-two years ago)

slutsky to thread

― antexit (antexit), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 12:19 (twenty-two years ago)

was that the one with rebbeca stamos and antonio banderas? my gawd, i still have emotional damage from being exposed to that movie. Whoever wrote that script, should be hunted down and watch the movie on repeat until the end of eternity.

― jesus nathalie (nathalie), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 12:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Wonderful film.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

rebecca romijn is hot. is that what you're saying, adam?

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 13:46 (twenty-two years ago)

totally classic! i love this movie!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Best American movie I've seen in the '00s. But don't take my word.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

rebecca romijn is hot. is that what you're saying, adam?

Meh. She's too skinny for my tastes.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's DePalma's best film since Casualities Of War. It ain't perfect, but loaded with tons of enjoyable DePalma-isms (none of the self-loathing found in stuff like Raising Cain). Banderas is terrific.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Especially when he comes to her room to look for his computer disk and goes all camp and lispy.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

It's a blast and I'm surprised more people don't note the similarities between it and Mulholland Drive

Also, that guy getting off the bus from prison still wearing that bloody shirt

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

i gotta say, depalma-wise, snake eyes--underrated!!

(xp haha adam that scene is amazingly weird!)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

depalma actually copped to being influenced by mulholland drive in an interview, it's a great counterpoint to that movie!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't seen demonlover but I can't believe it's anywhere near as good as Femme Fatale.

I LOVE 3/4 of Snake Eyes.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

i gotta see demonlover

and yeah me too, the ending is terrible but otherwise it's pretty hot!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

oh let me know about demonlover. I do not think it looks good at all.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

it looks so... something. i dunno, i gotta see it.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:05 (twenty-two years ago)

The first 45 minutes of Snake Eyes are great. The last hour not so good. Femme Fatale has a terrible climax too.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:43 (twenty-two years ago)

but it's something else, isn't it?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Snake Eyes is indeed really underrated. And the reason I don't note comparisons between Femme Fatale and Mulholland Dr. is because Mulholland Dr. is shit. It's the difference between a director joyfully using his skills and a fetishist regurgitating his superficial obsessions.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

joyfully, I'll admit.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Something irritating, slocki. FTR the climax irritated me in Mulholland Drive too but I put up with that inanity a little better in wanky art flix than in thrillers.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Femme Fatale was a thriller? Ok, I can see people being annoyed if they came into it looking for that rather than DePalmosity. He's one of the few cases where I find myself becoming an auteurist.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 21:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Armond White's review of this film is one of the few times I mostly agree with him, even though he's a shithead.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it was supposed to be a thriller, yes. What it ended being was something far sillier. Still it had moments. I generally like Depalma even with the flaws. I still say Blow Out destroys Blow Up.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:03 (twenty-two years ago)

That would be Armond "anyone who dislikes Mission To Mars not only doesn’t understand movies, but doesn’t even like them" White?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Mission to Mars was boring and stupid btw.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

oh god, Mission To Mars was complete shit. And Blow Out totally kicks Blow Up's ass. I just didn't mind the silliness in Femme Fatale. Probably because it was about the French.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I also don't like a lot of recent French movies. I think the last French movie I really liked came out nearly ten years ago.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I love The Good Thief though I suppose that doesn't really count.

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 23:54 (twenty-two years ago)

It counts about as much as loving Sorcerer, I think.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 23:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you love Sorceror, Alex?

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 23:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Not as much as Wages of Fear, but yeah I like it. It's about as French as The Good Thief was what I meant though.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 20 May 2004 00:01 (twenty-two years ago)

The Wages of Fear is better, I like the Criterion disc lots.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 20 May 2004 00:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I need to rent that. I keep meaning to, but then I stop figuring maybe I should get a shorter movie, ya know haha

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 20 May 2004 00:05 (twenty-two years ago)

hey Darkness Falls is really short, haha

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 20 May 2004 00:12 (twenty-two years ago)

mercifully

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 20 May 2004 00:12 (twenty-two years ago)

mission to mars had that one good bit with the morricone organs and the weightlessness

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:45 (twenty-two years ago)

the camera moves too much--to no apparent purpose-- in that bathhroom scene in "femme fatale". otherwise it was...ok.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:49 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't know why de palma gets people so excited. some people hate him and some people (some french critics notably) luuuurve him.

has anyone seen his countercultural late '60s stuff with deniro?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:50 (twenty-two years ago)

because he makes exciting movies!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:51 (twenty-two years ago)

duh dude!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:51 (twenty-two years ago)

"because he makes exciting movies! "

...that i typically forget 10 minutes after they're over.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:52 (twenty-two years ago)

really? what movies of his have you seen? i find for me there's always some totally unforgettable stuff in them, the almost-dialogueless last half hour of carlito's way, a million different things in the untouchables, genevieve bujold as a kid in obsession etc etc

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:54 (twenty-two years ago)

well yeah genevieve bujold is kind of memorable as a rule

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I've seen Hi Mom! but not Greetings. I've heard from any given number of people that one is better than the other, or vice versa, but Hi Mom! is fantastic, either way. The "Be Black Baby" sequence proves that he was always capable of directing a showstopping setpiece even before he knew how to use lush, gliding camerawork (oh, sorry... moving the camera "too much," whatever that means).

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 20 May 2004 03:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I will NEVER NEVER NEVER forget the opening sequence of Snake Eyes (even though I can't remember anything after the opening.)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 20 May 2004 04:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Skipping 34 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

The absolute skeleton key to reading Kael is: she was always wrong. Take a view diammetrically opposed to hers and you're laughing.

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 21 May 2004 08:36 (twenty-two years ago)

that's way too easy

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 21 May 2004 08:57 (twenty-two years ago)

It saves time!

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 21 May 2004 08:58 (twenty-two years ago)

i wonder if kael would be less of a legend if she wasn't so disagreeable to so many people. i can't imagine anyone being completely in line with her tastes (or completely opposed to them, either)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 21 May 2004 15:11 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah it's very fashionable among a certain subsection of critics to bash her nowadays, which is sorta sad, since she isn't around to bash back. it all goes back to her "circles and squares" thing, in which she misses the point (i feel) of sarris's version of film criticism and fostered a lot of ill will. but kael herself was never diametrically opposed to the sarris-esque way of looking at things, in fact, as she and he frequently asserted after their tempers had died down. they both have pieces of the consensus now, i think: most film buffs accept basic notions of auterism, but the "film buff" canon more closely resembles kael's tastes than sarris's.

i like her criticism sometimes. i guess i find it a little unnecessarily infuriating. and i don't share her notion that hollywood cinema really only came into its own in the 70s with depalma/coppola/et al.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 21 May 2004 22:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I still like Kael, becase, when it comes right down to it, I don't think anyone outside of Manny Farber was able to so succinctly and so vividly describe what she was seeing on the screen. Her recall alone is in a class all its own.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Saturday, 22 May 2004 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Pauline Kael rules, fuck you all

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Saturday, 22 May 2004 12:30 (twenty-two years ago)

i watched the first half of it again last night! what a great opening!

(gotta love "est-ouest")

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Kael's reviews of the following films are basically essential reading: The Fury, High School, Shoah, West Side Story, Cabaret, anything by Altman up to and including Nashville, and that review of eight or nine movies under the banner "Fear of Movies."

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't rate Sarris *that* highly either, though his 'American Cinema 1928-68 is probably a bad representation. Auteurism was dead and/or superseded by the time Kael got to it, and I find her New Yorker superiority infuriating. I don't dislike all auteurists -- I think Robin Wood is one of THE greatest -- but in it's 'X is a capital-A Artist' moment I despise it. Fact is, a hell of a lot of her stuff is in print; but there are many more talented writers from the 60s/70s who are unfairly practically forgotten cos they never had the New Yorker gig.

― Caution, Wednesday, 26 May 2004 07:54 (twenty-two years ago)

"Auteurism was dead and/or superseded"

what does that mean?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 08:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Early 70s=new dawn of... AUTEUR-STRUCTURALISM!!! Certainly of theory, not that I hold to all of it; but the Kane essay is sort of weird because Kael is less innarested in what 'Kane' contains than in the big 'whodunnit'. Compare with the contemporaneous Cahiers reading of 'Young Lincoln' and... well, Pauline seems a bit '50s, really.

― Henry K M (Enrique), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 08:16 (twenty-two years ago)

four months pass...

awesome

― Riot Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 22 October 2004 05:58 (twenty-one years ago)

yes!

― adam. (nordicskilla), Friday, 22 October 2004 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

Second viewing last night, 4 years later -- still maybe my fave of BdP's. And why is the climax awful? For one thing, it actually has moral weight -- "Fuck, I'm saving both our lives..."

Saying Blow Out trumps Blow Up is nuttery!

SPOILER TIME

that guy getting off the bus from prison still wearing that bloody shirt

Hilarious, and retrospectively a clue -- cuz it's still WET, right? My fave clue to the twist is the giant water bottle pouring (frame right) when Fake French Romijn gets on the plane outta Paris. Then there's the giant 3:33 clock in the police station, and the overflowing fish tank. What else?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos gives the least-heralded funny performance of the last 5 years.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

this movie is still awesome. i like the posters of a woman dozing off in a bathtub as clues.

p.s. avoid 'the black dahlia'

― gear (gear), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:37 (nineteen years ago)

i love it too

still gotta see dahlia just for the record tho :(

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

i don't know anyone who liked it other than armond white and this dude i talked to who thought it was a comedy.

― gear (gear), Monday, 25 September 2006 19:57 (nineteen years ago)

Even my friend who is consumed with Josh Hartnett lust hated it.

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was just fine, and prolly won't get a part that good ever again.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 25 September 2006 20:04 (nineteen years ago)

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was just fine, and prolly won't get a part that good ever again

Her Mystique in X-Men was even more polymorphously perverse, but you hate polymorphously perverse women.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 25 September 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

It's good. And the thread seems pretty unanimous, apart from the usual killjoys.

― Run Ruud Run (Ken L), Monday, 25 September 2006 20:35 (nineteen years ago)

de palma's films are in the category of "can't decide if it's genius or awful." i mean, the scripts are so mickey spillane, but it's so stylishly filmed and such good pacing you can sometimes forgive...and getting romjin-stamos to strip, surely he deserves artistic accolades on that basis alone?

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, 25 September 2006 23:05 (nineteen years ago)

you don't see any "john stamos: auteur" threads on that last point, though

― gear (gear), Monday, 25 September 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

The acting in BD is AWFUL. The rest of the film was entertaining, with varying degrees of respectability.

― Zwan (miccio), Monday, 25 September 2006 23:49 (nineteen years ago)

1) hartnett POV meeting the mad family
2) crane shot over the apartment when BD's body is found

nothing else to salvage

― gear (gear), Monday, 25 September 2006 23:52 (nineteen years ago)

1) is just a homage to Lady In The Lake

― Zwan (miccio), Monday, 25 September 2006 23:53 (nineteen years ago)

I like to think that DePalma had no say in the casting (he picked up this project relatively late in the game), and really didn't give a shit beyond his cranes and whatnot, but I'm probably projecting.

― Zwan (miccio), Monday, 25 September 2006 23:55 (nineteen years ago)

he went from (possibly) his best film to probably his worst one. i dunno about 'capone rising'. maybe they can trot out billy drago for a sneering cameo?

xpost that makes sense

― gear (gear), Monday, 25 September 2006 23:56 (nineteen years ago)

It was cool to see that goofy dude from his '70s flicks as the psycho, though!

― Zwan (miccio), Monday, 25 September 2006 23:56 (nineteen years ago)

around the sixth time someone said, 'she looks like that dead girl!', someone in the audience moaned 'they look nothing alike!'

― gear (gear), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:02 (nineteen years ago)

they didn't! plus Hilary Swank was, like, drag queen bad.

― Zwan (miccio), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:03 (nineteen years ago)

yknow if it was just hartnett and no johanssen or just johanssen and no hartnett i could deal but two mannequins in a late depalma flick is a bridge too far for me.

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:03 (nineteen years ago)

Harnett at least was trying in some Treat Williams-like fashion. Scarlett's just the indie Pamela Anderson.

― Zwan (miccio), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:04 (nineteen years ago)

is _the horse whisperer_ retroactively creepy?

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:05 (nineteen years ago)

It's possible the best acting in BD was from that fat dude from Dumb & Dumber

― Zwan (miccio), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:06 (nineteen years ago)

jeff daniels?

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:21 (nineteen years ago)

no, he's in Earth-2 Capote

― Zwan (miccio), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:34 (nineteen years ago)

you're right! no the fat dude who played frenchy in 'goodfellas'.

josh hartnett was about as good as sj and aaron eckhart combined. i thought hilary swank was intentionally weird, i guess at least she tried something different. anyway if the only way we can get good l.a.-in-the-fifties cops brought to life onscreen is to outsource to australia, by all means keep doing it.

― gear (gear), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:36 (nineteen years ago)

i went to a james ellroy reading of 'the black dahlia' a week prior to opening. a friend of mine asked him if the flick was any good, he said we should just see it. then he added he didn't have any input into it whatsoever.

― gear (gear), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:37 (nineteen years ago)

i read some interviews where he said he liked that josh harnett could be seen "thinking" in every scene. and he liked mia kirshner, who actually was better than the fat guy. Forgot about her scenes.

― Zwan (miccio), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 00:42 (nineteen years ago)

You guys know there's a fucking Black Dahlia thread, right?

The Fatale DVD extras are worth watching just to hear De Palma say "ass."

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 12:26 (nineteen years ago)

I guess I am the only one who found R.R.S. weirdly wooden. I think she is better used as a sexy mutant who rarely speaks.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 26 September 2006 13:11 (nineteen years ago)

I would never have recalled that Bloody Shirt was the actor who played Lumumba.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 16:07 (nineteen years ago)

pepper dennis, it was all a dream...

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Friday, 29 September 2006 12:09 (nineteen years ago)

how cum u get 1/2 swank ass, but the full harnett?

― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Friday, 29 September 2006 14:03 (nineteen years ago)

three years pass...

goddam. just watched this for the 1st time. best movie i've seen since, i dunno, since rewatching body double (or phenomena, or once upon a time in the west, or inland empire, or the red shoes, something like that). i wish i were one of those people who gets all obsessed with the things they love and really studies them and learns from them and works to keep up with whatever's going on in this or that career. because i love depalma to death, and often think he's the best filmmaker of our era. i usually think this while watching his films, and just after, but then my mind wanders... i mean, it took me 8 goddam years to get around to watching this brilliant fucking movie! what kind of half-assed fandom is that?

the ending was a bit overstated, but otherwise incredible. and yeah, "overstated" is a difficult criticism to apply to depalma. i mean, everything he does is so wildly, deliberately overstated, and all the best things about his films arise from that overstatement. but it's a fine line, and he stumbles at least as often as he walks it, which makes his real triumphs, like femme fatale, so surprising and rewarding. watched this thing in a state of drop-jawed fascination, all but overwhelmed by my own joy in the craftsmanship. reminds me of everything i like in film, of argento, lynch and verhoeven at their best, of hitchcock (of course), but also of kenneth anger and bergman's hour of the wolf. i think of this as the cinema of ecstasy: garish excess and sideshow hokum transformed by obsessive devotion into a hypnotic, almost psychedelic art form. my favorite thing in the world. drape me in filthy furs and diamonds, smear me in dime store cosmetics, fill me full of lead. (ahem)

― a CRASBO is a "criminally related" ASBO (contenderizer), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 07:58 (fifteen years ago)

All I remember of this is the subtitles that get bigger and Bigger and BIGGER.

― gato busca pleitos (Eazy), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:01 (fifteen years ago)

love this movie. been too long.

― the itsytitchyschneider (s1ocki), Tuesday, 3 August 2010 13:08 (fifteen years ago)

Really glad DePalma has at least one movie in the late part of his career I can rep for unreservedly, and this is it.

― da croupier, Tuesday, 3 August 2010 14:12 (fifteen years ago)

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