A really strong director would've made this sing. Buzz Kulik can't bring it. It should be good: solid story, real life locations, taciturn Jim Brown teams well with more chatty Gene Hackman.
But it's so lethargic. No excitement in the riot, or suspense in the siege, or sense of urgency. All the elements are there. I think James Poe wrote a good script.
A disappointment.
This feels like it was made so long ago. The template is actually more influenced by Brian De Palma movies than I recalled - the opening fake out, the twists, the paranoia, split screens.
It doesn't feel as smoothly directed as his best films though. It feels choppy. Cut about. Too often like a TV episode on the big screen.
Emmanuel Beart is beautiful and enigmatic but had she already had work done? Some poor special effects. The script is better than the final movie.
Watching this and comparing my old notes my views hadn't changed - opening number could've used more dancing, the James Marsden character is underutilised, it slows when it's about the adults, it's glorious and fun with a great heart.
I was thinking of while watching it that somewhere out there someone was tweeting "white saviour" ruining everyone's good time.
But it's fun. So fun. I wish Hollywood would make more musicals.
Decent central idea - origin story for the wizard - but James Franco isn't as compelling a lead as say Johnny Depp would have been, and it's sluggishly paced despite some decent actors and visuals. Maybe it needed songs.
Michelle Williams looks pretty and smiles at Franco. Rachel Weisz is fine. Mila Kunis ditto though you're aware her most interesting work will come later.
The chatty chimp was adequate. The china doll touching. There's GI battles.
It was fine, I guess.
The Wedding Party (1964) - comedy on an island, not very funny, interesting to see young de Niro and Jill Clayburgh, very French/British new wave influenced.
Murder a la Mod (1968) - interesting student feature only for completists but shows all his themes (voyeurism, Hitchcock references, satire, unfunny wacky comedy, women being murdered, stalking, fake outs, characters who make dodgy films for a living).
Greetings (1968) - would’ve meant more at the time, this is actually Cassavetes like rather than De Palma like, period piece, early showy de Niro performance.
Hi, Mom! (1970) - more polished than Greetings, maybe less effective, remarkable middle sequence (immersive theatre bit, you'll know it if you saw it) that I’m still processing .
Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972) - wacky comedy which proved Tommy Smothers wasn’t a leading man, very much of its time.
Sisters (1972) - terrific riff on Psycho, beautifully made, with great acting from Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt, wonderful score.
Phantom of the Paradise (1974) - nutty, subversive, consistently interesting, some unfortunate humour gaps, can see why it's a cult.
Obsession (1976) - never quite gets in gear for me, Genevieve Bujold a perfect Hitchcock heroine but Cliff Robertson not as good... interesting and it made money but I prefer his other Vertigo riffs.
Carrie (1976) - the most emotional De Palma? Perfect marriage of director, author and star, Sissy Spacek and King giving this agonising heart missing in the director’s other movies - why didn’t he direct another King book?
The Fury (1978) - fun action-thriller which I had low expectations for and enjoyed a lot, couldn’t pick the twists
Home Movies (1979) - De Palma scratches his 60s-induced itch for wacky comedy and satire with his student film with stars - goes for too long but Keith Gordon centres it quite well
Dressed to Kill (1980) - De Palma nails it, perfect script, score, cast, direction - has tremendous heart too with the Gordon-Allen relationship - I think he knew he got a hole in one here and kept going back to the well
Blow Out (1981) - I get it. I get all of it. Beautifully made. Just mean. Didn't like it.
Scarface (1983) - like Blow Out, I get its appeal, it just doesn’t mean as much to me as others. I love the opening hour and the last fifteen minutes. The rest is a slog. It’s a film that doesn’t die wondering, I’ll say that, and Stone and De Palma match well.
Body Double (1984) - part Vertigo riff part screwball comedy, with one of De Palma’s best stars (Melanie Griffith) and worst (Caig Wasson) - he had gotten divorced just before this and TBH you can tell it feels like he made it in a bad mood
Wise Guys (1986) - sigh. Clearly a CAA pitch movie - would’ve sounded fun in short hand, hard going, a throwback to De Palma’s unfunny comedy in the 60s. He still hadn't learned how to do it.
The Untouchables (1987) - love it, my favourite film of his, every image and line of dialogue etched in my brain from when I saw it (except the John Ford sequence which I always forget it in there) - I wish Mamet had worked with De Palma again
Casualties of War (1989) - I like this more now than when I saw it in part bc I realise how depressingly accurate it is - and I appreciate the risks Michael J Fox took with his stardom
The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) - overrated book which needed someone like Robert Altman though it’s the script rather than De Palma - probably his most racist film though that’s more Wolfe, than him I think
Raising Cain (1992) - De Palma forced back into making thrillers, uses his bag of tricks, some good moments though feels a little “I just need to make a successful film”
Carlito’s Way (1993) - terrific, I like it more than Scarface, wonderfully realised, maybe relies too much on Sean Penn’s character to propel the plot.
Mission: Impossible (1996) - I don’t think this series hit its stride until the 4th instalment (what a thing to write) but fun to watch.
Snake Eyes (1998) - I love this film, not many people do, but it feels very cohesive, Cage is a perfect De Palma hero
Mission to Mars (2000) - some good moments but not good, feels like a movie that would’ve been better on a third of the budget, you can smell the notes on it.
Femme Fatale (2002) - De Palma goes back to the thriller well, some excellent scenes and it’s a fun if silly movie.- his luck with female stars (so strong in the 70s and early 80s - Spacek, Allen, Griffith) had deserted him by now
The Black Dahlia (2006) - should’ve worked, doesn’t work, this was disappointing.
Redacted (2007) - good on him for making a gutsy movie even if he did just remake Casualties of War - some very silly scenes and very powerful ones.
Passion (2012) - casting not quite right, the bag of tricks is by now really overworked but I had more fun than I thought
Domino (2019) - some really interesting material in here, the leads should be the characters played by Eriq Ebouaney and Mohammed Azaay but they aren’t. Too much McBain type material.
Brian De Palma's last feature film to date starts off as a McBain movie set in Copenhagen. Nikloaj Coster-Waldau is McBain, basically, whose partner is killed so he goes looking for payback. Carice Van Houten is from internal affairs. Oh and her real life partner Guy Pearce pops up.
Film buffs will enjoy the occasional De Palma bursts of flair and nods to other movies like the rooftops in Vertigo. There's some interesting ideas like the killer of the partner being an ex terrorist who is blackmailed into helping it from Guy Pearce, so he's got this sympathetic dimension. and Van Houten being pregnant with the partner's kid. These aren't developed.
The leads should be the characters played by Eriq Ebouaney and Mohammed Azaay.
Guy Ritchie action flick has a lot of nice things about it - Jason Statham doing his stuff, Hugh Grant again having a wonderful time as a villain, and most of al Audrey Plaza as the perfect femme in the Richie world, sexy, smart, cool, etc etc.
It is a sluggish film though. Starts well but after a while it sinks in that the elements aren't exactly fresh - agents chasing after a Thing, the Thing changes hands, villain obsessed with a movie star, self referential jokes with a movie star playing a movie star (Josh Harnett in a role I wish Hugh Grant had played - or someone more lively).
It's all so easy for Statham and co. Like really easy.
Turkish setting a little different.
Props for Michael J Fox trying to expand his range the moment he became a star - he went into Light of Day, Bright Lights Big City and this. The public liked none of them.
Props also to Brian de Palma for blowing his Untouchables chits on this. Just think maybe he should've made it for less money - pulled back on the battle sequences.
Gosh this is full on. American soldiers lose a man, so kidnap a Vietnamese girl for their sex slave, repeatedly rape her, then go to execute her... it seems several times she might escape but she doesn't get there... and she dies.
Sean Penn is excellent as an all too believable hill billy thug as is Don Harvey as his sidekick and John C Reilly and John Leguizmo as the easily influenced. Fox is very fine as well. All the acting is good. Thu Thuy Le is mostly required to scream and look scared but she's very effective. The rest of the Vietnamese are the standard Hollywood Vietnam War extras, either screaming or wailing.
I remember not liking this movie at all when I first saw it. My opinion is higher now - I guess I know more people like the characters, I certainly met enough at school. Ditto the officers whose instant reaction is to cover things up. This was all too believable.
The speech Fox gives after Cherry is killed is whiffy. The scene where Fox smacks Harvey in the face with a shovel is very satisfactory.
The perfect director, the perfect writer, the perfect piece of IP, the perfect composer, the perfect new star (Costner), the perfect old star (Sean Connery) the perfect showy star (Robert de Niro).
It all works brilliantly. It helps the structure is solid - like The Fugitive it's a TV series that can be told in a film, and it was, The Scarface Mob.
Actually I will admit the scenes with the wife are treacly - but how else to do it? The scene at the border on horseback... that's a little unmemorable (Mamet didn't write it).
But the good stuff is so terrific - the Mamet arias, the murder of Charles Martin Smith (so shocking and intense), the death of Sean Connery, the finale in court.
Very sweet coming of age story abou a young girl planning her Bat Mitzvah - a big deal so I gather, with plenty of cash thrown around, all too believable when you see what's happened with 21st birthdays in Oz. A family affair for Adam Sandler whose daughters play his daughters and whose wife plays the mother of his daughter's BFF while Indina Menzel plays his wife. Sandler's wife is a little awkward though she has some funny scenes with Luiz Guizman who plays her ex husband. The daughters are terrific as is Sandler. The show is stolen by Sarah Sherman as a 'cool" rabbi (although the "cool" DJ was also pretty funny).
I really liked this movie. It was extremely well done there were some terrific bits like the jumping off the ledge scene, a sense of family and the cultural specificity was a delight.
Amiable Netflix rom com that gives a starring role to the superb Haley Lu Richardson from White Lotus Season 2. Couple fall in love on a plane, lose track of each other, find each other. Jameela Jamil is a nrrator playing multiple roles.
Old friends like Dexter Fletcher and Sally Phillips turn up in support roles and are quite lovely together. It's got wafty covers of old favourites ("I Wanna Dance with Somebody"), funky costuming and commercials cinematography, a death (or rather imposing death). It works. It's holistic. It's greenlit by execs who spend a lot of time on airplanes, no doubt. I was moved.
Really fun De Palma crime film that never got its due. Full of show-y off-y direction and it's marvelous. On watching it a second time the plot doesn't really hold up - I mean, it's fine (an assassination is a conspiracy), it's just once it's done, there's not a lot of character interaction to keep involved. Maybe if we'd seen Nicolas Cage's wife.
But I loved its energy and Cage suits De Palma world.
De Palma does Psycho very well with Angie Dickinson as Janet Leigh, Michael Caine as Tony Perkins, Keith Gordon as Vera Miles/John Gavin and Nancy Allen as... well, a new charactder so there you go.
This has more warmth than other De Palma films - Keith Gordon's character is a De Palma doppleganger so he totally gets him, and Nancy Allen was his wife and I think the marriage was going well then. The camraderie between Gordon and Allen is wonderful - talk about wish fulfilment for teenage boys. Allen's character is very winning - a prostitute with a heart of gold but also interested in the stock market.
It's an extremelt well acted film - Angie Dickinson gets a terrific opportunity for a change and she's wonderful. Gordon and Allen are splendid and Michael Caine is always good.
\De Palma's direction is on top of his game. I think he cracked the code with this one - he conquered it. So his other films he had to test himself: sad ending (Blow Out), mega sex and violence (Body Double).
Some unfortunate decisions: the trans killer and the black guys who hassle Allen on a subway just because. Both fit in very well with the film in terms of story, it's still unfortunate.
Steven King's debut novel is a cracker, in part because it deals with universal themes and dreams - who hasn't felt neglected, bullied at high school, who doesn't know the cruelty of school and kids, and religious nutter parents, and who hasn't wanted telekenesis to help out. When Carrie knocks over that bratty kid on a bike it's hard not to feel joy - we've all wanted to do that to little turds. Everyone gets too Nancy Allen's desire for revenge, Amy Irving's desire to be kind. Betty Buckley's desire to be kind, Spacek'sfeelings of being isolated, longing for acceptance, delight... and desire for revenge.
The pig's blood is so primal. So its Carrie wiping out her class.
Brian de Palma was fortunate to have Sissy Spacek to play the lead - so achingly vulnerable, so believably plain but also capable of blossoming. The idiotic remake put a hot girl in this part.
PJ Soles and Nancy Allen are great bitches, ditto the tubby girl. John Travolta and William Katt impress too. I love Soles wearing a cap at the prom. Piper Laurie is fine too in the broadest role. There's no warmth from her towards Carrie, she's just mean... but it works at the end when Carrie comes to her for a hug because Spacek is so good (no knock on Laurie, she doesn't have a chance to do anything).
Brian de Palma is so ideal for this material I wonder why he's never done another King adaptation. Like a lot of De Palma it's very pervy (the opening shower seequence with full frontal nudity), plays tricks (the nudity goes to blood), wacky comedy (girls getting tired at gym, Katt and his mates buying tuxes). slow mo, split screen, movie references (Psycho like scene), slow motion, suspense sequences.
The scene where Betty Buckley slaps Nancy Allen is quite shocking. And John Travolta slaps Allen too. There's a lot of Allen slapping.
This has heart unlike a lot of De Palma filmes due to King, and the actors. The ending where Spacek is betrayed by his mother after reaching out is unbearably sad.
There's a lot of camp fascination for Donahue, who became weirdly popular despite not being able to act - a last-gasp manufactured star from the studios, in his case Warner Bros, who put him in a series of Delmer Daves melodramas as well as those beefcake private eye shows.
I think I guet Donahue's appeal. Handsome, slow eyed, big and blonde. He seemed sincere and soulful. The lack of acting ability meant audiences could project on him.
This book draws heavily on quotes - very heavily, mostly fan magazine interviews, I sense, but also contemporary ones with people like Connie Stevens. It's an interesting approach. I wouldn't have minded a few harder facts, especially background to the famous movies. But I got used to it.
The main problem with the book is Donahue is such a, well, wanker. He was born into privilege, had a bit of a struggle to make it but didn't have to work too hard. He was signed by Henry Wilson, then Universal, who dropped him, but then got A Summer Place and Warners. He was an alcoholic, a problem drinker before fame, and it only got worse. He went into drugs and would drink to "calm his nerves". He hit women - this was reported in the papers and no one seemed to care. He didn't respect his craft and wasn't good at it - the second is forgiveable but not the first. It took him something like ten takes to deliver something useful which is why he struggled on television and why Delmer Daves got sick of him (casting James MacArthur in Spencer's Mountain and James Franciscus in Youngblood Hawk).
He must've had some good qualities. It's good someone wrote a book on him.
Disliked at the time but a cult movie since - was it ever going to be a hit though with that genre defying ending.
It's got split screens, a fake out opening scene which deconstructs voyeurism but is also very pervy, Nancy Allen as a good time girl, John Lithgow as a killer, Dennis Franz as a scuz, cinematic references up the wa-zoo, lefty boomer politics (it's a conspiracy).
Travolta and Allen are very sweet. Travolta is excellent. Maybe a harsher actor wouldn't have made the ending such a downer. Ditto Allen. They are both so young and naive. Mind you it does work for the story which requires Travolta's character to be incompetent at key times.
I've got to say - I don't like this movie. It's got a black heart. De Palma's dad was a surgeon and I think at times his son developed a matter of fact treatment about humans - cut this out, press this button, push that button.
It's beautifully directed. But John Lithgow runs around strangling women to cover up his tracks and then also kills Allen after we've been sitting through a big chase. And also she's in terriro the last ten minutes or so of her life. Look, I get it. I get all of it. I just didn't like it.
I think also pace wise it felt odd to have Lithgow go off with Allen, then Travolta chase, crash car, get knocked out, recover, race... and Lithgow and Allen are still alive. Why do this? To have the finale at night I ugess but you could have the opening bit at night too yes? Maybe he wouldn't have the car chase but you could've lost the car chase.
De Palma did have more balls that his fellow gang members like Lucas and Spielberg (though maybe not Schrader). I think he also didn't like the human race as much.
I loved it. Big, bold, long, tackles huge issues, shoves in stars. Oh, it's Remi Malek. Oh, it's Gary Oldman as Truman. Puts in a few Florence Pugh nude scenes to break things up. And some special effects. Doesn't leave Oppenheimer's POV except in key bits.
Very well cast. Emily Blunt does excellent in a not much part. Everyone is good. Lots of nerds.
Plays with expectations. Like a sports film - getting the team together, building a bomb. Creates sympathy for Downer Jnr then flips it.
I get the logic. Warners go for the protest market. Tom Smothers gets a rep as an anti establishment comic (he is little known in Oz but had a variety show with his brother in the USA). Get a hot director who did a lotw budget hit with Greetings, Brian de Palma.
De Palma and Smothers didn't mesh. It's an anti establishment comedy with Smothers as a businessman who flips out. He still bangs a hot blonde... and another hot girl... and Katherine Ross as a non manic dream girl but still a dream girl.
The plot has him learn how to be a magician by Orson Welles (not a big role). He makes a success and turns into his old sold out success. I mean, yeah, I get it. I guess. I just didn't care.
There's some frantic comedy. Smothers is a bit of a charisma vacuum. John Astin hams it up as Smothers' old boss. You see people like M Emmet Walsh, Allan Garfield.
Sequel to Greetings is more focused, with Robert de Niro as the only protagonist, but also has less life though it's similiarly wacky with political sants.
De Niro goes to work in the porn industry, then for a black revue.The black revue segment is startling - it's immersive theatre, the whites have black polish put on them, get harassed by cops (one of them de Niro, doing an acting gig), one is raped, the girl screams, it's all filmed. This is powerful. Then the rape victim praises the immersive theatre experience.
It's bold I'll give it that. Lots of ideas. Interesting. I'm not sure how I think about it.
The cast includes people like Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning, Allen Garfield.
When in doubt, go a lower budgeted thriller - that worked for De Palma in the 70s, 80s and 90s but not so much this one although it has its fans. It's a fun film with De Palma dipping into his old bag of tricks - identical twins, kidnapping, heists with someone betraying, tracking shot.
Rebecca Romjin Stamos gets the part of a lifetime. She's gorgeous, more so in some outfits than others. Not quite a star but in her defence a lot of it she's not talking - when she gets to chat a bit like with Antonio Banderas, she comes alive, has more of a character to play.
Banderas has fun as a paparazzo. Peter Coyote adds some American flavour as the American ambassador (maybe the film would've done better in the US with more American characters). The opening robbery is great. There's long scenes with no dialogue, Twists. Shift of perception.
The film is based on the fact that Stamos' dreams come true, I think. Which is silly. A lot of it is silly but it goes there. The pace flagged here and there but it was entertaining. It felt fulfilled.
Beloved by rappers, gangster and film bros. It's a bold movie to be sure full of set pieces: Al Pacino's opening interrogration, the murder of the ex Castro officer in the camp, the chainsaw murder sequence, the climax.
It has a record for swearing and acutally doesn't need the swearing, or at least that uch. It needed the violence to be what it is. It's also the bright bold colours, the fashion, the music score, the sets. Brian De Palma excels at operatic style pices of which this is one.
Oliver Stone and De Palma match wonderfully - their politics were in synch I feel with its satire on capitalism and so on. Both liked to go "big" so they do.
The acting is terrific. Pacino at his full hammy best, Steven Bauer as the sleek and sexy George Raft type (what a lost star), Michelle Pfeiffer as the zoned out trophy, Mary Stuart Mastrantonio as the frizzy haired sister lusted after by Pacino, Harry Yulin as a slimy cop, F Murray Abraham fabulous as a crime guy, Robert Loggia maybe a little accent-y as a drug lord, Paul Shenar is electric as the Bolivian drug lord. The girl who flirts with Bauer outside the apartment prior to the chainsaw scene mysteriously vanished after filming. Richard Belzer plays a comic. Lana Clarkson has a small part.
The middle section is a little dull. The female characters are about as well defined as you'd expect from Oliver Stone (rich girl turned whore, poor girl turned whore, whore, whining mother). The scenes with Pfeiffer lack any sort of detph. She's not into him at all there's no connection - so when she leaves it means nothing. (Pfeiffer is very effective).
Also Pacino's character is such a psycho that after a while nothing he does has impact. He shoots everyone - drug dealers, his boss, another boss, his boss' helper. So when he shoots Bauer it feels nothing. I guess he doesn't kill the poitical guy when that guy is with his wife and kid. But it's such a fabulous performance.
Still the ending is fun with Pacino in front of a massive pile of cocaine as the drug lord's gunman storm the mansion and MSM tormenting him in underwear over his incestuous love while firing a gun.
Modern day Disney trying to jazz up some IP with a fresh name or two. Emma Stone powers a lot of it with her charisma and charm and Emma Thompson helps out, but the laziness of the dramatic construction tell after a while, as does the endless, endless parade of sixties and seventies songs. There's so many golden oldies. So many scenes of people entering rooms.
The film has the cheek to rip off The Devil Wears Prada and manages to make what should look bright and poppy - 70s fasion in England - grimy and dull. Maybe if they'd added songs for people to sing. Cut out all the entrances and the golden oldies soundtrack. Had Emma Stone talk to camera. Had a bit more life in it.
Mark Strong does some solid reality-based playing. Maybe he needed to camp it up more. It was a hard slog.
Tired, bloated live action remake crippled by its dark murky photography which means the underwater world isn't not a magical wonderland just underwater. It's hard to make out the features of Melissa McCarthy, or Halle Bailey. Both have some star factor but are undermined the the photography and also the not quite there effects. There's a bland lead dude, un colourful others. Awkwafina does neat voice work. It doesn't click.
Brian De Palma's first feature although his third released. It's a wacky comedy years before Wise Guys which starts with a sped up dubbed chase that feels as though it belongs in a Beach Party movie.
It's one of those "interesting because it has people who went on to become famous" films with De Palma, Robert de Nero (as he's billed), Hill Clayburgh. There's a lot of actors in this.
There's novelties - seeing de Niro, who is a little chubby in the face, seeing Clayburgh. There's energy, some interesting dialogue (references to Fellini, Anna May Wong, Lionel Barrymore).
But they don't sustain. It gets annoying - the groom who doesn't want to get married (okay boomer), the wacky Indian character (Peter Sellers influence no doubt). What might've been an interesting short definitely doesn't have legs as a feature. By the time the groom tries to root the organist it's really uncomfortable. Haw haw haw, unwilling woman, haw haw haw.
It is less painful than Wise Guys.
Brian De Palma at his peak, an excellent cohesive gangster melodrama with Al Pacino as a Bogart/Cagney type, out of prison and just tryin' to go straight. There's a shifty lawyer (Sean Penn), a young punk (John Leguizmo) who he sets free and lives to regret it, colourful sidekicks (Luiz Guizman).
This doesn't get the love of Scarface but it's extremely well made. De Palma's directrion is confidence and secure - things like the final chase scene were Pacino is trying to go to the train station a la Cablanca with Guizman as Dooley Wilson and Penelope Ann Miller as Ingrid Bergman, you can feel the director having the time of his life.
Plot wise the film probably relies on Sean Penn's character being dodgy too much. I mean he pulls the big betrayal of Pacino, getting him in trouble, then also betraying him... Pacino really is a dill to no turn evidence and look after his woman. I wish a little more complexity was in his relationship with Penn.
Miller is likeable, with a memorable nude scene (it's true). Viggo Mortensen turns up. Pacino plays a super hero - tough, loyal, won't dog, sticks by his mates, is a hero in a gun fight, catnip to the ladies (the black waitress wants him), the biggest dick on the block... just overly loyal. But because we know from the opening scene he's going to die the whole film has a powerful undercurrent.
One of De Palma's best.
Good to see some black actors getting a go (they're still musical theatre types) though I wish they'd done a proper version instead of this part stage show, part scenes from the original. Why not just shoot the Broadway musical? I showed my age not recognising HER or Josh Groban but recognising Shania Twain and Martin Short and David Alan Grier.
In honour of his 84th birthday even if he is cancelled now
Brian De Palma in groovy mode with its Brit cinema and French new wave cinema influences on its sleeve. It has bright colour, homophobia, racial slurs delivered "satirically" and a lot of energy.
It's a series of adventures with three films one of whom is a young Robert de Niro in glasses, another who is Gerrit Graham who was in a bunch of de Palma films.
This was a hit relative to its low budget. It's in colour, and is simple ish to follow - just three dudes hanging out bantering. The attitudes would have been fresh and cutting edge at the time.
There's lots of long takes with the actors just talking and interacting - Cassavetes like which is different from what De Palma would later specialise in.
I think this would have meant more to people going through this at the time but it's of interest.
Brian de Palma has always had a soft spot for comedy, his early films were mostly comedies, so this big screen comedy isn't as much as an outlier
He's not very good at comedy. This is too broad, too silly, ignores reality like all the hoods shoving lighters in mafia boss Dan Hedaya's face.
Danny de Vito and Joe Piscopo are ideally cast as two lower ranked mobsters - that's a fun idea, the mobsters who do the worst jobs. But it's terribly done. Gaggy. Silly. The sort of movie and jokes that sound better in pitch (eg "testing the bullet proof vest").
De Vitoa's got a wig. Piscopo is quite amiable. Do De Vito's family know at the end he's not really dead? That seems kind of mean.
Gosh this film was terrible.
De Palma can't see he didn't warn us - his interests are evident from his first feature: being pervy about women, filmmakers who work in schlock, visual tricky, unfunny wacky comedy, Hitchcock references, sex and death, violence against women, ingenue stars, script switches.
The plot has a girl wanting to help her egotistical filmmaker boyfriend.
The scene with the guy in the bank talking in monotone was hard to take. It's clearly made by someone with talent, with a student's energy and smart arse-ness.
Lana Turner didn't do a lot of musicals but early in her career MGM put her in this. She does some dancing and quite well - that MGM factory brought her up to speed. George Murphy is a smooth partner for her though not quite good looking enough for the storyline, which has Turner and Blondell as sisters, Blondell and Murphy are engaged, and Turner and Murphy get hot for each other.
It's complicated by the fact some Broadway producers want Turner and Murphy not Blondell. Turner is also pursued by rich, much married Kent Taylor and a gossip columnist who knows Blundell hangs around.
It's cheerful, slick and unprententious. Turner combines that great beuaity with down-home small town girl style - I think that's why she was so popular. Murphy isn't up to her in looks but he's talented and to be fair prior to Gene Kelly who could've played the role.
Brian De Palma basically remakes Casualties of War as he himself admitted, updating it for the Iraq War. It's a found footage film but it's de Palma found footage so is well done. Well, on the whole.
Some of this is very good - the death of the US officer via an explosion, an execution... actually every death. It has power. These things happened. And will happen. The final moments showing photos of real dead killed is a gut punch.
Other stuff is less good. The acting isn't crash hot. The rape sequence feels "actors playing rape". Maybe it happens like that in real life... I know horrible things happen it just felt like actors going for it. The scene where a soldier is abducted feels comic. (His death is very well done.)
The budget was $5 million, low for De Palma, but looks good. There's scenes of a military base, checkpoint, etc. Maybe they should've spent more on the actors though/
A film of flaws, and the story was told before by the same director, and the Iraqis are the ususal wailing victims. But the film also has guts and effective moments.
You get the money where you can, so Brian De Palma is making this Euro-pudding that is a remake of a French movie but makes it De Palma-y.
The French original had an older actress and a younger actress but here Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace seem the same age so it doesn't have that intriguing underside. McAdams seemed to suit the world of De Palma but Rapace didn't - but then I like McAdams more than Rapace so maybe it's just me.
I liked Karoline Herfuth as well and enjoyed the second half more than the first. There's a fantastic murder sequence and the delirious melodrama of key moments is entertaining.
After Bonfire of the Vanities Brian De Palma battened down the hatches with a lower budgered thriller that made some money - as he often did through his career. He goes back to his old bag of tricks - point of view shots, tracking shots, multiple personalities, Hitchcock references (there's even a car sinking into the water), high camp.
John Lithgow has a high old time in a wig playing multiple personalities. It's a lovely big fat part of him after years of supporting in De Palma movies. Lolita Davidovitch isn't very good as the female lead - she seems not that interested in what's going on. I liked her in movies like Blaze maybe she struggled under De Palma. Though some female stars have given great performances in his films - Melanie Griffith, Nancy Allen (either who would've been better). Nice to see Steve Bauer back in a showy feature role as Lolita's lover.
The film has a black heart, like so many De Palma films. It's about a killer who murders mothers and abducts their children. De Palma doesn't kill a child on screen but what happened to all the others.
I prefered the movie at the half way mark when the police figured it out and the movie comes from their point of view. I think I just preferred it to not have to identity with Lithgow. I know some film buffs love to be challenged that way. Good for them.
The cut of this I saw was the release cut not the director's cut a fan did which De Palma endorsed. That ripped off the structure of Psycho, as had Dressed to Kill and Sisters.
I didn't like the first half of this but did the second. Appreciated seeing people like Mel Harris (in an admittedly poor part - exposition recipient), Gregg Hery as a cop, Frances Sterhaden, and Andrea from Beverly Hills 90210 as trailer trash.
Some of it is so OTT you're likely to laugh. Deliberate or incompetence?
Great last shot.
Computer programmed to be a hit, it looks gorgeous, has the right star (Emma Watson), is a shot for shot remake. Who can argue with a billion dollars? Disney would soon discover that wasn't fool proof. Look it's fine. There's nothing much to say. The tunes are good etc.
It's been copied a lot - so, so much - but this was a slick account of the story, with a bright heroine, yquality animation, strong voice work from the good old days before frigging movie stars did it all. Katzenberg should be proud.
Who the hell was Richard Hart? Some sappy faced dude who MGM obviously thought had the Right Stuff and shoved in some big movies before turfing him. Here he pretty much has the lead, mooned over by sisters Lana Turner and Donna Reed, as they adventure from Guernsey to New Zealand.
Too much time is spent on Hart's character who is weak and dim.Did MGM have no one else suitable that was cheaper (Turner's fee would've been a lot)? I suppose Peter Lawford - Hart gives off Lawford vibes. Someone like John Hodiak would've been better. I think Louis B Mayer's star spotting talent was less sure after the war. (Mind you he still promoted Mario Lanza, so...)
Van Heflin is probably not hot enough to play the swashbuckling moody dude but he livens up his scenes. He's got the best part - he's in love with Turner, he's on the run, he gets along with Maoris. Hart is so dumb he signs a letter of proposal to the wrong woman (Reed not Turner).(This is contrived - really he needed to have knocked her up to make this hold but I guess the censor wouldn't allow it.)
This has Gainsborugh Melodrama vibes with its four heroes - I can imagine Margret Lockwood as Turner, Phyllis Calvert as Reed, Stewart Granger as Hart, James Mason as Van Heflin.
Turner is good in a solid part. She's in love with Hart, which is a stretch but that's not her fault, and she's got stuff to do - move to New Zealand, get stuck in an earthquake, run a timber business.
This is a good solid historical melodrama with nuns, sisters, black sheep, drunks, family secrets, earthquakes and native uprisings. Director Victor Saville as a fondness for scenes of people emoting in the shadows.
The film loses its bearings towards the end admittedly. It just throws away the Heflin Turner story (he just leaves when he needed to perish gloriously or something) and can't reconcile the Turner-Hart story - I think she finds out about the letter too late and he needs to redeem himself.
Still, I thought this was better than its reputation.
De Palma had a couple of hits so very endearingly blew some chits on this student comedy -literally, he filmed it while teaching at college, using students, to give them experience. Good on him - and good on the professionals who appeared too like Kirk Douglas, Nancy Allen, Gerrit Graham, Theresa Saldana and Keith Gordon.
It's got an anarachic comedy bent, I assume like De Palma's late sixties films which I think is where his heart truly lay.
Gerrit Graham mentions John Milius when talking about great filmmakers. The film could've done with more of that. For me, anyway. I presume De Palma had a good time.
There's some nice acting. Gordon is very good, Allen is having a high old time, Douglas is professional. It's ramshackle and all over the place and auterists will love the use of "themes" like the voyerism, and discussions of filmmaking. It goes too long and is a drag too often and isn't that funny.
But you know it's there.
One of those adaptations of sexy best sellers. The ingredients are there for some pulpy fun - there's adultery, prostitutes, fraud, suicide, a rape allegation - but the film doesn't click.
Some people feel perfectly cast - Lana Turner (though her character doesn't have much to do, which is probably why she asked for so many changes) and George Hamilton (horny spoilt brat). Susan Kohner is fine. These feel like they belong in this movie.
But this isn't John Sturges' sort of material. Nor is it Walter Mirisch - it needed a Ross Hunter. Or Delmer Daves in his Troy Donahue mode.
It isn't sufficiently glamorous - not enough attention has been paid to clothes. The central character is actually Effrem Zimbalist Jnr who is bland - torn men can be interesting as shown by Gregory Peck but Zimbalist doesn't have It. Jason Robarts feels under utilised. Ditto Barbara Bel Geddes.
It's like they tried to make a decent film out of this, couldn't do it, but didn't compensate by going full melodrama. There's no vision behind it, even just a simple Ross Hunter "rich beautiful people suffering" vision.
From that weird period when there were two expensive Mars films. This has Brian de Palma talking a pay day and there's some de Palma-y shots eg track shots at the beginning, and a homage/rip off to the match cut of 2001.
There's a curious lethargy in the movie, some haw-haw-haw military dialogue as if the script was punched up by NASA types, a cast of talented actors who are not movie stars but TV stars (Gary Sinise, Don Cheadle, Tim Robbins, Connie Neilsen), a lot of white faces.
The film livens up when someone dies: like when Cheadle's mades get wiped out (including the guy I swear was Ted McGinley but who isn't) and the death of Tim Robbins. These scenes are good. I think the film would've worked if it had concentrated on life and death stakes.
But it's slow. The ending is like The Abyss with cuddly aliens. It's hard to care.
Some lousy 90s writing like the astronaut (Sinise) with the dead wife (Kim Delaney) who thus goes off with the aliens and the married couple being so happy before they die.
I went with this for a while but then it got too dull and silly. Nice effects.
A film with plenty of style and charm - the monster, John Carradine, Lon Chaney as the Wolf Man - and some interesting additions like the hunchback assistant.
It's just frustrating what they don't do. I mean, who cares about Onslow Stevens, and why have him just as a random doctor - why not make him Dr Frankenstein, or a relative, or the invisible man. John Carradine or Lugosi should've played this role. I don't like Carradine as Dracula much but admit he's closer to Stoker.
Lionel Atwill is on hand, and Chaney is great. But the Monster is wasted, there's not enough Dracula or Wolfman... and as the film went on it started to annoy me. And I don't like that about these films.
