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

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

« August 2011 »
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 31

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 ал
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
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
Friday, August 26, 2011
'COLOMBIANA' HAS A TOUCH OF 'SCARFACE'
AND 'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE", AS 'SCARFACE' WEEK CONTINUES
As we are in the midst of what has turned into an impromptu Scarface week, we might as well point out that several critics/viewers are noting Scarface references in the new Luc Besson-produced Colombiana, which is directed by Olivier Megaton, and opens today. (The film is loosely based on Besson's orginal idea for a sequel to Léon.) The main character in Colombiana, according to one blogger, has a poster of Scarface, which was already in the room she inherits when her uncle takes her in (the room belonged to the uncle's late son). A couple of people also mentioned Mission: Impossible as a reference for scenes such as the one pictured here. Below are some links and quotes:

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir
"...a trashy and ridiculous blend of La Femme Nikita, Scarface and Fast Five."

The New York Times' Mike Hale
"Colombiana isn’t content to be a comic-book joyride (though it is that); it has pretensions to a more turgid class of revenge melodrama, along the lines of Tony Scott’s Man on Fire. It also has pretensions, period: Mr. Megaton sprinkles in homages to Francis Ford Coppola (Ms. [Zoe] Saldana’s rising out of the water like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now) and Brian De Palma (the climactic sequence at a drug lord’s lair is redolent of Scarface). The overall effect is distancing; there are some early comic moments that have you laughing along with the movie, but eventually the clashing tones and preposterousness just have you laughing."

Advance Screening's Matthew Fong
"Were your parents murdered in front of you as a child? Well Cataleya’s were and she instantly plotted revenge. There’s something eerily cute when a little 9 year-old girl replies to the question, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' with 'a killer' (in a Colombian accent). She reads Xena: Warrior Princess and wants to become a warrior princess herself. Cliff Curtis plays Emilio Restrepo, Cataleya’s uncle, who takes care of her and trains her to become an assassin. He sets her up in his late son’s room which is filled with guns and a poster of Scarface so you can see what her influences were."

Movieline's Jen Yamato
"...watching the film there are a handful of notable nods to Colombiana’s genre predecessors — basically, every Luc Besson movie, The Professional and La Femme Nikita, and even a touch of Scarface."

indieWIRE's Drew Taylor
"Instead of a young American girl tutored by an aging French hitman, though [as in Léon], Colombiana is first set in Colombia, with the aforementioned parent-murdering (the little girl’s father was involved in some shady cartel business). The little girl then goes to Chicago where she’s taken in by her equally shady uncle (Cliff Curtis). The little girl, named Cataleya Restrepo, after a rare Amazonian orchid, wants her uncle to teach her how to murder, which he rejects by randomly firing his gun at a passing car (and presumably killing a perfectly innocent pedestrian). “Is that what you want?” he asks her, passion bubbling in his Al Pacino-in-Scarface-accented voice. She says no, she’ll wait, but it’s a shocking, clumsy moment that the audience barely has any time to recover from.

The movie then snaps forward 15 years, to Los Angeles, where Cataleya is now grown and carrying out a cleverly elaborate hit job in a local prison. Her target is Latin American, and she brands the corpse with her signature (a curlicue scribble of her namesake), so we assume that this victim had something to do with her parents’ murder. It adds a juicy jolt of thrills to the ingeniously plotted maneuver, which has all the hallmarks of a great Mission: Impossible jaunt, with the added bonus of Saldana pouring herself into a slinky black catsuit."

Not A Supermom
"And after a hard day of killing, there’s nothing Catalaya likes to do better than to return home, strip off, do a little sexy-dance around her empty apartment, take a shower and then spend a full minute eating a lollipop. Just like Pacino in Scarface! There are a few call-backs to Scarface in this movie, as well as the Lethal Weapon franchise. When she visits the FBI agent tracking her, you can almost hear him say that he’s 'too old for this'…stuff... Thankfully, Catalaya abstains from post-mortem one-liners. But feel free to add some in your own head throughout the movie. When she is standing on a balcony in the mansion and raining bullets down on the cartel henchmen, I defy you not to think 'Say hello to my little friend'."

Tr3s' Michael Lopez
"The final invasion on El Don is something straight out of Scarface, complete with machine guns, grenades, and choreographed head butts. Unfortunately, every action moment in this movie felt a bit too familiar. Cataleya's jail escapes mirrored Mission Impossible, her fights seemed like Guy Ritchie retreads, and so on. Colombiana definitely brings the action, but somehow lacks the punch."


Posted by Geoff at 7:46 PM CDT
Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink | Share This Post

Monday, August 29, 2011 - 1:29 AM CDT

Name: "rado"
Home Page: http://rado.bg

"I hate f***in' Colombians"

Seriously, I always enjoy those EuropaCorp action titles. Their sly use of genre is somewhat appealing to De Palma fans?

View Latest Entries