DE PALMA a la MOD More Femme Fatale news:

MORE PHOTOS FROM LAST NIGHT'S PREMIERE Michelle Pfeiffer, Al Pacino, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio Robert Loggia

Later, at New York's Metropolitan Club... Pacino and Bauer

The world is theirs: Pacino and Bregman. Bregman told Dutka that Scarface has resonated more than any of the other films he has produced. "I speak at schools," he told her. "Though we never planned on it, the movie has become the bible of the hip-hop world."

Posted September 15 2003 SCARFACE LIMITED IN THEATRES FOR "ONE WEEK ONLY" This full page ad from Sunday's New York Times shows Universal's plan in all of its colors. It tells us that Scarface will be in theatres for one week only, beginning Friday. It tells us right up front that the main goal is to hype and sell the forthcoming DVD. Co-opting Tony Montana's ominously self-destructive mantra, "The World Is Yours," the ad overtly suggests that consumers can "own" Scarface forever, as if we will buy this "explosive" slice of heaven and cherish this little destructible disc until the kingdom comes. The ad is essentially promoting a miniature version of Tony Montana's "American Dream," getting what's coming to us, what is "ours." Universal is handing the World to us-- see the film in theatres, for one week only ("Dude, what if you could have one week of paradise, one shot, and then never go back... would you do it?"). But then when you do go back home, the film is yours to own-- right after a trip to Best Buy, of course. Forever? Well, maybe until the DVD wears out and Universal lifts another moratorium and releases a 3-disc 30th Anniversary Box Set. In the words of Local H, we're all defanged and declawed, creature comforted. Like Tony Montana, we all get what we want. "And it keeps you down in surround sound until you drown..." Peace, out.

Updated September 11 2003 Pfeiffer, Bauer, Loggia will also attend premiere Location changed? SCARFACE FAMILY REUNITED DE PALMA, PACINO & CO. WILL ATTEND PREMIERE SEPT 17 The New York Post's Page Six reported September 9 that Brian De Palma, Al Pacino, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio will attend the 20th anniversary premiere of the newly remastered Scarface September 17 at the Metropolitan Club in Gotham. The Richard Johnson column opens by saying, "Twenty years after its original release, Scarface is returning to theaters thanks to a shout-out from the hip-hop community." Producer Martin Bregman is quoted: "Recently, Def Jam did a tape of P. Diddy, Snoop and Eve talking about what Tony Montana meant to them. I've been trying to get it rereleased for years." Universal released an official announcement today that the Scarface re-release celebration will kick off September 17 at 7:15pm at City Cinema Theatres in New York City. Scheduled to attend are De Palma, Pacino, Mastrantonio, Bregman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, and Robert Loggia.

Posted September 3 2003 SCARFACE: BREGMAN TALKS SUPER-SIZED AUDIO DISTRIBUTOR HINTS AT POSSIBLE EXTENDED RUNS Variety posted an article yesterday about Universal's 20th-anniversary theatrical re-release of Scarface. In the article, producer Martin Bregman, who remastered the film with original editor Jerry Greenberg (see story below), talked about super-sizing the film's audio: "When you look at the film today, pictorially it's still very impressive, but the sound is kind of diminutive. It doesn't have the size the film deserves." Of the theatrical run, Bregman said, "For me, for Al Pacino, for Brian De Palma, it's a way of getting this film out there again and watching people go ape again." Jack Foley, spokesman for Universal's Focus Features, who will distribute the film, seemed to suggest that if these initial limited engagements gel with audiences, extended runs may follow. He said, "We're putting it into these exclusive and semi-exclusive runs to see if it can be a hit." Foley compared the release to that of Apocalypse Now Redux, which was released in 2001, 22 years after the original's theatrical run. That film brought in $4.6 million in new business, according to Variety. Scarface redux will have its theatrical premiere at the Metropolitan Club in Gotham.

Posted September 2 2003 SCARFACE IN THEATERS SEPT 19 RESTORED BY BREGMAN AND GREENBERG WITH DIGITAL SOUND Brian De Palma's Scarface will celebrate its upcoming 20th anniversary with special limited theatrical engagements beginning September 19 in ten cities: New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Detroit, Dallas, Miami and San Francisco. A major premiere will be held in New York. According to PR Newswire, "These special theatrical engagements will feature new 35mm prints struck from restored film elements, and a newly remixed digital soundtrack." The article says that producer Martin Bregman and editor Jerry Greenberg "worked tirelessly to fully restore the picture." Bregman said, "This new re-mastered print reaches out and grabs you in a very visceral way. The digital sound on the new release of Scarface is incredible and gives new life to Tony Montana's iconic dialogue, and to the lifestyle he embodies and continues to inspire today. Our greatest hope is that a new generation will be acquainted with this powerful epic." The film will be distributed by Focus Features, a specialty film unit of Universal. Universal Studios Home Video supervised the restoration of the film, and president Craig Kornblau said, "All of us at Universal are tremendously excited about this opportunity for audiences to experience Scarface on the big screen. Unlike most films, Scarface has gained in interest and influence over the last 20 years, and its fervent fan base continues to grow. This is truly an event." The article also contains the following paragraph: "Originally released by Universal Pictures in 1983, the film was hailed for Al Pacino's towering performance as Cuban immigrant Tony Montana, and for Brian De Palma's masterful direction. Over the years, as the film found continued exposure on television and home video, it developed a devoted following in the hip-hop and urban music community, resulting in a widespread influence on music, fashion, language, attitude and ambition. But many of its most devoted fans have never experienced the film in its original form or presentation, and the 20th anniversary of "Scarface" allows them this unique opportunity and more."

Posted August 14 2003 DE PALMA CONTEMPLATES THE POLITICAL AND CONDEMNS HOLLYWOOD CLICHES In an interview posted August 9 2003 at El Periodico, Brian De Palma bemoaned the common clichés of Hollywood cinema. “How many times do we have to see a film that begins with somebody shooting at a helicopter,” asked the director. “Or with a car crashing into a building? Those things to me are awful. Doesn’t anybody get bored with that? I do, and it obsesses me.” De Palma cited Memento and Mulholland Drive as works “that required effort on the part of the spectator and which are probably the most interesting films of recent years.” He insisted that “everyone is bored with conventional cinema of the present, of the clichéd ways of telling stories,” and mentioned that he still prefers the language of silent cinema, “a lost art.” DANGEROUS TO EXPRESS POLITICAL OPINIONS The interview was done to promote the release of De Palma’s Femme Fatale in Spain in early August, and the article points out that the film was shot in the summer of 2001, “before the last seismic movement of the world order. Two years later, De Palma says he is carefully considering the idea of making films with political content.” De Palma said, “I am thinking about it, but it is dangerous. Isn’t it astonishing how the American press lynches anyone who expresses an opinion on the political situation? Poor Woody Harrelson! Poor Barbra Streisand! Poor Tim Robbins! They make them look like idiots. That kind of political climate makes one a little scared. Living in Europe, it goes without saying that my view of what the United States is doing is completely different.” De Palma said he is contemplating the idea because “the political cinema is returning to the United States,” yet he is careful to take on such a mission. “I must think about it. I don’t think, for example, that The Bridge On The River Kwai or Lawrence Of Arabia, where the English seem like idiots, made David Lean very popular in his own country.” De Palma mentioned that he has been considered somewhat of an “anti-establishment type” since the ‘60s, when he satirized the U.S. mission “to go and save Southeast Asia.” POLITICAL IDEAS “COULD COME OUT IN SOME FUTURE FILM” Last November (2002), as President Bush was pushing for the U.S. to take action in Iraq, De Palma gave a press conference in Rome upon the Italian release of Femme Fatale. When asked about the political tensions in the U.S., De Palma replied, “I must admit that it has been a relief for me to get away from America, where the war climate is very heavy. And when you get outside the borders of the country, you get a more balanced view of the worldwide situation. I also love to travel, to be exposed to various cultures and discover landscapes that can provide inspiration for new images. But to ask my opinion on the political situation—it is a dangerous question for an American. I wouldn’t want to have happen to me what happened to Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise when they said what they thought and then were labeled as supporters of Bush. Sure, it makes a great front page headline for the press, but for the artists who then try to work in the USA, it can be a problem. I have many ideas about our political situation, but I’ll keep them to myself because it could become a boomerang. Although [these ideas] could come out in some future film.” SPIELBERG AND CRUISE When Spielberg and Cruise traveled to Italy to promote Minority Report in September 2002, they rather naively chose to discuss the politics involved in their futuristic thriller within the context of reporters’ questions about an impending U.S.-led war on Iraq. The philosophical popcorn film is about a Washington, D.C. Justice Department in the year 2054 that uses a trio of psychics to alert officers to “pre-crimes,” crimes that have not yet happened, but are destined to within a certain amount of time. Murder in the jurisdiction has been all but eliminated because “murderers” are arrested before actually committing their crimes, and are then sent to a cryogenic freezing prison where they are left to dream their lives away. At the time of the film’s U.S. release in June 2002, many noted the striking parallels between its pre-crime-apprehended-and-jailed-without-trial police work and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s post-9/11 eagerness to impose similar types of legislation in the name of preventing terrorism. Spielberg himself had commented on the similarities to the New York Times in June, saying, “Right now, people are willing to give away a lot of their freedoms in order to feel safe. They’re willing to give the FBI and the CIA far-reaching powers to, as George W. Bush often says, root out those individuals who are a danger to our way of living. I am on the president’s side in this instance. I am willing to give up some of my personal freedoms in order to stop 9/11 from ever happening again. But the question is, Where do you draw the line? How much freedom are you willing to give up? That is what this movie is about.” CRUISE BLASTED BY O’REILLY In July 2002, at the British premiere of Minority Report, Cruise rambled to reporters: “I think the U.S. is terrifying and it saddens me. You only have to look at the state of affairs in America. I do worry about my children. As a parent you are always concerned. I just want them to be in a place where they are going to be strong enough to be able to make the right choices. Unfortunately we're in a position where people are so irresponsible that human life holds so little value to them." Cruise’s words traveled like wildfire to the U.S., with headlines stating that he was going to take his kids out of America (in fact, if you read the quoted above, he says nothing of the sort). He was quickly lambasted by the likes of Bill O’Reilly, who complained on his Fox News program, The O’Reilly Factor, that people all over the world would now say that “Tom Cruise does not like the United States.” O’Reilly stated, “People in a time of war expect Americans, particularly ones like Tom Cruise, who have been well rewarded by our society, to stand behind their government.” Cruise’s spokesperson was of course playing apologia the next day, telling reporters that Cruise’s words, while accurate, were taken out of context and that he and Nicole Kidman’s kids were going to continue to live in America. WHEN IN ROME… Which brings us back to Italy, and, specifically, Rome, last September. Spielberg and Cruise were there to promote Minority Report, speaking to the press again about the coincidences between recent events and the film’s message. Spielberg said, “One of the main themes of the film is the willingness on the part of Americans to renounce their privacy in order to help the FBI defeat crime. One can ask how far we should go in pushing for prevention? How much privacy has to be sacrificed in the name of security? It is a strong theme that is dealt with in the film and is extremely topical.” When asked by reporters there about his views on an impending war on Iraq, Spielberg replied, “Bush’s politics have been solid, grounded in reality, willing to uproot terrorism wherever it may be found. We don’t receive daily reports from the CIA, we watch TV like you, we wait to see what happens. But if Bush, as I believe, has reliable information on the fact that Saddam is making ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ I cannot not support the policies of his government.” Cruise chimed in as well, saying, “Bush is facing a very difficult and complex situation. We don’t have the information that Bush and Blair have available to them. Still, I wouldn’t speak of ‘pre-crime’ in Saddam’s case, but rather repeated crimes against humanity and his own people.” MEANWHILE BACK HOME… After the comments made in Rome, Spielberg and Cruise had suddenly found themselves labeled as poster boys for Bush’s war on Iraq, with their comments being contextualized as deliberate and bold endorsements of the American president’s position. In Cruise’s case, it was a rather peculiar stance—that is, if the press had actually been correct in painting the star just two months earlier as anti-American (further proof of just how forgetful and forgiving pop culture really is). In any case, a couple of weeks later Cruise told an American TV interviewer, “I was actually misquoted on that. I don't know what Bush and Prime Minister Blair know, so I can't sit here and judge." Spielberg was a little more aggressive than that, issuing a statement through Dreamworks to clarify what was said in Rome: “I did not say I support a war with Iraq. I was asked a question about the film and its subject matter which deals with stopping murders before they can be committed. It led to a question as to whether or not there was a parallel with Iraq. I replied that the film is science fiction and Iraq is a reality. I do not have access to information that only the President has which might cause me to take a different position. In any case, it was never my intention to give an endorsement of any kind.” AUGUST 2002: DE PALMA PONDERS HOW TO FILM THE ISSUES As far back as last August (2002), De Palma talked to Judy Stone at the Montreal World Film Festival (the interview was later published in the San Francisco Examiner) about trying to incorporate such matters into his films. Stone wrote that De Palma was “worried about the seemingly indifferent reaction of American filmmakers to ongoing crises of our times,” but that he admitted “he's not sure how to bring such issues into dramatic focus on the screen.” She quoted De Palma as saying, “There's a whole world that we're entering into in a very aggressive way right now. It would be helpful to know something about it. ... When you look at American TV, the only thing they're discussing politically is when we are going to invade Iraq rather than why.” He then compared the situation to Vietnam, telling Stone, “We're going down a very slippery slope here. It's extremely complicated and as a filmmaker, I don't know exactly how to enter it yet -- but I think about it all the time.” VIETNAM IN ‘89 De Palma’s early hit comedy, Greetings, was one of the first films to deal directly with the war in Vietnam, following a group of young men as they go about their daily obsessions in New York while trying to dodge the draft. That film came out in 1968, while the war was in full swing and overshadowing American culture of the day. It wasn’t until 21 years later that De Palma’s most stirring statement about the Vietnam war became crystallized in his adaptation of Daniel Lang’s New Yorker article, Casualties Of War. But Casualties Of War was a project De Palma had wanted to make—and had been thinking about—since he first read Lang’s account in 1969. The trouble was in getting the right financing for the project, which De Palma was finally able to do after the great success of The Untouchables in 1987. While De Palma’s improvisational street films and documentaries of the 1960s captured what he has called the elusive feel of the period, it might be argued that by revisiting that period two decades later he was able to fashion a more reflective work that summed up and critiqued the other Vietnam pictures that had come before it. Contextualizing Casualties Of War as a reflective flashback during the closure of the Watergate scandal (“Nixon Resigns” reads a newspaper headline at the film’s beginning) suggested that De Palma’s film offered closure to a war that, even in 1989, still seemed to have no end. FUTURE FILM: TOYER De Palma’s next film, Toyer, will in fact be made in Italy, and was to begin shooting last February, but the start date has now been delayed until at least September 2003. De Palma told the journalists in Rome that the cast will include a mixture of American and Italian actors, and that he plans to shoot some scenes amidst the Carnival of Venice (he more recently indicated that he still hopes to film during the Carnival of Venice, which takes place in February). With all of this time to think about it, one wonders if any of those political ideas will end up in Toyer, subconsciously or otherwise…?

Posted August 6 2003 DE PALMA TALKS FF, TOYER... AND MENTIONS POSSIBLE FUTURE PROJECTS WITH BANDERAS With Femme Fatale opening in Spain this Friday, many news sites in the country have been running similar interview quotes from Brian De Palma, who must have done a press conference to promote the film there. "What interests me above all," the director told journalists regarding his latest thriller, "is the passion and the suspense, not the violence." He said that Femme Fatale is different from his previous thrillers because it is less realistic, as the characters' fears and obsessions revolve around the dreams of the protagonist (Laure). One news site in particular, La Opinion de Malaga, quoted De Palma talking about working with Antonio Banderas: "He did the movie because wanted to work with me, more than because of the character he was offered. I worship his talent, full of energy, but, besides, he is a great person. We had such a good time during the filming that I would not rule out new collaborations with Antonio in the immediate future." And apparently Banderas feels the same way-- the actor mentioned to La Rioja the day before that he plans to return to Broadway, perhaps to do De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise (see story below). De Palma also is quoted at RPP about his upcoming film Toyer, saying that filming in Italy will "perhaps coincide with the Carnival of Venice," which takes place in February. (Thanks to KC for the Malaga article!)

Posted August 5 2003 BANDERAS GETTING READY FOR DE PALMA'S PARADISE BUT WILL HE DIRECT... OR PLAY THE PHANTOM? Who needs Joel Schumacher anyway? After playing Che Guevara in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita, Antonio Banderas quickly became Webber's own favorite to play the lead in the film version of the composer's musical adaptation of Phantom Of The Opera. Since 1998, Banderas had been excited about the chance to take on the role, even going so far as to sing the title song from the play at Webber's 50th birthday bash. This made Banderas an enemy of diehard Phantom fans, who felt that the show's orginal lead actor, Michael Crawford, should be the one to translate the role to the big screen. The film project took years to set up, until finally earlier this year, Warner Bros. announced that Schumacher had been hired to direct. However, Schumacher had this to say about Banderas in the lead: "Antonio is NOT doing this version. I haven't cast yet, but I want to go younger. Maybe Antonio was part of a past project. He was in 'Evita' and Andrew loves him, but he's not my Phantom." ENTER THE FEMME FATALE Banderas starred in De Palma's most recent film, 2002's Femme Fatale, and the still pictured on the left from that film seems to offer a potentially prescient message in the form of the name of the pub depicted in the background: Le Paradis. La Rioja posted an interview with Banderas on August 4 2003. At the end of the interview, Banderas was asked about his upcoming projects, and he concluded by saying the following: "Afterwards [after And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself for HBO], I will return to Broadway and it can be to return to direct my wife with whom I do not like to work as an actor but it facsinates me to direct her. Also, it is the Phantom of the Opera, by Brian De Palma, which he had made an adaptation of the work in the 70's, but this project will take much time to get it on its feet." (A big thank you to Susan at the Antonio Banderas Web Mall for helping me translate that from the original Spanish.) It is not readily apparent what Banderas means by the word "also" in the statement above, but one thing is clear: he has been in talks with De Palma about bringing the filmmaker's Phantom Of The Paradise to Broadway. Is he talking about directing it, with Melanie Griffith possibly starring? (Griffith starred in De Palma's Body Double and The Bonfire Of The Vanities, and persuaded Banderas to take the photographer role in Femme Fatale.) Or is the Griffith project something different from Phantom? Given Banderas' love of the Webber role, it seems likely he might want to take on the lead in De Palma's story as a chance to get it out of his system after being passed on for the film version. Banderas is currently receiving rave reviews for his role in Broadway's Nine, while Griffith is also a hit in the stage version of Chicago. DE PALMA'S PARADISE ON BROADWAY De Palma attempted to bring his 1974 satire of the rock music industry to Broadway in the late 1980s. Paul Williams had written all of the original film's music, and also starred in the film as Swan. Around 1987, De Palma commissioned Williams to rewrite the score for Broadway. According to John Lee Sanders, who worked with Williams from the late '80s to the early '90s, "Paul rewrote the score to that show, when Brian De Palma told him he wanted to put it on Broadway. We went into the studio and cut about 12 new songs, and did a few of them live, but somehow the show was shelved and never done." A remarkable convergence of relationships and circumstances now seems to be bringing a Broadway version of De Palma's classic satire closer to an actual reality. (Thanks to Bill Fentum for helping me gather information for this story.)

Posted July 30 2003 SCARFACE TO HIT THEATERS IN SEPT "ROCK OPERA" TO TOUR 10 CITIES FOR 20th ANNIVERSARY Who would have thought that Brian De Palma would have another film released on U.S. screens less than a year after Femme Fatale's release? Well, it would appear that those rumors we reported on a couple of months ago did indeed have a ring of truth. According to New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams, Scarface will be re-released by Universal in ten cities this September (the film will also be re-released on DVD at the end of that month-- see stories below). Adams indicates that there will be re-release parties featuring "big-time rappers," who hold the film up as a seminal influence on hip hop culture (the upcoming DVD will include a bonus feature titled "Def Jam Presents: Origins of a Hip Hop Classic"). She asks why Scarface is so special, out of all of Al Pacino's films. Scarface producer Martin Bregman replies, "Because this movie changed our culture. It was a rock opera. Rock's first breakthrough." Adams states that the film had a test-screening two weeks ago and "rated a high score of 90. Nothing rates 90," she continues. "The Statue of Liberty naked wouldn't get 90 in Hollywood." As for the film being a "rock opera," critic Geoff Pevere recently suggested that Scarface is actually "a Busby Berkeley musical with bullets." Thanks to John Blaze at the briandepalma.net forum!

Posted July 19 2003 Spike TV TO "GO INSIDE" SCARFACE PROGRAM WILL HAVE "UNPRECEDENTED ACCESS" TO STUDIO ARCHIVES Universal Studios will promote some of its upcoming special DVD releases by producing a program for Spike TV that "takes a new and in-depth look at blockbuster movies for guys." According to a PR Newswire article, Go Inside: Animal House will premiere on the "first network for men" on August 24th, to coincide with Universal's release of a 25th anniversary edition of Animal House on DVD. Two forthcoming installments of the program will feature Scarface and The Blues Brothers. With Scarface set for DVD release the following month (see story below), it seems likely that the film's Go Inside feature will premiere near the end of September, although no date has been announced as of yet. The article states that the program will have "unprecedented access" to Universal Studio archives, offering never-before-seen footage and outtakes.

Updated July 18 2003 NEW SCARFACE DVD DETAILS FROM DVD FILE EXTRA FEATURES ANNOUNCED Universal Studios has posted a little information about the upcoming releases of Scarface on DVD. Due to be released on September 30 are full-screen and anamorphic widescreen anniversary editions of the 1983 film. DVDFile has received information about the discs' extra features. Two featurettes are included: "The Rebirth of Scarface" and "Acting Scarface" (sounds like a Laurent Bouzereau production to me). There will also be "additional interview footage presented by Def Jam featuring today's hottest music stars commenting on how Scarface has influenced their life and music, plus a comparison between the R-rated and TV versions." Stills and trailers will also be included. Also released September 30th will be a Scarface deluxe gift set that will include the widescreen version of the 1983 film, and a full screen version of Howard Hawks' original Scarface from 1932. Universal has also announced a September 9 release date for a newly remastered DVD of Carlito's Way.

Posted July 15 2003 2003 SCREEN SHOTS FROM M2M ALTERNATE ENDING BUT GERMAN READER SAYS ONLY A "FUNNY GIMMICK" Click here to see screen shots of the "alternate ending" of Mission To Mars, as featured on the Region 2 DVD release as an "easter egg." Last winter, some DVD websites were reporting that the region 2 DVD (covering Japan, Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East) of Mission To Mars contains a hidden alternate version of the film's ending. At DVD Easter Eggs, instructions for accessing the scene read as follows: "Play sequence 15 (End Credits) until the end, then the same sequence restarts again but finishes before the credits with an alternate end scene." Since being reported here, one reader had written in to say that he has unsuccessfully tried to access any "easter eggs" on the region 2 DVD, even going so far as to copy it onto hard disk in order to run several authoring programs that were nevertheless unable to find any hidden scenes. Someone had e-mailed our reader telling him that in the alternate ending to Mission To Mars found on the easter egg, the Mars spaceship that Gary Sinise is riding in collapses with the NASA ship "in one big crash." De Palma a la Mod posted the above information as an update over the past weekend, discussing the possibility of such an ending being considered for the film, and concluding that, for the time being, the scene could only be regarded as a rumor. But now a German reader has written in to inform us that the easter egg does indeed exist on the region 2 DVD of Mission To Mars: "I own the region 2 DVD (for Germany) and yes there is this sequence. It seems to me, that this is not an official alternate ending, but a funny gimmick. Maybe you have to see it to believe what I mean by that." (Thanks to Scott, Marko and Mark!)

Posted July 13 2003 BLAIR'S UNTOUCHABLES SUMMIT PROGRAM COVER IMITATES POSTER British Prime Minister Tony Blair is hosting a "Progressive Governance" summit this weekend (Sunday-Monday, July 13-14) in London, where leaders of center-left governments across the globe will meet to discuss "third way" efforts (now known as "progressive governance") to balance socialist traditions with free-market economics. The cover of the summit's magazine program imitates the poster of Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, with Blair in the Eliot Ness position, flanked by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, South African President Thabo Mbeki, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson. This description comes from an article at Diariovasco, but no mention is made of the Al Capone position. Perhaps Iraq should be the looming figure overshadowing Blair and his "untouchables"-- the article states that it was the one word that threatened the unity of the global leaders, who had gathered Friday for an introductory conference. The word ("Iraq") was spoken by the French socialist leader, Laurent Fabius.

"There is now almost overwhelming evidence that Mars has reserves of frozen water hidden just below the surface." New research: Ice on Mars melts into streaks that "flow" across surface... ...confirms Hoagland team's observations from July 2000 White House thinks the truth might be out there Bush backs evidence of "space aliens" in budget document Mission To Mars: News, Reviews, and Related Issues New book on filmmakers from the 1970s with chapters on Allen, Altman, De Palma, Lucas, Kubrick, Scorsese, and others. (Thanks to Hugh!) De Niro AFI Tribute on USA Network The program ignores De Niro's early work with De Palma, aside from a brief mention by Blythe Danner that De Niro began his career by making comedies. But there is a section devoted to his work as Al Capone in The Untouchables, with commentary from De Niro and producer Art Linson, who says that even though De Niro's part only required nine days of shooting, he was quite memorable in the role. Linson says that when they began to see what De Niro was doing, they knew they had something special. De Niro talks about how he painstakingly plucked the hairs on his forehead to create Capone's receding hairline ("it wasn't easy"), and talks about the roundtable scene: "That speech around the table was fun to do... but sort of brutal... (he gives a playful grin now) a touching scene, but... it scared me, and I was doing it." HULK "The filmmakers also score with split-screen work like something Brian De Palma would do on an episode of 24" June 17 2003 Toyer Update from Romain at The Virtuoso of the 7th art -Preproduction has begun. -Actors not yet final. -Shooting to begin in Sept/Oct. -Summer is for preparation. Thanks, Romain! More DePalma, Less Fellini Check out track #2 on the new release from Good Riddance (follow the link above to click on the mp3 link) Judge rejects claim vs. Sean Penn Producer's extortion claim "stems from Penn's threat to release a potentially damaging audiotape featuring Bing unless he was paid $10 million." The Guardian: "Just about the only person criticising Bush in the US media is Sean Penn - and he paid $125,000 for the privilege" Sean Penn: Kilroy's Still Here "Our flag has been waving, it seems, in servicing a regime change significantly benefiting U.S. corporations... We found that our Secretary of State presented plagiarized and fictitious evidence of WMD's in Iraq to the American people and the world. We would rely on this, our government, acting alone, to uncover those weapons of mass destruction said to be posessed by the Iraqis and originally said to have justified our assault... Even as the New York Times presents unchallenging articles (see Judith Miller, April 21, 2003, "Prohibited Weapons") on a weapons inspections process now in place, unnoticed are the legitimate concerns about potential insertion of WMD evidence... We must reflect on the certainty with which we were sold a war on the basis of what we now so expertly call WMDs." Penn sues over anti-war "blacklist" Nolte: Sean Penn is "Our new leader" (New album from Scarface) "The Brian De Palma of hip-hop" Spector says actress shot herself after kissing gun Scarface Actress Shot Dead at Home of Phil Spector She and Phil "had just met" Lana Clarkson Website Clarkson wrote about Scarface on her website's message board last June: "Yes, indeed you did see me in the Babylon club scenes in Scarface. The director, Brian De Palma hired 12 Screen Actors Guild members, ladies, whom he put under contract for a couple of weeks. This was to avoid any union problems or restrictions while he was in creative mode. It was an interesting set to be on, though I wish I'd had more to do. I was taller than most of the "gang" members and therefore, was basically window dressing. Regardless, it was a great opportunity to watch artists of Pacino and De Palma's caliber work. Mr. Pacino was always in character, even when in his trailer which was just down from mine. I often overheard him speaking to his dresser in his Tony Montana accent. He's an extremely intense and focused actor who is a joy to be around because of his commitment. Steven Baur was dreamy, Michele Pffeifer, nervous and De Palma drank lots of coffee and smoked lots of cigarettes. I think they were all under a lot of pressure form Universal. We worked hard, right up 'till Christmas Eve. I got on a plane the next morning to join my family in Hawaii. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience."

Posted June 17 2003 WHEN HURD MET DE PALMA SHE TRIED TO PERSUADE HIM TO DIRECT A FILM... An article from the New York Times News Service, published in today's Taipei Times, features an interview with Brian De Palma's ex-wife Gale Ann Hurd, who is one of the producers of Ang Lee's upcoming Hulk (Hurd has been involved in the Hulk project for over a decade). The article states that Hurd met De Palma in 1990 "when she invited him to dinner to try to persuade him, without success, to direct a film she wanted to make." The title of the film is not mentioned, leaving us to wonder... Tremors perhaps? Hmmm... it may even have been Hulk, which Hurd says was originally set up at Universal in 1991. That was the year that Hurd and De Palma went on to get married and have a baby, which the article says was named Lolita after Hurd's mother. Now 11-years old, De Palma and Hurd share custody of Lolita. Hurd was pregnant with Lolita when she produced De Palma's Raising Cain, which was filmed in the fall of 1991 and released in August of 1992. In the book Brian De Palma: Conversations with Samuel Blumenfeld and Laurent Vachaud, De Palma says that after the exhaustive job of making 1990's The Bonfire Of The Vanities, and with his wife pregnant, he wanted to make a smaller film. Raising Cain was made within a five-mile radius of the couple's California home, or, as De Palma said in the book, "practically in our own back yard." Lee's Hulk is said to feature some impressively complex comic book-like split screens. Hurd, who produced many key films directed by her first husband, James Cameron, will produce another Marvel comic character, The Punisher, which will be directed by her current husband (her fourth), Jonathan Hensleigh (according to Dark Horizons, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is in talks for a role in the film as the Punisher's slain wife, and John Travolta will play a mobster). Hurd is also following De Palma's footsteps on Mars by developing a six-hour miniseries for the SCI-FI network, Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. Just as De Palma's Mission To Mars was made with the cooperation of NASA, Hurd's project will work closely with Author Robinson, a member of NASA's Mars Committee. The story is about the first colonists on Mars.

Posted June 15 2003 FEMME-INIST FUN FOR "AFTER ELLEN" CROWD CRITIC: FF REINFORCES & CHALLENGES BISEXUAL STEREOTYPES Sarah Warn posted a review of Femme Fatale last month at AfterEllen.Com, a site that features "reviews and commentary on the representation of lesbians and bisexual women in entertainment and the media." Warn feels that Brian De Palma's latest is more complicated than it at first appears. Taken in the context of other Hollywood product, she suggests that Femme Fatale reinforces bisexual stereotypes that demonize such characters as immoral and manipulative. But taken on its own, Warn finds that De Palma's film "appears to actually challenge conventional stereotypes of bisexuality because Laure has a more enduring and authentic relationship with Veronica than with anyone else, even if it is not Laure's primary romantic attachment." One thing that Warn does not mention that might add juice to her position is that Laure's flirtations with male characters in the film occur "only in her dreams," to paraphrase the film's closing line. Other than the final "chance" meeting with Nicolas, Laure is seen in the film's "non-dream" segments to be rather apprehensive toward each male she encounters. Warn has clearly overlooked this possibility, because she also writes that Laure's "primary romantic identification is clearly with men." In any case, she identifies Laure as "a guy's version of a femme fatale," going on to say that "her bisexuality is also of the male-fantasy type." Despite this, Warn celebrates the authenticity of lesbian passion on display, stating, "The sex scene between Laure and Veronica is also one of the most realistic (ignoring the jewel-heist context) and sexy lesbian sex scenes in a mainstream movie." TORN BETWEEN TWO READINGS (AND LOVING IT) If Warn seems torn between Femme Fatale's simultaneous reinforcement of and challenge of bisexual stereotypes, she seems almost as confused about the film's perspective on feminism (and of course such duality seems entirely appropriate when discussing the cinema of De Palma). Although Warn states that Laure's bisexuality is of the "male-fantasy type," the character's insistence on making her own choices "is what prevents Femme Fatale from being purely male-fantasy fluff." Warn writes, "A feminist icon she ain't, but Laure's no puppet for the patriarchy, either." Ultimately, Warn concludes that "Femme Fatale delivers exactly what you'd expect: an enjoyable romp through male fantasy-land offset by a subversive feminist undercurrent and a shout-out to lesbian and bisexual viewers. Which puts the film squarely in the 'fun, sexy trash' category for me." Scroll down this page to the post dated April 18 2003 for details on Stephanie Zacharek's discussion of Femme Fatale as a feminist film. 52 AFTER ELLEN FANS CAN'T BE WRONG A poll at AfterEllen.Com asked readers, "What did you think of the movie Femme Fatale?" Below are the results of 120 respondents from the "After Ellen" crowd: Loved it - 52 (43%) Eh, just okay - 56 (47%) Hated it! - 12 (10%)

Updated June 13 2003 SCARFACE RESURRECTED AND A REMAKE OF THE FURY? Various DVD news sites are reporting different dates for a new Scarface DVD, which is rumored to be titled Scarface: The Resurrection Edition. Depending on where you read about it, the 20th aniversary edition DVD will either be released on September 9th, September 30th, or sometime in November. The latter is closest to the actual 20-year mark from the film's initial release date in 1983. The only thing anyone can seem to agree on for now is that it will be released before the end of the year, and will feature the film in anamorphic widescreen. (Thanks to Ted at the De Palma forum for the initial news.) Also at the forum, BWL has stated that a screenwriter friend has indicated that someone in Hollywood is thinking about remaking The Fury as the beginning of a possible new franchise. First Carrie, then Sisters, and now The Fury? Who would have ever thought? Next thing you know, they'll go and remake Scarface.

Posted May 30 2003 STONE CREDITS DE PALMA AS COWRITER "BEST COLLABORATION I EVER HAD WITH ANOTHER DIRECTOR" Oliver Stone participated in a Master Film class at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Stone spoke about making Scarface with Brian De Palma: "The best collaboration I ever had with another director was with Brian De Palma. We wrote the script for Scarface together. Thanks to him, I became aware of which pitfalls to avoid when directing big budget movies." Stone's statement flies in the face of overwhelming consensus that views Scarface as one of De Palma's most impersonal films. This is a perspective that sees De Palma as little more than a hired hand who was brought in to direct an already locked screenplay commissioned by a major power-player star (Al Pacino). De Palma himself credits Stone as the lone screenwriter in interviews. For instance, in a 1998 chat with fans at ET Online, De Palma was asked if he had had any apprehensions about remaking the classic Howard Hawks Scarface. "Not really," he replied, "because Oliver had written such an original script, and sort of reinvented Scarface as the Cuban drug ring." However, during the same chat, De Palma was asked, "As a director are you directly involved in choosing the cast? Do you have final say?" De Palma replied: "I'm always bewildered by questions like this... Have you ever heard anyone that was directing a film say, 'I never had anything to do with the selection of the cast,' or, 'I never had anything to do with how the film was written.' Well, I've never had it happen. Of course we have control over all these areas. That is why they call us directors." Although De Palma is not credited with story or screenplay for Mission: Impossible, it was the director who outlined the initial story with Steven Zallion before David Koepp and Robert Towne were brought in to work on the screenplay. It was De Palma's idea to bring the notorious Face on Mars element into the Mission To Mars project. These are just two examples of De Palma's input into the shaping of the screenplays of his "non-auteur" films. Stone's generous statement at Cannes of collaboration with De Palma may be a reflection of similar "direction" given while writing Scarface. STONE COLD ON HORROR Stone also talked about his early horror films: "After the flop of Seizure in 1973, and The Hand in 1981, I realized I was no good at making horror movies. I didn't have the "coldness" which comes across in Brian De Palma or Hitchcock movies. I would have loved to have directed The Tenant, but it was too late, Roman Polanski had already done it." You can read more by clicking here. (Thanks to screenfreekz!)

Posted May 16 2003 THANK YOU, PETER BART MATTHEWS SARDONICALLY PARROTS DE PALMA/CRITICS SLAM Last January, Peter Bart wrote the following in a Variety column complaining about critics' best film lists for 2002: "While movie reviewing may seem like a lark, the challenge of sitting through every Hollywood release is, at best, punishing. Hence some critics, if you catch them in a vulnerable moment, will admit to serious (if not habitual) lapses in judgment, which would explain why Brian De Palma movies continue to adorn so many critics' lists." Since then, Bart's column has been discussed and debated in many critics circles, with the result that De Palma seems to have become the center axis on which to define a critic's position on cinema itself. The latest repurcussion of Bart's column comes from Jack Matthews at the New York Daily News. In his May 16 column, Matthews writes about a formula discovered by London University professor Sue Clayton that can supposedly define the perfect film via frame-by-frame analysis of recent box office hits. In an obvious reference to Bart's infamous column, Matthews writes: "Despite announcing the results of her groundbreaking research on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival, Clayton has drawn scant attention from the media. You'd expect the snub from critics, who've seen enough Brian De Palma movies to know we're closer to seeing the perfectly awful picture than the perfectly good one." So we say, Thank you, Peter Bart.

Posted April 24 2003 "LOVE THAT TITLE!" REBECCA FINALLY MAKES THE COVER OF FEMME FATALES Apparently, if you make a brilliant movie about a tall, sexy, and manipulative "girl who can kick our ass" who appears in various states of undress and call it Femme Fatale, it is no guarantee that your star femme will grace the cover of a magazine titled Femme Fatales, which itself is devoted to gorgeous "girls who can kick our asses" cavorting around its pages in various states of undress. But if she happens to star in a big summer movie being released a few months later, she just may wind up on the cover anyway, albeit promoting X2. Yes, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos has finally made the cover of Femme Fatales, in its second issue since revamping its look. She is interviewed in the issue by Jeff Bond, who wrote the comprehensive liner notes to MGM's most recent release of Pino Donaggio's soundtrack score for Carrie. In his intro to the article, Bond writes that Rebecca "starred as a comely, open-minded thief in Brian De Palma's controversial, steamy thriller Femme Fatale (love that title!)," although the article focuses on her role as Mystique in the X-Men movies. Here is how Bond brings up the De Palma film: "I have to ask about Femme Fatale if only because it's the title of our magazine." Gee, thanks! He continues, "This was a movie that really divided critics and audiences alike. What's your opinion?" Rebecca replies, "It's a trippy movie, and I'd say the only consensus on any of Brian De Palma's movies is that they divide critics and audiences." She goes on to say that young filmmakers should study De Palma's work, and that he is really underappreciated. "He's an amazing storyteller," she says, "and he did everything in that movie on purpose. Every image that is in that movie exists for a reason. It's an amazing movie." IN DEFENSE OF DE PALMA: REBECCA'S LOVE LETTER Bond suggests a Mulholland Drive connection to the film, and asks Rebecca if she was ever confused about her character. "Brian and I worked very closely," she replies, "and of course I had a bazillion questions before we started, and we talked a lot while we were making it. Any time you're playing a character you'd better know them better than anyone, better than the audience, better than the director. I always knew there was a specific reason why she did everything she did. It's a different kind of movie, it's not your normal Hollywood blockbuster mainstream kind of movie. Brian De Palma is a cinephile like I've never seen before and knows more about movies than anyone I've ever met, and it's people who really loved film that gave it love letters. And it was more of the mainstream critics who are dumbed-down by movies, it was those people who didn't appreciate the movie." The last two pages of the six-page article feature pictures from Femme Fatale highlighting the film's lesbian make-out scene in the Cannes bathroom.

Posted April 18 2003 IN DEFENSE OF REBECCA ZACHAREK: FF A FEMINIST FILM; ELITIST DISMISSALS OF REBECCA'S PERFORMANCE ARE ESSENTIALLY MISOGYNISTIC In a piece originally written for and published by Salon.Com, Stephanie Zacharek exposes the common wisdom which holds that a film like The Hours, with its "ho-hum actorly prestige," represents the only kind of project that offers so-called decent roles for women. In the article, which is republished today in The Age, Zacharek writes, "Why is playing a depressive writer or an anti-death-penalty nun automatically considered superior to (or more difficult than) playing a kook (like Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby), a prostitute (like Jane Fonda in Klute), or a femme fatale (like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity)?" Going on to praise Sharon Stone's cool Hitchcockian blonde in Basic Instinct and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in Batman Returns, Zacharek points out how these meaty roles are frequently dismissed as sex kittens, "a neat way of diminishing both the roles and the actresses who played them in one quick, cheap shot." Zacharek says that she will never watch The Hours again (if she can help it), but she will be happy to spend more time with Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale. "I feel protective of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos' performance in Femme Fatale not only because I think it's marvellously, wickedly entertaining, but because I think there's something essentially misogynist about the way many critics and moviegoers have so sneeringly dismissed her." Zacharek makes a case for giving Romijn-Stamos credit for her solid performance, saying it's not just De Palma's direction that makes it click, but also something natural within the actress herself. "One of the most resonant images from Femme Fatale," writes Zacharek, "is that of Romijn-Stamos tangling with Antonio Banderas on a Parisian bridge, her hair a windblown tumble of blond curls, her eyes circled with eyeliner like an echo of Parisian soot. She's dressed in fetching black leather and lace, impeccably cut in the French way, but there's something about her defiant stance that makes her much more than just a tall, lovely girl who looks good in clothes. She's nervy and determined in the way she carries herself, as if she'd come to an understanding of her character within her very bones and muscles." Zacharek calls the double role of Laure/Lily a "challenging one" that she will relish watching again. "I see Femme Fatale as a covertly feminist movie," she writes, "one that embraces the femme fatale not just as an icon but as a disguise for the real human being underneath. Lily/Laure, a femme fatale (the most heavily typed in the movies!), feels more real and more vivid to me than the carefully wrought, 'serious' characters in The Hours."

Posted April 12 2003 PEVERE ON SCARFACE: "A BUSBY BERKELEY MUSICAL WITH BULLETS" In a Toronto Star series that looks at "pop culture's most enduring symbols," Geoff Pevere summarizes the making of Scarface and the film's rise from an initially "mild box office response" and critical drubbing to its eventual status as "a contemporary cinematic touchstone." Pevere suggests that Al Pacino's "excessively intemperate performance" as Tony Montana influenced Robert De Niro in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, as well as Christopher Walken in King Of New York and, most recently, Daniel Day Lewis' Bill the Butcher in Gangs Of New York. According to Pevere, the British critic Alistair Marshall has stated, "In 50 years time, when they assess the best 50 movies of the 20th century, Scarface will be on the list." Pevere himself concludes that "it took a while for people to see the movie for what it was: a Busby Berkeley musical with bullets."

Posted April 11 2003 PANKOW REEDITS TONY MONTANA REYES DANCES AGAIN WITH BENNY BLANCO Now playing at your local video store are two films with strong ties to Brian De Palma's Al Pacino gangster films. Bill Pankow served as associate editor on Scarface, and now two decades later, he has edited a brilliant new film about Harlem drug dealers called Paid In Full. Directed by Charles Stone III, one nicely done Coppola-like sequence begins with the voiceover narrator saying, "Things really got hot in Harlem when Scarface came to town." As a large audience hoots and hollers at Scarface in a movie theater, scenes from that film are intercut with violent echo effects of Tony Montana's last stand. On the DVD commentary, Stone talks about how Tony Montana became a "superhero" role model for dealers, and his film makes a clear link between Scarface and the ultimately self-destructive actions taken by its protagonists. Paid In Full is a superbly crafted film that demystifies the gangsta myth and the gangsta rap video all in one semi-surreal swoop. EMPIRE Also now in video stores is Empire, starring John Leguizamo, who has acted in two De Palma films, Casualties Of War and Carlito's Way. I haven't seen Empire yet, but it was directed by Franc Reyes, who worked with De Palma and Leguizamo as an assistant choreographer on Carlito's Way. Many reviews have compared Empire to Scarface and Carlito's Way. Sometimes these comparisons have been unfavorable, but sometimes they have been positive, with some critics appreciating Reyes' fluid camera style and editing. In an interview with Latino Review, Reyes said that "working on the set with Al Pacino, Luis Guzman and John Leguizamo to me was insane and I was having a ball. And watching Brian De Palma work was great." DAY FOR NIGHT While at the video store, you might also look for Warner Bros.' new DVD of Francois Truffaut's Day For Night. Bill Fentum wrote to say that on one of the disc's Laurent Bouzereau-directed documentaries ("Truffaut in the USA"), De Palma can be seen and heard in interview clips talking about meeting Truffaut on Spielberg's set for Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, as well as De Palma's observations on rewatching Day For Night recently. Thanks, Bill!

Posted April 5 2003 TRAVOLTA WAITING FOR THE CALL AND PUBLISHED FEMME FATALE SCREENPLAY FOR SALE Star Telegram film critic Christopher Kelly asked John Travolta, "What about getting back with someone like Mike Nichols, or Brian De Palma, or Quentin Tarantino?" Travolta: "I'm waiting for the calls." FF SCREENPLAY Last year, Cahiers du Cinema published a bilingual English/French version of Brian De Palma's screenplay for Femme Fatale. Now, the book is available for all of us at Amazon.fr. Thanks to Screenfreekz for letting us know.

Updated March 30 2003 "DE PALMA'S CANNES GEM" NY POST & NY PRESS SAVOR 2ND LOOKS AT FF Armond White, New York Press V.A. Musetto, NY Post Home Theater Forum DVD File DVD Authority Current Film Rumor: 20th Anniversary Scarface disc with new extra features to be released by Universal Oct. 2003.

Posted March 29 2003 PACINO CLEARED SET FOR SCARFACE AND AMC AIRS NEW DOCU ON DRUG MOVIES A writer for The Age whose name is not given recalls a story told by Richard Franklin, who was directing Psycho 2 in 1982 when he ran into "a forlorn looking Brian De Palma" in the Universal Studios parking lot. "The experienced Hollywood director was making Scarface," writes the author, "and the shoot was not a happy one. The star, Al Pacino, had been having trouble getting inside the skin of the Cuban gangster with the vicious streak and the loud mouth. He had demanded the set be cleared. De Palma thought fine, whatever it takes, and sent everyone away. Trouble was he hadn't realized that his absence was also required. In Hollywood parlance, this is what's called a lock-out and, Franklin was astonished to learn, it had stretched through the entire day. It was the young Australian's first real lesson in the combustibility of a Hollywood set." De Palma perhaps threw in a little dig at Pacino's method when in his following film, Body Double, he recast Al Israel in a small but key role. Israel has one of Scarface's most famous scenes as the chainsaw-wielding "Hector the Toad" opposite Pacino. Israel's turn as a porno movie director in Body Double echoes his exchange with Pacino in Scarface, with each actor in each of the scenes/films going through the motions of a conversation/script. In the Scarface exchange, each character knows the other is lying, or acting the part. This is acknowledged by the characters when, at one point in their negotiations, Pacino's Tony Montana asks if he should go outside and come back in so that he and Hector can start over again. In the Body Double exchange, where Israel plays a director auditioning an actor, the two characters are literally reading from a script, and the artificiality of the situation is highlighted by the fact that Israel is reading the female role. The scene they are reading is from a porno film, where the auditioning actor, Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) says "I like to watch." The possible dig at Pacino comes when after reading the scene, Wasson asks, "Um, what is it that we're watching...?" To which Israel's porno director, irritated, replies, "I don't know-- what are you , a method actor? Huh?" While Pacino is known as a method actor, the line also recalls Dustin Hoffman's actor in Tootsie, which also seems to have been somewhat of an influence on De Palma's Body Double. AMC TO AIR SINOFSKY DOCU ON HOLLYWOOD DRUG MOVIES Bruce Sinofsky, a former protege of the Maysles brothers, has made a one-hour documentary about Hollywood drug movies which will air on American Movie Classics Monday, March 31st, at 8pm eastern. The film is called Hollywood High, and is reviewed by Scott Galupo at the Washington Times. According to Galupo, the documentary cites Scarface as one of the first Hollywood movies to "cop to the destructive side of drugs," a trend that seemed to have run throughout the 1980s.

Posted March 28 2003 TRAVOLTA TALKS BLOW OUT DE PALMA HAD ANN-MARGRET IN MIND FOR SALLY... As John Travolta has been promoting his new film, Basic, he and his interviewers have been talking about Blow Out. Travolta told Gary Thompson of The State that after making films like Staying Alive, Grease, and Urban Cowboy, he began looking for more adult roles, and called up some friends like Brian De Palma, who had cast him in Carrie. "I called him and said, what do you have next, because I couldn't find anything to do. He said, interesting you called, I have a fabulous script called Blow Out that I want you and Ann-Margret to do." Travolta eventually convinced De Palma to cast his then-wife Nancy Allen as the female lead. Travolta told Thompson, "That was more a filmmaker's success than a commercial success - the ending was just too sad, but it was the kind of choice that [years later] made Quentin Tarantino interested in me. He was fascinated by the De Palma relationship, and he was fascinated with the iconic nature of Saturday Night Fever and Welcome Back Kotter. They made enough of an impression on him that by the time he became a filmmaker, I was the guy he wanted to work with." Meanwhile, the Boston Globe's Wesley Morris uses Blow Out, which the writer calls "De Palma's masterpiece," to concur with Travolta's claim that he has always been more of a character actor than a leading man. Morris writes, "The movie is a cynical, archly stylized riff on Alfred Hitchcock and Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up, and Travolta is a hundred different kinds of electric. It's still cinema's sexiest portrait of an A-V nerd, and it's the moment Travolta leaped into a kind of adulthood. He was Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window -- only diminished by his integrity where Stewart was saved by it."

Posted March 27 2003 FEMME FATALE OPENS IN GERMANY AND MAKE WAY FOR BAD GUY GREGG HENRY ON 24 Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale opened in Germany today (March 27), and opens in Austria tomorrow (March 28). At the briandepalma.net forum, Kai has reported that most critics appear to be reacting very positively to the film, although the reviews themselves, he said, have not been particularly illuminating. Despite appreciating the "seductive intoxication" of Femme Fatale's camerawork and editing, a critic in Die Welt calls the film a work of self-deception on the part of the filmmaker, saying, "One can hardly imagine that De Palma has seen any current films in the last ten years." Apparently this critic is not able to see the indelible influence of the recent German film Run Lola Run on Femme Fatale's surreal take on the concepts of chance and fate. Instead, the critic accuses De Palma of living in the past glories of an elite, avant-garde surrealism. Some shots of Femme Fatale, the critic suggests, "could have been painted by De Chirico," the Italian painter known for his metaphysical works that provided the impetus for the surrealist movement. The critic goes on to say that "De Palma and his cameraman Thierry Arbogast let water flow, as if Dalí had given them a few pieces of advice." The critic suggests that while De Palma's film is beautiful to look at, it is nevertheless inspired by things that do not hold much salience in today's cinema. Meanwhile, Gregg Henry, who is pictured above in Femme Fatale, and has also appeared in De Palma's Scarface, Body Double, and Raising Cain, is taking on a bad guy role in the current FOX TV series 24. Henry's face first appeared on a computer screen in an episode that aired on February 25th, but this week's episode (which you can catch as a repeat on the F/X network this Monday and Tuesday) presented the man in the flesh, so to speak.

Updated March 27 2003 ADAPTATION PEVERE AND DENBY PREFER DE PALMA The Toronto Star's Geoff Pevere says that Lawrence Kasdan's new adaptation of Stephen King's Dreamcatcher tries to cram King's lengthy story into too small of a frame. Pevere writes: "Easily one of the most absurdly over-plotted and incoherently condensed horror movies of recent times, the ludicrous Dreamcatcher serves at least to make you understand why King (whose novels have been best served by directors with little respect for faithful adaptation, like Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick and David Cronenberg) has recently turned to acting as executive producer of sprawling televisual adaptations of his work." De Palma adapted King's Carrie for the screen in 1976. Kubrick adapted The Shining, and Cronenberg The Dead Zone. Pevere's suggestion that these three adaptations of King's novels were successful because of their lack of faithfulness to their sources seems to corroborate with critic David Denby's recent discussion of faithful adaptations and betrayal of source material in the New Yorker. Denby himself, in his March 31st New Yorker reveiw of Dreamcatcher, called De Palma's Carrie the "one masterpiece" made from King's horror material. THE NEW YORKER GOES TO THE MOVIES The March 17 2003 issue of The New Yorker features a special supplement titled "The New Yorker Goes To The Movies," in which critic David Denby discusses film adaptations of the magazine's stories and the problems involved in translating an author's prose to the screen. Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze's recent Adaptation, adapted very loosely from Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief," which originally ran in The New Yorker, provides the impetus for Denby's essay. Denby decides that Kaufman essentially (to paraphrase) let the dog eat his homework: Kaufman may have actually sweat out the task of being true to Orlean's prose, but, Denby speculates, he may have actually wanted to write a self-referential meta-movie all along. In any case, Denby takes a tour through the many film adaptations of New Yorker writings on a quest to discover what sort of "betrayal" of the source material is necessary to create a faithful adaptation. What he finds is that Brian De Palma and David Rabe's Casualties Of War (1989) transcends Daniel Lang's account of a young man's real-life war horror story, originally published in The New Yorker in 1969. In De Palma and Rabe's hands, writes Denby, "it becomes a great and tragic film and an honorable act of American self-criticism." According to Denby, the filmmakers use the right kind of betrayal to the material, bringing the viewer physically into a world that Lang can only tell us about (Denby writes that "flesh has an authority onscreen that writing can't match"). Denby suggests that De Palma's visceral strategy allows us to "feel not only the horror of combat but the men's excitement in the vicious crime [rape and murder] that they are committing as a release from that horror. [De Palma's] not sympathetic (no one could miss his disgust), but he makes the despicable emotions at least plausible." Denby says that while De Palma's film is "frequently omitted from the Vietnam canon that includes Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket, Casualties Of War is perhaps the best movie ever made from New Yorker material and one of the finest Vietnam movies." While not faithful in some ways to the source material, De Palma and Rabe came up with some "heroic solutions" that "should suggest to potential adapters that neither faithfulness nor betrayal is a necessary strategy in itself." The key, Denby suggests, lies in expanding the physical dimensions of the writing to "fit the screen." (Thanks to Hugh!) SYBIL MEETS DRESSED TO KILL By the way, Adaptation makes explicit reference to De Palma's Dressed To Kill when Charlie Kaufman frustratedly tells his twin brother Donald(both played by Nicolas Cage) that his screenplay about one character who seems to be three characters is like "Sybil meets, I don't know, Dressed To Kill." Donald replies, "Cool! I really liked Dressed To Kill. Until the third act denooeyment [mispronounced]." You can call this next part a SPOILER if you want, but consider the following in regards to that line of dialogue: Charlie Kaufman inserted himself into his adaptation of Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief," a work of nonfiction, but he does not have a twin brother in real life. (Thus the above movie references become especially relevant.)

Posted March 20 2003 DAUGHTERS & DOLLS Manuel from Spain sent in these intriguing stills...

Posted March 8 2003 CARRIE MAKING THE ROUNDS PREMIERE'S GREATEST MOVIE MOMENTS The March 2003 issue of Premiere features the magazine's picks for "the 100 greatest movie moments of all time." Coming in at #22 is the wrath of Carrie. "Good and bad alike suffer her wrath," says the mag, "as her unleashed telekinesis mercilessly burns, electrocutes, and crucifies her tormentors in classic De Palma split-screen glory. It may have unsettling resonance in the age of Columbine, but this explosive sequence is still the most shockingly visceral and satisfying fantasy of high school revenge ever put on film." The moment is listed in between the closing shot of John Ford's The Searchers at #23, and the laser beam interrogation in Goldfinger at #21. The magazine's online version has posted some of its readers' favorite movie moments, including this one from Henry Boureshrocken: "The baby carriage going down the steps in The Untouchables." PSYCHOLOGISTS TO VIEW AND DISCUSS CARRIE "The movie is about the fear of our powers as we go through adolescence, and the fears and betrayals in sexuality," says Bet MacArthur, organizer of the 12th annual Psychology Goes To The Movies film series, which began March 7th at Cambridge's Lesley University. MacArthur was speaking about Carrie, one of the five films in the series, to the Boston Herald. Talking about the series, which will feature psychologists speaking before and after each film, MacArthur told the newspaper, "We have a great mission to get Freud out of the consulting room." MacArthur also made statements about the importance of knowing how to read a film, saying, "We don't teach the language of cinema to young people like we do with literature. They don't know what they are looking at, how they are being manipulated. It is our feeling that cinema is the most important literary form of the 20th century." The series began March 7th with Ponette, and continues March 14th with Carrie. The other three films are Elia Kazan's Splendor In The Grass, Mike Nichols' Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, and Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries. ISTANBUL FEST PAYS TRIBUTE TO DE PALMA The 22nd International Istanbul Film Festival will pay tribute to Brian De Palma by screening six of the director's films: Greetings, Hi, Mom!, Carrie, Dressed To Kill, Blow Out, and Scarface. The festival runs April 12-27 2003. Other filmmakers being paid tribute at the festival include Claude Chabrol, Zeki Ökten, and Edward Yang.

Posted February 16 2003 MOVIE BRATS "VIVID" IN HOME MOVIES DOCUMENTARY SCREENS ON CABLE IN MARCH Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (1998) is a book that was not looked upon very highly by many of the 1970s-era Hollywood film industry figures whose exploits the book depicted. Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma were among those who publicly condemned the book's focus on many of that era's sordid details. A new film based on the book premiered at this year's Slamdance Film Festival, and will debut March 9th on U.S. cable channel Trio, with an edited version (cut to fit into a 2-hour time slot) to be followed soon after on the BBC in the U.K. According to a review in Variety, director Kenneth Bowser has toned down the gossipy tone of the book, "balancing personal stories with film appreciation and a strong sense of the cultural and social scene that spawned the creative explosion" of the late '60s and '70s. Of particular interest to De Palma fans is a section of the film devoted to the "movie brats." Reviewer David Rooney writes, "Considerable attention is given to the Malibu set that drew together Brian De Palma, Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Harvey Keitel, John Milius, Steven Spielberg and Michael and Julia Phillips, among others. Recalled in part by actresses Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt, who functioned as the group's de facto social queens, this network revolved predominantly around a bunch of guys who got together to talk movies and fuel each other's creative drive, and is made vivid via never-before-seen Phillips home movies featuring all of these luminaries in their extreme youth." A DECADE UNDER THE INFLUENCE Meanwhile, the late Ted Demme had begun work on a similar documentary about 1970s Hollywood before he died. Titled A Decade Under The Influence, the film was completed by Richard LaGravenese and premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. According to Rooney, Decade provides more of a critical overview of this director-dominated period in Hollywood when movie moguls were on their way out. The film is expected to be released later this year. KEITH GORDON OPENS SUNDANCE BRITNEY SPEARS WALKS OUT Keith Gordon's new film, The Singing Detective, premiered on the opening night of this year's Sundance Film Festival, and by most accounts polarized audiences just as severely as many a De Palma film has. The film stars Robert Downey Jr. as a hospitalized man with a skin disorder who escapes to a fantasy world of film noir in his head. The characters in this fantasy world often break out into '50s-era rock and roll song and dance numbers. The film is based on a 1986 BBC TV series written by the late Dennis Potter, who finished the screenplay to the film version before he died. Mel Gibson plays Downey's psychiatrist, with Robin Wright Penn, Katie Holmes and Snake Eyes' Carla Gugino rounding out the cast. Some have called the film "audacious," regarding it as a masterpiece, yet Britney Spears has become the film's most famous critic. According to the New York Post, the pop star and her "large entourage" walked out 45 minutes into the Sundance screening. Spears told the paper, "The official line is we had our schedules mixed up, so we had to leave, but I didn't like the movie . . . Sundance is weird. The movies are weird - you actually have to think about them when you watch them." Hmmm... The paper quotes Spears' rep as saying, "The Singing Detective wasn't her cup of tea, but she loved Party Monster and The Cooler."

Posted February 13 2003 DE PALMA TESTED ACTRESS FOR SPIELBERG CATCH ME IF YOU CAN ROLE TESTED IN PARIS Brian De Palma's friendship with Steven Spielberg goes way back to the early days of the "Movie Brats," so it is not surprising to hear that when Spielberg wanted to test a French actress for the part of Frank Abagnale's mother in Catch Me If You Can, he called on De Palma, his old friend who was then living in Paris, to conduct the test. The actress in question was Nathalie Baye, whom Spielberg knew from her roles in Francois Truffaut's Day For Night and The Green Room. Baye told Le Figaro that Spielberg contacted her, asking her to test for the role. "It is common in the United States," she told the newspaper, "but very little on our premises. I accepted, of course. He asked me to do them with his friend Brian De Palma who was in Paris. Brian gave me direction, at his place, his brother holding a mini DV camera. It was very funny. But I thought that that would be the end of it. 24 hours later, Spielberg called to tell me that I had the role."

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