Friday, September 30, 2011

Films I saw for the first time in September 2011

11:36 PM / Cinema / Comments8 Comments

  • Thursday, September 1, 2011: SISTERS (USA, 1973) 7/10
  • Saturday, September 3, 2011: BODY DOUBLE (USA, 1984) 3/10
  • Sunday, September 4, 2011: OBSESSION (USA, 1976) 7/10
  • Monday, September 5, 2011: DOWNFALL (Germany/Italy/Austria, 2004) 7/10
  • Monday, September 12, 2011: FOUL PLAY (USA, 1978) 7/10
  • Friday, September 23, 2011: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (France/UK/Germany, 2011) 7/10
  • Wednesday, September 28, 2011: DRESSED TO KILL (USA, 1980) 6/10

...a.k.a. "Brian De Palma month".

 
8 Comments

1. Mr. White said:

What's not to like about "Body Double"? I love its campy feel, and to me it is among De Palma's funniest (next to "Greetings").

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 8:06 AM)

2. Mr. White said:

What's not to like about "Body Double"? I love the campy feel, and to me it is among De Palma's funniest (next to "Greetings").

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 8:09 AM)

3. Mr. White said:

Oops, sorry, my mistake.

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 8:10 AM)

4. Erik said:

BODY DOUBLE is terrific, its sly wit, the way De Palma plays with the viewer.

Mr. Mackenzie is not fully "onboard" the BDP Fan Wagon yet... hopefully he will be, eventually.

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 2:36 PM)

5. Matthew McKinnon said:

Please let on a bit what you thought of Body Double. I haven't seen it, and would be glad of a negative perspective from a DePalma fan, to compensate for all the off-putting positive ones. Does that make sense?

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 11:20 PM)

6. gasteropod said:

'Beware of the midgets, they're taking over the world!'

(Posted on Monday, October 3, 2011 at 5:48 PM)

7. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Mr. White & Matthew:

I don't really want to pre-empt our upcoming De Palma podcast, in which we'll be discussing it, BLOW OUT and SISTERS, but I found BODY DOUBLE to be disappointing on almost every level. Everything I've seen of De Palma's work has shown him to be a very skilled artisan, but this just feels cheap and sloppy, with bland, ugly cinematography, weak performances by Craig Wasson and Deborah Shelton, and probably the worst Pino Donaggio score I've ever come across. I'm not even convinced Melanie Griffith is deserving of the rave reviews she tends to get for her performance. True, she has far more personality than anyone else in the cast, but that's not exactly hard. I've liked all the De Palma films I've seen so far, even if I think most of them are flawed in one way or another, but this honestly feels to me like the work of a different director - a fuck-up on a similar scale to Argento's THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

This review pretty much sums up my feelings on the film.

(Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 4:37 PM)

8. Matthew McKinnon said:

Aha. Well, that's the impression I've always got from the snippets I've seen: this is why the raves for it were off-putting. A kind of "Really? Are you sure?". As I run hot and cold on even the best DePalma ("Blow Out" for me), I think I'll continue to avoid.
Thanks!

(Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 6:37 PM)

 
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