Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Rediscovering the Past: Brian De Palma, in one word

Hack.

That really does it.

Carrie: Does not hold up well.

Blow Out: Uninteresting, slightly masturbatory sound in film exercise.

The Untouchables: Of the films of his I've seen, this one bothers me the least, if only for the Connery Academy Award. Still fairly uneven. Once Connery is dead (and the film is 21 years old, so I can't imagine I've spoiled much there), the film loses its luster.

Casualties of War: Ugh. Setting out to make a small-scale, thoughtful war film. Does not work in his hands. Coincidentally, Michael J. Fox's worst film. Wait, MJF's worst film was a De Palma film?

Bonfire of the Vanities: Resoundingly panned. From all accounts, a poor adaptation of a well-loved book. A 5.1 on imdb, for whatever that's worth.

Raising Cain: Haven't seen it in years. Thought it was retarded when I was 15. Can't imagine my tastes have changed enough to come around on that one.

Carlito's Way: Also haven't seen it since it came out. I did not care for it. I have friends who like this film who dislike De Palma, so I can't say for sure I'd still dislike this.

Mission: Impossible: First flawed film in a series of flawed films, the second being the most entertaining.

Snake Eyes: See Mission: Impossible? Seeing this is then unnecessary, as they're the same film.

Mission to Mars: Actually saw part of this the other day. Retarded. Didn't even know it was De Palma.

Femme Fatale: There is no reason to ever see this. Trust me.

So, that was more than one word. Sorry. The first one summed it up.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I actually love Carrie but I agree with you that the rest of his output is pure garbage. It's like he forgot about how to make movies after that one, yet he still gets jobs directing. He's pretty much the poor man's Joel Schumacher at this point. I also agree with you on Scarface -- how is that considered a good movie by anybody?

Anonymous said...

Scarface is one of those movies that I refused to watch because I had knew so many people who absolutely loved it, and constantly raved about it.

Finally a few years ago, I saw it and afterwards had to ask the question "what's the big deal". Very disappointed, and my expectations weren't much to begin with.

Anonymous said...

Weibel said: Those are really bad movies, mainly because they are boring. Question what is the worst Pacino movie, A.) God Father III, B.) Scarface C.) Gigli. My vote is God Father III, Gigli was not that bad. I thought Justin Bartha played a good retard.

Anonymous said...

Hey I know you are a fan of The Boss, how much does it set you off that De Palma directed The Complete Video Anthology 1978-2000..does it make you love The Boss a little less..I mean De Palma was not the worst choice in the world, could have been Jersey native Kevin Smith, which would have been one terribly long ass diatribe about Jay and Silent Bob wanting to dirty grind on young Courtney Cox in the dancing in the dark video

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