Month: October 2013

William Petersen stars as Richard Chance, a US secret agent who becomes obsessed with catching master counterfeiter Rick Masters  (William Dafoe) after Masters kills his partner. Chance gets closer to Masters by catching one of his mules Carl Cody ( John Turturo), but Cody won’t talk even after Masters hires goons to beat him in prison.   Chance and his partner Vukovich attempt to get information on Masters by putting one of his criminal associates Waxman under surveillance. Masters murders Waxman and the cops fail to catch him. Chance becomes increasingly reckless and unethical in his efforts to catch Masters. It all goes wrong when they decide to pull their own heist in order to secure the required funds to stay in hot pursuit.  William Friedkin plays it as brutal and cynical as he ever did with The French Connection, and this time the car chase takes place on a six-lane freeway going against the traffic. Friedkin creates a tense atmosphere of adrenaline and corruption and danger, enhanced by an effective techno soundtrack by Wang Chung and draws credible performances from his entire cast. The real star of the film is Robby Muller’s banished photography pf, Los Angeles.

Lilly works as a barmaid in her father’s saloon where she learns to deal with the unwanted advance of male customers. When her father dies ,she moves to NewYork City with her maid Chico ,to become a ruthless gold digger.  She uses sex to advance her social and financial status.  Among the men used and abused are department store managers, bank presidents and government officers. This film led to the adoption of the production code in 1934.  The code virtually put an end to sexy films like this of “sleeping your way to the top”.  The men she goes through are pleasured thouroughly , and allowed to make themselves thought of as seducers. No one can do the innocent little girl act like Lilly , and each man is crushed when she moves onto the next man.

She doesn’t use the new men against each other , but simply blows off the former lover. If ever there was such a thing as a one-woman show, Baby Face is it.  Lilly knows right from the start that she is living in a man’s world. She also knows that men can be easily brought to their knees with the slightest hint of affection.  The interest thing about the film is that one Black character has a significant role in this film. The “pre-code” films made between about 1930 and 1934 can be quite shocking and delightful. 

Strong premise as a group of American scientists and researchers posted at an isolated station in Antartica. Their days are busy but their nights are long and cold. One day, a half-dog/ half wolf appears with a Norwegian  chopper in hot pursuit.  During the night, the dog mutates and attacks other dogs in the cage and members of the team that investigate.  It turns out that dog is not the innocent victim of a lunatic hunting outing. It’s actually an alien that has the ability to digest and imitate creatures it comes onto contact with. No one knows who to trust because there could be an alien among them.  Dr Blair (Willford Brimley) calculates that after 27,000 hours from first contact with the civilized world, the entire planet earth will be infected by “the thing”. Macready (Kurt Russell) and others now must determine that who is a “thing” and who is a man. Creature effect artist Rob Bottin does an excellent job of turning what could have easily become a cheesy gore-fest into a frightening mess of blood and fear.

The Thing ,although never actually taking one specific form, is constantly seen in a morphing stage , and the effects are simply superb. John Carpenter manages to create a truely believable and incredible atmosphere. When watching this film, we truely get the sense of the dark,sinister,desolate surroundings. Kurt Russell does a good job as Mcready , nicely conveying the emotions of a man thrust into a situation of unimaginable horror. Morricone’s score is a wonderful eerie pulse beat that racks up the sense of doom and paranoia throughout the film.

John Travolta is Jack, a sound technician who rescues a girl from a car that crushes into a river after a blow out. The man who drove the car died and he happened to be next candidate for president.  This is the beginning of Jack’s involvement into the mystery behind the actual fact.    When Jack records the assassination of a presidential candidate, everyone asks him to leave his conspiracy to himself.  Everyone else would like to believe it was just  “a freak accident” so the nation can quickly heal again. Inspired by the Italian classic ” Blow up” , Blow out is one of Palma’s best films. The skillful study in perception comes from Antoinioni’s Blow Up though unlike Antonioni, Palma doesn’t question reality itself but ,instead , its fragmented political representation.

Jack is man whose talents backfire. Once he worked for police department , but that ended after a horrible accident. He is attracted towards Sally (Nancy Allen) because she lives so easily in the corrupt world. He thinks he can use technology to solve the matter , but he uses them as a shield. Travolta and Nancy Allen both did good job in depicting their roles. The first scene of this film makes reference to Hitchcock’s Psycho. De Palma famously contradicted Godard’s theory “Photography is truth. And cinema is truth 24-frames-a-second” when he said “The camera lies all the time; lies 24-times-per-second”. In Blow Out ,he demonstrates how sound and image are assembled into an elaborately conceived deception. 

De Palma challengers viewers to question their senses and consider the process of filmmaking ,how through a few simple cuts ,video and audio are shaped into narrative or propaganda. Blow Out has kept its impact as a thriller mystery with its political overtones as it mixes crime with the lives of influential people that might give viewers a point of reference between the movie and actual historical facts.