Tag: American Cinema

                                                                   

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.

                                                                       

Brian De Palma’s new film Passion is a remake of Love Crime, the last film by the Late French director Alain Corneau.  The film is essentially a tour of the director’s familiar obsessions.    Christine Stanford (Rachel Mcadams) is the Berlin-based head of the German outpost of a New York advertising agency. She is attempting to gain power professionally over her subordinate Isabelle (Noomi Rapace). Christine sabotages Isabelle’s work, relationship with Dirk and reputation, leaving Isabelle confused. DePalma proves to be the master of erotic thrillers once again. The lines between reality and nightmare become distorted as cinematographer Jose Luis Alcain’s camera shifts from the mundane, to slowly tilting away into darkness.

Combined with flashes of bizarre imagery and an equally seductive score, De Palma successfully hypnotizes the audience into a surreal dream-turned nightmare.  The film consists of De Palma’s key points- interesting female characters, manipulation, seduction/deception, and voyeurism. Mcadams was average but Rapace shows subtle emotions that crack slowly but painfully as each humiliation by her boss falls upon her. A supporting performance by Karoline Herfurth also stands out.  De Palma is back with a skillfully crafted thriller that shocks and amuses us.

                                                    

It tells the story of a strange,glowing fog that sweeps in over a small coastal town in California , bringing with it the vengeful ghosts of mariners who were killed there 100 years earlier. Uniquely set in a small town called Antonio Bay, where the inhabitants are preparing the celebrations for the town’s 100th anniversary.  The film has a good and original creepy story with awesome ghostly figures and gore, without any blood.

This is one of the films where u need to pay attention to the detailing of the characters of the films.  The excellent cast includes mom and daughter scream queens Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis and both of them did a good job here.  Barbeau leads the cast well from the solitude of her lighthouse and she keeps help the tension up with her delivery. Hal Holbrook was fantastic as father Malone . Carpenter brilliantly builds up an unbearable tension through simple methods , like long shots of an isolated countryside and a haunting music score. 

                                                                            

The story concerns the funeral of one of three brothers in a family of gangsters that lived in New York in 1930s.  The film begins with Gallo, who plays Johnny ,the youngest of three mobster brothers ,being carried in a coffin into the family house for viewing. The casket is opened and viewed by the oldest brother Ray (Christopher Walken) who says “He died so young. Only 22 years old and look what they did to him.”  Another brother Chez is more hot tempered. Flashbacks show us that Johnny was more sensitive. The chief suspect in Johnny’s murder is rival gangster Gaspare Spoglia (superbly played by Benicio del Toro). We find out that Johnny is not only an adulterer , but also a communist , who disdains the business he and his brother are engaged in , not to mention Gaspare in particular.  Walken gives a more  emotional version of his King Of New York character and carries much of the moral debate with himself and others. The rest of the cast does good job too. The nature of these characters are particularly interesting in a story that points out the realities of mafia life (for both the mobsters and their wives) as violence begets violence ,making for a very intriguing story. The Funeral is an extraordinary dark and disturbing journey which will keep audiences hooked till the end.