Tag: brian de palma

An (Imaginary) Interview with Steven Spielberg

spielberg


I’m not really sitting with you right now, Steven Spielberg, but I want to be.  There’s really nothing I could think of that would be more of an achievement.  To be honest, I don’t think about your movies enough anymore, and I don’t reference you enough in my pieces on this site.  It’s because talking about you is kind of old hat.  You are unequivocally the most successful, and the most household name-y of any movie director in history.  You created my childhood, and millions upon millions of other childhoods.  Your name had as much market value in the 80s and 90s as McDonald’s and Reebok.  (I made that last sentence up but it sounds real!)

So anyway, yeah, I’m sitting here (not really) with the most iconic living legend filmmaker of all time, Steven Spielberg:
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Remakes: Everyone’s Favorite Complaint

carrie


With the remake of Carrie out, it’s that time again for everyone to make their favorite complaint: “Oh god, another remake!  It’s like they’re raping my childhood!”

If you’re going to put forth that Hollywood is in need some new ideas, I’ll listen.  But it’s not as though this is a new thing.  Movies have always mostly been sequels, remakes, or adaptations.  Pick any random year since the dawn of cinema and I guarantee you’ll find as many as you do today.
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Pieta: How To Pander To A New Audience Without Losing Your Soul

pieta


Pieta (2012)
Written and Directed by Kim Ki-duk
104 min.

Spoiler-free.

Kim Ki-duk is one of my absolute favorite filmmakers. And I only even like about half his movies. Some of them are just awful. But the ones I like, I really like. And a few of them, I fucking love. 

A lot of people use the word ‘love’ lightly when it comes to movies. These people have most likely never truly been in love with a movie. When you truly love a movie, it becomes a part of your body. The movie finishes, and you look down, and suddenly you have another arm or something. And you’re like, ‘Well, that’s there now.’ You have no impulse to amputate it. It’s truly a part of you, just like every other part that makes up your whole. To rid yourself of it would be to rid yourself of yourself.
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10 Actually Good Movies People Think Are Cool

tarantino Quentin Tarantino, director of some actually good ‘cool’ movies. This is a companion piece to my 10 Awful Movies People Think Are Cool list.  Read that one first.  Or read this one first.  It doesn’t really matter. Continue reading 10 Actually Good Movies People Think Are Cool

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Brian De Palma (But Didn’t Care Enough to Ask)

depalma


When I was in junior high school, Scarface was the most talked about movie in the hallways.  It was 2000, and those hallways were a reflection of the culture at large.  One time a kid asked me, “Who directed Scarface, Scorsese?”  He had never heard of Brian De Palma.

There’s a popular book called Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.  It’s a gossipy, oral history of 60s and 70s American movies.  In the back of the book, they summarize the directors integral to the movement and give a filmography for each. Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas, and Malick are featured, but not Brian De Palma—despite being mentioned heavily in the book.  You’d think the guy that gave Robert De Niro his first on-screen appearance (The Wedding Party, 1969) and gave him steady work way before Scorsese ever did, would be important enough to mention.
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