Goddamn I love Scarface. Such a brilliant movie. I read your first sentence, though, and was thinking, 'But the whole film IS a tribute, in a way -- it's a remake!' Then you addressed the point later. I am surprised you don't love DePalma more -- I've always looked at him as a master director. In a way, he was
continuing the direction Hitchcock was going in at the end of his career (Frenzy and stuff). DePalma is a genius, though, though he needs to pick better scripts (WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE BLACK DAHLIA?!) or just write the scripts himself. Strange we mentioned Blow Up since DePalma's Blow Out is a tribute/homage/almost-remake-of-one-of-the-key-plot-points. I actually am going to give Blow Out to a dude at work. It's in my top 10 movies ever, and the Criterion re-release is coming soon and I'm pre-ordering it.
But yeah, Scarface rules so much, it really makes me want to go to Florida and party. I love Florida. THat scene in the apartment is so amazing (the chainsaw, the camera "flying" down from the window, in a last-scene-from-Passenger-by-Antonioni kinda way now that I think about it, as it goes THROUGH the window and shit, and then goes all the way down to the car and all the way back up. Then at the climax of that scene? With the gun violence on the street? Genius. It's an epic that never gets old, no scene could be excised, not a moment is wasted, despite the movie moving really really fast. I think it's the best 3 hour crime epic ever, though Casino and Heat give it a run for its money.
As far as DePalma goes, Femme Fatale is also amazing (what an adventurous, daring little film! It REALLY alienated audiences but it's not DePalma's fault he makes filsm you have to pay attention to!), Murder A La Mod, Greetings, Hi Mom (a 9/10 definitely. It has that gritty "New York atmosphere", and the movie COMPLETELY changes in probably the most radical and insane "fuck-you-to-the-audience" I've ever seen, almost in a disturbing way. I'm not going to ruin it for those who haven't seen it, but the film just suddenly, out of nowhere, changes to a completely different film, a completely different style with different characters. It's daring as hell, and arguably "pretentious", and DEFINITELY shocking. The film had been somewhat light, maybe even comedic in parts up to that point, but the film gets dead-serious and fucking nuts after this part, filmed in gritty black and white that inspired NO REASON TO EXIST. This is one of the most underrated films ever), Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise (god I love this movie), Obsession (I remmeber buying this on dvd for $4 brand new and selling it for about $47 on ebay a few years back. One of my greatest buy-a-used-movie-and-sell-it-for-profit stories! Still, great film with a GREAT Bernard Hermann score, though it looks and feels a LOT like Vertigo for comfort, doesn't it?), Body Double (maybe his most sleazy and fun film, but filmed with SO MANY mindblowing scenes that it's ridiculous; how can DePalma put trash next to treasure so effortlessly?), Home Movies, The Fury, Dressed to Kill (elevator scene is one of the best shock scenes ever, if not the best. Talk about a murder coming out of nowhere. Also, the Nancy Allen scene with the psychiatrist at the end is insane. Robocop's partner is steppin' out. "Do you want to have sexual intercourse wiith me?" Psychiatrist: "Yes." Just the exchange in that scene is fucking hilarious. And Argento ripped off scenes from it for Tenebre)... I thought Raising Cain was a mess, and it was embarassing to watch at times, but there is a tracking shot in it that is one of the best of all time, and Lithgow's multiple performances (he plays like 10 characters) were amazing. I think Mission: Impossible is a really fun and perhaps amazing film, and I don't like Tom Cruise. Also, I actually love Wise Guys and Casualties of War, and feel that Snake Eyes could have been a masterpiece if the ending was cleaned up -- it just kinda, uh, ends, in a really sour and weird way. But that's another one of DePalma's films that has one of the most mindblowing long-ass-takes ever -- that opening 12 minutes or so, which all appears to be one take (it's like 6 takes done in a Rope style, where the cuts would appear in a shadow or as a tv monitor is switched on or something). And then he made some other films I like too. But I think Carlito's Way is kinda boring.
ANYWAY...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...e_turin_horse/ ..... NEW BELA TARR FILM! For those who don't know, Bela Tarr is one of the best directors of our time, our generation's Tarkovsky (Mirror, Stalker, Nostalgia, etc). If you haven't seen SATANTANGO, set aside 7 1/2 hours (seriously) and prepare to have your mind blown....
Also, anyone heard of Park Chan Wook's new short (30 minutes) film, shot on 8 Iphones? He's getting a lot of publicity, telling directors to "just do it, just make a film" and basically saying that no budget filmmaking is where the future is at. Couldn't agree more. I've been saying this forever -- Giuseppe Andrews was making genius no-budget films for 13 years before he just, well, stopped.
It's so fucking badass to see a popular mainstream director (actually, surprisingly perhaps, he's the most successful director
of all time in South Korea; the somewhat lousy JOINT SECURITY AREA made more money than any movie EVER there, or something ridiculous like that, last I checked) embaracing no-budget filmmaking. Seriously -- yeah, yeah, directors like Packard, Trent Harris, that one old geezer Lynch, Jost and, uh, Korine, have all embaraced digital/no budget filmmaking but they've always been on the fringe of indie film culture anyway. When you see directors who have "filmed on film" (still, very important to people who think aesthetics are more important than content; "wow, this album sucks but the album is packaged in a bag of blood panties! GENIUS! GONNA BUY A THOUSAND COPIES!" Good frames don't save bad paintings, asshole!) suddenly saying, "fuck it, let's do this shit digital"... that makes me very very happy.