Scarface

Dressed to Kill has a perfect blend of De Palma story with De Palma style, where each is equally in the service of the other

2012: a British man, playing an online slot machine for 30p on his laptop, is suddenly greeted by the sight of Christian Bale’s Batman and Heath Ledger’s Joker taking over his screen. Not crude 8-bit interpretations, but full HD actual animation from the Chris Nolan blockbuster – complete with voiceovers. The player is urged to …

Shootouts, unlike any other type of action scenes, put death in the forefront of the audience’s mind. Whereas a car chase draws the attention onto the race, or a fight scene onto the pursuit of victory, shootouts test the mortality of our protagonists and anti-heroes. It’s more than just a hail of bullets that matters …

  In the golden age of cinema, a movie could stand on its own. Old Hollywood was all about the films and nothing else. Stars were the commodities and movies were the products – the industry began and ended with what was put on the silver screen. However, the blockbuster culture of the 1980s repositioned …

This piece naturally reveals the end of every film  mentioned. You have been warned. What is most exciting about the pure joy of watching a Brian De Palma film usually comes as far away from subtext as one can get. Very few filmmakers can stage a major setpiece in their climax where the visceral excitement …

Spring Breakers Directed by Harmony Korine Written by Harmony Korine USA, 2013 Spring Breakers could be accused of many things, such as being a gleeful mix of moralistic hand-wringing and heedless excess, but it cannot be accused of not trying. This 90-minute mélange of modern juvenilia is a gaudy, fluorescent, drug-fueled trip, as much an …

In the late 1970s and 1980s, composer Giorgio Moroder was often accused of trying to replace the orchestral movie soundtrack with high-energy, synthesizer-heavy disco pop laid on with a trowel in movies like Thank God It’s Friday (1978), Flashdance (1983), Scarface (1983), and Top Gun (1986). I remember a magazine story on Moroder which quoted …

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. Louis Nizer In his indispensable film study text, Understanding Movies, Louis Gianetti held forth on …