The Stunt Man

directed by Richard Rush (1980)

It starts off with a buzzard hanging around on a pole watching a yellow dog licks his privates.  I'm guessing the buzzard is the audience and the dog is Hollywood, something like that.

The movie is not very good in terms of being a believable story; it's more an arty pastiche of moviemaking.  As long as you're ok with over the top performances and general craziness, it's entertaining as hell, and a pretty great look at behind the scenes action too.  You get to see crane set ups, action sequences outta control and gone wrong, while a helicopters totes a camera are all over the place.  Peter O'Toole in his camera crane is like a mad scientist in his robot creation, overseeing his minions, the dues ex machina hand of god, manipulating everyone in order to get his movie in the can.

Truthfully, the story is really silly, it involves a escaped prisoner or guy with a warrant, (Steve Railsback), I forget why this guy was on the run from the law, but he is, and O'Toole takes him in hiding him among his crew,  as a replacement for a stunt man who's gone missing.  Dude needs a place to duck out from the man,  and the director needs to finish his movie....by any means necessary!  O'Toole is making an antiwar film but it looks trite, lots of battle scenes, and tragic love storiness, but mostly explosions and scenes needing mucho stunt work. It's a fun watching the stunt work, and there's some good dialogue too.  This bit from O'Toole sums up the message of the flick pretty well.


"We're shaking a finger at them Sam, and we shouldn't.  If you've anything to say, it's best to slip it in while they're all laughing and crying and jerking off at all the sex and violence.  You should do something outrageous!"

It was nominated for 3 Academy Awards: best director, best adapted screenplay, and best actor for Peter O'Toole.  It won a Golden Globe for best score.

I liked the movie, and the director says it's about perception, so watch it with an open mind and see what you make of it.

Official site

Dressed to Kill

directed by Brian De Palma (1980)

Oh my God.  What a crazy movie.  I feel conflicted about how much I enjoyed this mess.  I don't think it could be made today, it's too offensive and ignorant regarding transexuals and mental illness.  It's such a lurid flick.  I knew I was in for something different when the film started off soft core porno with Angie Dickenson lathering her boobs and snatch up in the shower all lasciviousness while watching a hunky bare chested man shave with a straight razor.  It's bizarre slow motion with sugary muzak.  BTW who uses a straight razor?!!  Suddenly she's being attacked by another man in the shower who also has a straight razor, but that must be a fantasy, because next you see her in bed moaning while being piledrive humped by her husband.

That's all I wrote when I watched this back in February, so I think I'll have to watch it again.  Sometime I'll have a De Palma fest and watch everything of his I've never seen and revisit the ones like this, that I liked.  Lots of times though, a movie isn't nearly as good when you no longer have part of your brain trying to figure out what the plot is while you're watching.

I remember I kept thinking well this is just mental and preposterous, really similar to Argento in it's incoherency, but that didn't make me want to stop watching - far from it, I wanted to see MORE!

I really like Brian De Palma's flicks.  I think he's a nut though.  I read recently, that when he was making Carrie, for the final scene where Carrie is unleashing her fury at the school dance, he was told the fire hoses were too dangerous to use on scenes featuring the actors because the water pressure was too strong.  I guess he yeah yeah whatevered that, because he did use the hoses, and PJ Soles got pasted in the face.  The blast punctured her eardrum, and the pain made her pass out.  She was deaf for 6 months.  

He's most often compared to Alfred Hitchcock, and I can see that, because aside from the formalist similarities, Hitchcock was an asshole to his actors too.