A sequel to GREETINGS! starring Robert De Niro as a Vietnam Veteran living in Greenwich Village, where a trio of interconnected stories begin to play out, all involving Jon's love of his little film camera. First, he becomes infatuated with the building across the street, in particular one of the women (Jennifer Salt) there. Jon hatches a plan to woo her, which he carefully orchestrates like an actor reading from a script. Meanwhile, Jon is also tryiing to make a sort of amateur porn movie by peeping through the windows across the way, figuring this is his next calling in life. This plays into the love affair when he trains the camera on his new girlfriend's window, then pays her a romantic visit.

"Margot Kidder is Danielle, a beautiful model separated from her Siamese twin, Dominique. When a hotshot reporter (Jennifer Salt) suspects Dominique of a brutal murder, she becomes dangerously ensnared in the sisters' insidious sibling bond. A scary and stylish paean to female destructiveness, De Palma's first foray into horror voyeurism is a stunning amalgam of split-screen effects, bloody birthday cakes, and a chilling score by frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann. Criterion is proud to present Sisters in a new Special Edition."

The story is a head-on collision between PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and FAUST. Williams playing Swann, who sold his soul to the devil to become a rock impresario, steals depressingly earnest song-writer Winslow Leach's rock-opera of FAUST, planning to use it to open his magnificent rock opera-house, The Paradise. Winslow becomes facially deformed along the way, of course, and starts dressing like a euro-disco version of the Phantom of the Opera. Swann re-writes Winslow's hilariously trite opera into even more hilariously trite camp pop, and Winslow begins murdering performers. The chief conflict, though, is a battle between Swann and Winslow for the soul of Jessica Harper-what a neat career that big-eyed starlet had.

To see how prudish and constrictive we've gotten in thirty years just watch the tour de force opening credits sequence that sets us up for the movie's first shock. It's an unapologetically voyeuristic (as all movies are at heart) dream-like camera glide through a steam filled girl's locker room. DePalma makes ironic use of pin-up conventions of healthy sexual vibrancy as set-up for the subsequent scene of the body as a source of shame and horror and the revelation that the darling girls are actually as vicious as beasts. What jumps out at us today is the scene's wholesome tone. It's a non-judgmental parody. a parody that wouldn't be the least bit ashamed to be the thing itself. There's no "death at the banquet" tonal reminder that we're supposed to be ashamed to be in the theatre.

The whole movie is unabashedly sexy, particularly when compared to today's films. Betty Buckley is bustin' out sexy. Nancy Allen is sexy. P. J. Soles is sexy. John Travolta is sexy. In proper poltergeist fashion Carrie's terrible powers spring from her sexual development, but it is not sex that's wicked. Her desire to have a boyfriend is normal. Only when twisted between religion and society-her mother's demented religious teachings and her peer's sick social/sexual hazing-does it explode. (This is one teen horror film where it makes perfect sense for the kids having sex to be the victims. It's not judgment, it's jealousy.)

Highly influential movie. One can say CARRIE is just a synthesis of Hitchcock or a synthesis of Italian horror movies but it is CARRIE's particular synthesis has been accepted as THE model for the modern Hollywood horror film.

Random note for serious film nuts: De Palma had a little fun here by recreating the lesbian school mistress torture by calisthenics sequence from Pabst's 1929 "Diary of a Young Girl."

"Former police technician Jack Terri (John Travolta) makes his living doing sound for slasher flicks. While recording new outdoor effects one night, Jack witnesses a couple's car careen off a bridge into a river, but he can save only the female occupant, Sally (Nancy Allen). Jack begins to suspect something when he learns that her dead companion was a Presidential hopeful. Re-playing his tape over and over, Jack thinks that he hears a gun shot before the crash-causing tire blow-out. When sleazy photographer Manny Karp (Dennis Franz) comes forward with photos of the accident, Jack discovers the real reason that the naïve Sally was in the car - and also a way to prove his auditory suspicions through motion pictures." Even with all his surveillance talent, however, Jack cannot see (or hear) how dangerous the big picture really is until it's too late."

The film's "Liberty Day Parade" climax is weird and wild. If you can summon an adequate suspension of disbelief it's technically wonderful.

"John Travolta (Pulp Fiction, Face/Off) stars in this riveting mystery/thriller filled with powerful performances, intense action and an "engrossing web of suspense and intrigue" (Blockbuster Entertainment Guide). Written and directed by master filmmaker Brian De Palma (Mission: Impossible), Blow Out is a heart-stopping adventure hailed by Rolling Stone as" an American moviemaking triumph!" Jack Terri (Travolta) is a talented audio technician who makes his living by recording unique sounds for horror movies. But when he accidentally tapes an automobile crash that kills a presidential candidate and injures his young mistress, Sally (Nancy Allen), Jack is hurled into a mystery far more terrifying than any of his films! Soon he and Sally must fight to stay alive as they uncover an explosive political conspiracy that will send shockwaves to the highest levels of government."

Starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Béart, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott-Thomas and Vanessa Redgrave.

For all Cruise's unlikability he has been good for movies. Ever since he started taking a direct interest in his films his projects are always better than average. He won't work with untalented directors. Only Spielberg, DePalma, Woo, Mann, etc..

I'll avoid recapping the story because synopsis would be full of spoilers (the twists start early and never stop) and the plot is primarily a framework for some of DePalma's best cinematic set pieces. (The earlier big sequence involving all the agents feels for all the world like the prom in CARRIE in the way events keep getting worse and envelop more people.) Screenplay by David Koepp and Robert Towne.