grimjack-2

A year earlier I watched "Truffaut/Hitchcock" and wrote a post about seeing it, and mentioned I was shocked not seeing Brian De Palma as one of the many directors interviewed, because he more than any other director channels a lot of Hitchcock in his movies. I later read that he didn't do that documentary because he was involved with someone making a documentary just about him and his work.

So I just watched "De Palma", this very documentary...

And it is amazing. And interesting. And educational. So many documentaries about artists just want you to accept that their subject is an innovator. "De Palma" breaks it down and shows you why he is. Every film snob benefits from listening to a talented film maker explain his craft. One who can really explain why he likes exceptionally long shots, certain split dioptre shots, and of course multiple Hitchcock references.

Of note, his first film starred Robert DeNiro in his very first film. Sissy Spacek's very first role, was in his "Carrie", which was the first Stephen King adaptation. He jokes about how there have been so many version of Carrie made, that he can finally show to people why he did things differently as they make the mistakes that he argued with the studio to let him do it his way.

His section on Scarface is amazing, because he talks about having to have Oliver Stone removed from the set because this 'writer who had directed just one bad horror film' was trying to tell him how to direct his actors. And how Spielberg visited the set and helped find angles to shoot the final shoot out.

He has a few stories about Sean Penn that are amazing. He makes a good tribute to Bernard Hermann who scored all his earliest work.

It's really good because as he goes through his filmography, he talks about things he learned along the way, and has no problem stating what was the weakest or best part of each picture. He actually has a lot to say that even a lot of fans of his work probably never heard before. This isn't a studio made documentary aimed at getting easy views by talking about his classic films, and having much more famous directors or actors talk about their time with the man. It is De Palma himself the whole time, and it gives his more obscure, offbeat projects get as much attention as his signature films.

He doesn't just cover up his failures by talking about studio battles, but brings up things he wish he had done differently, or he just couldn't make work. You can see the sadness in his face when he talks about a movie that wasn't a big hit, even though it had big stars, followed a successful blueprint, and all he can think is that he couldn't possibly make a better film than he did. (He felt he could never make a better film than "Carlito's Way".)

He hung out with Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, and other big name directors. While his filmmaking friends have all at one time or another been household names, De Palma's never quite gotten the deep examination he's deserved.

As for the Hitchcock documentary, Brian De Palma didn't make himself available for that Kent Jones' pic because he wanted to reserve his comments about Hitchcock for this film. He isn't shy about his admiration for Hitchcock, and states rather audaciously that he feels he is the only true heir to the master. He also says with a lot of arrogance that Hitchcock and probably no other director ever made any truly great films before they were thirty or after they were fifty.

I will say it feels a little weak the way it ends, but then again, so does his filmography after 1996.

I've always found this episode to be one of the best to use as an example of what makes Starfleet's philosophy work, as opposed to the behavior of the Klingons, Romulans, and other more aggressive races.

Voyager is trapped in a dimensional void, where there are no resources of any kind, other than from other star ships who are trapped. Previous to Voyager's appearance, the law of the land was raid any new ship that appears, and fight it out yourself.

Janeway, using Starfleet principles, instead decides to create a mini star fleet, by convincing other ships to band together, share resources, in order to escape their situation.

It shows how the more aggressive species hurt this concept with their behavior, and why the joining of forces works well.

On top of that, it is a pretty exciting episode, with many good scenes, and satisfying from start to finish. One of the very best ST Voyager episodes.

While there are more good episodes than bad of Big Bang Theory, only a handful are fantastic, and this is the funniest episode of at least the first nine seasons.

The deadpan delivery of the guest actress, and her interactions with all the regular characters we had gotten to know well change the way we think of all of them. Or more precisely, how more precisely we think of each character's particular traits.

It was rather clever to make Leonard's mom more like Sheldon, rather than an obvious extension of Leonard. And this allowed us to squirm with Leonard, instead of going for obvious cheap laughs as the parent struggles to get along with Sheldon, like a lesser writer would have thought to do.

The line "I think I'd like to do the math" is one of the hardest I've laughed out loud at a TV show in the last decade.