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Just perfect...

Absolutely the worst movie.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow co-produced and co-directed this sit-down interview with filmmaker Brian De Palma, using clips of the movies he has been inspired by and key sequences of De Palma's own pictures to illustrate his colorful, amusing, often fascinating stories of film technique, on-set difficulties and, the always dicey, hindsight regrets: what-worked-and-what-didn't. Raised in Philadelphia, the youngest of three boys born to an absentee surgeon father, De Palma was a science nerd at Columbia University before enrolling in the Sarah Lawrence College drama department, where he honed his technique, began shooting short films, and eventually made his first full-length feature, "The Wedding Party" featuring a young Robert De Niro (with whom De Palma would work again with several times). Universal paid for De Palma's tuition and put him into their New Talent program, but never used any of his submissions, so De Palma went rogue and filmed "Greetings" in New York City, followed by "Hi, Mom!" which won him a modicum of success and a repertoire of actor friends. This is only the beginning for the De Palma that soon followed, the movie auteur who became close pals with Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola and Scorsese, the mastermind behind smooth, erotic thrillers such as "Dressed to Kill", violent crime epics such as "Scarface" and "The Untouchables" and the big-budget action-adventure "Mission: Impossible", De Palma's first blockbuster. Not especially a raconteur, De Palma nevertheless looks back at his cinematic output with bemusement, telling wonderful stories of working with De Niro, Sean Connery, John Cassavetes, Cliff Robertson, composer Bernard Herrmann, Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox. He doesn't go in for gossip (very little about his two marriages), nor does he linger on the criticisms he's received over his Hitchcock allusions. However, any young filmmaker or movie buff will be intrigued by the constant struggles he's had to see his vision through, about standing up to producers and studio heads and writers who all want his film to reflect their views. It's a tantalizing 110 minutes. ***1/2 from ****

This is a documentary about Brian De Palma's movies and career. It's almost entirely him sitting and talking about his movies. His Hitchcockian influence is obvious to any passing fans. This is a good documentary for anyone who likes his movies. Having come up along with many young directing icons of the era, he has some good insights and stories about everything. It doesn't get too salacious but he's not really sugar-coating too much either. It's a compelling watch and a fine insight into his movies. This is basically a compilation of the best of twenty plus movie commentaries by the director.

Brian De Palma is one of those directors whose films are very polarizing (with a few exceptions, of course). Being that he no longer works within the Hollywood establishment and his output has been drastically reduced, I guess a documentary will have to do. And boy, what a documentary! Still, the word 'documentary' doesn't really describe this film that well, since it's more like a one-on-one conversation. De Palma is very candid about his past and doesn't shy away from emphatically stating his opinions on people he's worked with and his own work. One thing that did surprise me was how little Hitchcock, his clearest influence, was brought up. Not a criticism, just an observation. Clips from VERTIGO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and REAR WINDOW are shown, though, in the context of techniques or stylistic features that De Palma learned from them. If anything, the range of artistic influences was much wider than I had ever realized before. Even if he never made another film, De Palma has left behind an incredible body of work that deserves serious study and consideration, and this documentary fills a void for everyone. It provides a nice retrospective for those already familiar and, for those not, a great place to start.

DE PALMA (2016) **** Engaging and informative documentary about filmmaker Brian De Palma with the auteur in full focus on screen recollecting his oeuvre with unapologetic frankness and good nature. Peppered with footage of his canon and self-effacing to a fault with its subject matter, filmmakers Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow - friends and fans alike of the director - fully immerse themselves into the up and down career highlights and bumps in the road while his personal life is more or less a side note on the whole. For film fans and fans of De Palma a must sees to appreciate the once heir apparent to Alfred Hitchcock by employing The Master's zen philosophy of camera movement, editing and composition as well as his own imprint and impact as a force majeur.