Phantom of the Paradise

Mad props to Jess for answering her phone tonight while I was surrounded at dinner by people who'd never fucking heard of Paul Williams.

Phantom of the Paradise: "The single-edit, 'time bomb in the car trunk' sequence is an homage to Orson Welles' famous opening for Touch of Evil (1958)."

I used to own neither of these films on DVD. Monk was kind enough to pick one of them up for me in Portland, but he hasn't seen it yet, which is unfortunate, because they're both quite excellent. I must remark, however, that though De Palma directed Phantom of the Paradise, he very clearly put his own spin on the setup.

Thinking back, I wonder what everybody's first De Palma movie is, and I want to say it's Carrie. Even though this film came two years after Phantom of the Paradise, they are still very stylistically similar, especially in the use of multiple concurrent camera shots.