Leaving aside the other Iraq movies and their issues, this one is different.

Brian "Bonfire of the Vanities" DePalma hasn't had a viable movie, let alone a hit, in over ten years.

His 70's buddies, Spielberg, Scorcese, and Coppola, all have Oscars. He was never nominated.

Those DePalma-written Hitchcock homages didn't help (As SNL said "Once a year, Brian DePalma picks the bones of a dead director and gives his wife a job"), and his hits were written by other people ("Scarface" by Oliver Stone from the Howard Hawks/Ben Hecht classic; "The Untouchables" by David Mamet from the hit TV show and history; "Carlito's Way" by David Koepp from some well-written novels; the silly Mission Impossible by Robert Towne from another hit TV show)

Bombs, he's had a few: Body Double, Wise Guys, Raising Cain, Mission to Mars, Femme Fatale, The Black Dahlia. Did I mention "Bonfire of the Vanities"?

Nobody notices Brian DePalma any more. But now they do. For a little while. "Amazingly, Redacted was redacted!"

And he's always gotten off on killing women....

DePalma is a fraud and has always been a fraud. He paints himself as the master of the macabre, in a transparent attempt to position himself as the heir to Hitchcock, when he is more suited to be the heir of Pee Wee Herman. He uses unspeakably dishonest techniques such as ending a movie with a impossible turn of events, only to then reveal that it was in fact only a dream the character was having, not the real thing. Bogus, false, pandering, Brain DePalma, Master of Masturbation.

...and I forgot another flop: "Snake Eyes" (1998), in which some sort of hurricane finale sequence was removed just prior to release and the movie -- which was designed to build up to the hurricane finale -- just ended.

. . . was a commercial bomb, but I think it was a minor masterpiece or art-trash (the Band of Outsiders of American pulp cinema).

. . . a minor masterpiece OF art-trash.

. . . this insult . . .

. . .when he is more suited to be the heir of Pee Wee Herman.

. . . looks a bit like a compliment.

the techinical end of his craft.

Haven't seen 'Redactede' yet so I'll hold off on my opinion of that one.

But the amount of controversy it's creating, and the passion with which it is both praised and denounced, suggests de Palma's hit a nerve in the American psyche.

I think its the "trash" aspect of DePalma's career that makes this latest foray into social responsibility suspect.

He recently said he was never nominated for an Oscar because "I'm controversial."

Or maybe because: he's a hack. Well, most of the time, and if left to his own writing of plot and dialogue.

I say this facing the conundrum that DePalma made a number of films which I like very much: "The Untouchables", "Carlito's Way," and the characteristically ultraviolent but nonetheless classic "Scarface."

It's not like DePalma doesn't have some talent, or he wouldn't have survived this long. Some of that talent is visual -- though many young filmmakers have it. The other is a talent for self-promotion, trying to convince the world that he is better than he really is.

By keeping his name "controversial," DePalma did land those major films above, but he was almost invariably "a part of the deal", a director-for-hire who delivered the goods for a strong producer in the service of a good script with top stars.

Still, the early Hitchcock rip-offs (homages) are awful (DePalma had a talent for BOTCHING suspense set-pieces, I could list them but I won't), he was incredibly overmatched by the mature material with "Bonfire of the Vanities," and everything after the "Cruise Vanity Project" of Mission:Impossible has been pretty bad, the work of a guy who faked it for far too long and is now exposed for not being that good in the first place. ("Femme Fatale," like most of DePalma's self-devised creations, had a good scene or two -- one with sex music borrowed from "10" -- but fell apart in the plotting, the awful dialogue and the blatant Hitchcock homages.)

Thus, DePalma's publicity for "Redacted" seems ill-gained, to me. He's looking to cash in with some controversy, electing to tell a war horror story of rape and murder when one has to wonder: is it studying the war, or studying the rape and murder, where his heart really lies? (I saw his Vietnam film, and I saw the power drill symbolic-rape-murder in "Body Double" and I think I know the answer.)

And his protesting too much about the photos being edited (as if he didn't KNOW that would happen to them to all to allow for distribution) seems to be applying Albert Zugsmith hucksterism to a serious subject.

DePalma's welcome to make his film, but he hasn't earned the right as an artist to make us care about it.

P.S. We'll see how much of a nerve he hit when the box office grosses come in.

I'm sure he has all the money he can ever spend.

The box office for Redacted will be poor in the States. I understand it is getting a limited release this year in order to be available for the Oscar nominations in 2008. However, if Boxoffice is the only criteria, than Shrek and Spiderman are great films. None of the recent war films have done well at the BO. A failed war as the subject for a movie is not going to send America running to see it.

de Palma's technical brilliance is undeniable, even in his lesser films. The opening track shot in "Bonfires" is amazing even if the film is all down hill from there.

The first de Palma film I remember seeing that made a big impression on me was "Carrie" and itknocked me out. I loathe Steven King, but de Palma and Kubrik were able to overcome the stale material.

I enjoyed his faux Hitchkock films, especially "Body Double" and "Blow Out", thought "Caualities of War" a very fine film (plotwise, similar to Redacted), and yes, Scarface is a knockout.

Hitchkock was never credited with a screenplay of his own but worked very, very closely with his writers. I have little doubt de Palma does the same.

War is a horror stoy, particulrly unjustified, pemptive ones. The photographs of Abu Grahib are more pornographic than any murder scene with a power saw could ever be.

You seem to have a puritanical attitude toward sex and violence, especially when the two are blatently mixed, so I don't understand how you can see so many films. If my guess is correct, avoid Freidkin's "Bug" at all costs ( I loved it).

When I've actually seen "Redacted", I hope we can talk again.

Well, I have a puritanical attitude towards how Brian DePalma films sex. Like when Angie Dickinson learned she'd contracted a veneral disease from her one-night stand just before getting slashed to pieces in a very dumb elevator murder sequence based poorly on the Psycho shower scene.

A puritanical attitude towards sex? Uh, no.

I hope we can talk again, too. Mr. DePalma has his admirers, I'm not one of them.

Though I do like some of his movies, very much. It's not a paradox; its just that he made so many movies that a few had to work. Al Pacino, Sean Connery, Robert DeNiro, and Sean Penn helped.

Hitchcock supervised his screenplays very much for structure, but hired some of the best screenwriters, playwrights, and novelists to adapt the dialogue and work with him. Didn't work all the time; but in his Golden Era, he got some damn literate screenplays.

DePalma's screenplays reflect no such reliance on professionals; his writing is juvenile.

elevator - the scene in the Metropolitan Museum, ending with the "gentleman" holding out her glove - is a miracle.

Yes.

Most of it is from "Vertigo."

Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. Both of which support your final conclusion.

You don't have to point them out.

"I"?

I forgot I was posting just for you, Nick. Won't happen again, little buddy.

What's your opinion of the "Topaz" reference?