Blow Out (1981)


GRADE: A-
Underrated by just about everyone except Quentin Tarantino (who wears his influences on his sleeve and probably overrates this one), Brian DePalma’s remake-cum-homage of Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic Blow-Up (and Francis Coppola's The Conversation, actually) isn’t as skillful as the earlier film at questioning the nature of "reality," but culminates nevertheless in a devastating sleight-of-cinema that reverberates in the brain for days afterward. John Lithgow and Dennis Franz (lately of the TV series NYPD Blue) both play supporting roles, but John Travolta, on his way out of vogue, stars as the B-movie sound man scouring Philadelphia in search of the perfect scream. By the end of the movie, he finds it.
Navel-Gazers: 10 Movies About Movies
DEEP FOCUS
http://www.deep-focus.com/index.html
Reviews by Bryant Frazer
bryant@deep-focus.com