Posterized Propaganda December 2012: A Cinematic Library with ‘Django Unchained’, ‘The Hobbit,’ ‘Les Miserables’ & More

“Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” is a proverb whose simple existence proves the fact impressionable souls will do so without fail. This monthly column focuses on the film industry’s willingness to capitalize on this truth, releasing one-sheets to serve as not representations of what audiences are to expect, but as propaganda to fill seats. Oftentimes they fail miserably. Here we are at the end of 2012, ready for the release of the last few Oscar. It’s a time where story generally triumphs over mainstream appeal and where the…

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TIFF12 REVIEW: Passion [2013]

“Why don’t we kiss and make up?” Five years after his last foray behind the camera, writer/director Brian De Palma looks to take some of the alternative devices used to film Redacted and combine them with the sexual thriller genre to which he is so indelibly aligned. A remake of the 2010 French film Love Crime, the auteur brings Natalie Carter and Alain Corneau‘s tale to Germany and lets its cutthroat female executives have at it. Beginning as a congenial work relationship, our central duo’s dynamic quickly spills into their…

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TIFF07 REVIEW: Redacted [2007]

“Welcome to the goddamn army” Our final foray with the 2007 Toronto Film Festival screenings was Brian De Palma’s Redacted, a film about what is going on in Iraq that the government doesn’t want the public to know. All those black scribbles on documents and censored video coverage are examples of redaction and this movie aims to show the world the ugly truth, unfiltered. As the director said after the showing, the movie is “fictionalized for lawyer purposes,” but actually based on footage and accounts that he found on the…

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