Blow Out

Blow Out
1981 [Trailer]
Director: Brian De Palma (IMDB)

Synopsis: A movie sound guy (John Travolta) stumbles across an accident which he recorded. Turns out it wasn't an accident and he starts to put the pieces together to solve a murder.

John Travolta seems like a cool guy or at least he used too. Now he seems like a weird airplane pilot with a creepy grin. Blow Out shows Travolta at his best... well... second best next to Pulp Fiction. If I were John Travolta and I was on Facebook, I would make this image my cover photo.

Visually this movie is pretty impressive. I loved a lot of the cinematography and De Palma occasionally incorporates the use of this split screen effect that really worked for me (reference that image above for an example.) There's also a lot of interesting mechanical shots interwoven throughout which gave this quasi training video feel to the film at times. The story is something out of an old crime noir but set in late 70's Philadelphia. There were some slow moments here and there but overall I'm glad I picked this up on Criterion Blu!