I love Brian De Palma.  However, ours is not an unconditional
love.  Some things test the definition and the committment of
our love.  I've seen "Mission To Mars."  I've seen "Redacted." 
But when our love is perfect... well... I've seen "Phantom of
the Paradise," too.  Our love can all be traced to a theatrical
viewing of "Blow Out" in 1981, when I had no idea who he was.  I
walked into the theater unaware, and I walked out a fan for
life.  The film opens with a truly hilarious movie-within-the-
movie called "Coed Frenzy."  Oh, god, how I wish De Palma had
really made "Coed Frenzy," because it looks like the sleaziest
film ever made.  And at the end of this five minutes of uber-
slasher footage, De Palma pops the balloon with a joke.  But
that joke has two punchlines, and the other one's not delivered
until the closing frames of the film, where it's finally
deployed to devastating effect.  John Travolta and Nancy Allen
both give winning movie-star performances, at their very best
here, and John Lithgow contrib