Does De Palma have a hit with "Passion" ?

You should neither stress over nor concern yourself with the box office performance of Passion. It is more important that the film has integrity, which I feel confident it will. The fact of the matter is DePalma manages to get films financed and made regardless of the fact that Mission: Impossible is his last big hit. Now, I hope he does had a bona fide smash hit with Passion, but the early responses to it make it doubtful this film will be a big hit. One can hope that when all the worldwide grosses are totaled, the film will be profitable and will encourage others to invest in other DePalma films. But as far as the U.S. is concerned, I expect this film to be a moderate to low grosser here. This film just does not seem designed to resonate with U.S. audiences.

I voted for moderate hit, but I would really love for it to be a huge box office success that would allow De Palma to get a couple of project green lit based on that. I don't think it will happen though. I imagine it making "Femme Fatale" money.

Though in actuality Snake Eyes and M2M were profitable movies. Not running smashes, but definitely profitable. I doubt Femme Fatale or Redacted were profitable, though neither was too costly, either.

So I saw Passion yesterday at the NY Film Festival. The crowd was receptive to it and applauded at the end. So what did I think of it?

Well, I liked it and am eager to see it again as I need to take it all in some more. As with any DePalma film, there is more than meets the eye. On first glance I do not think it's one of DePalma's finest works, but there is a lot of interesting things happening in it. Curiously, the first half of the film has been criticized by some as being too plodding or straightforward and the back-end is all crazy DePalma and exciting. I rather liked the first half! The satire of corporate politics and vicious back-stabbing was fun for me as a corporate guy myself.

The second half gets really interesting but I think the film loses of a bit of focus. Again, I need to re-see it to clarify where dreams start and end... and start up again. I won't give away the ending except to say that it was so similar to Dressed to Kill that it made me slightly uncomfortable. Was it a parody? There's certainly a twist. But even the Pino Donaggio score (which I loved overall) employed the same music cues from Dressed to Kill. I will say, it seemed to lack the crispness of DePalma at his best, and yet, there were many fascinating ideas at work, so I don't want to imply that he's gone soft in any way. I'm actually happy to see that many of the critics in NY have responded well to the film.

Will it be a hit? Hard to judge. I think it will get people talking, which is good. Some will love it and others will hate it (what else is new?). I can see it connecting in Europe more than in the U.S. as it has such a sleek Euro feel. At the end of the day, I think the film should do some business and be a modest hit. From an artistic standpoint, I hope the critical chatter is enough to reignite DePalma's career. The man definitely still has a point of view and things left to say.

I think the film owes a lot not just to Love Crime, on which it was based, but also to Robert Altman's 3 Women. If you haven't seen that film, check in out!

In terms of DePalma's work, I think this film aligns closely with Raising Cain. There are also elements of Femme Fatale, though Passion doesn't quite hit the sublime heights of that masterpiece.

I hope so. But at the moment I'm most concerned about the possibility of it getting a UK cinema release.

Yes, I hope so!

Well, we are already six members I think, so that's a start!