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Blow Out

Director: Brian De Palma Run Time: 107 min. Format: 35mm Rating: R Release Year: 1981

Starring: John Lithgow, John Travolta, Nancy Allen

B-movie sound recordist Jack Terry (John Travolta) becomes an unsuspecting witness when he unwittingly finds himself involved in a murder mystery.

While out last one night recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, Jack Terry becomes embroiled in a thriller of his own after saving a young woman’s life from what he believes to only be a car accident. Turns out that he has captured something incriminating on audio and starts to have feelings towards the woman…and that’s when things start to get weird. A movie-within-a-movie, Blow Out shares with the audience a sense of adventure and discovery as we realize who Jack can or cannot trust. As ever with De Palma, style is content and we see this through his usage of split screens, elaborate tracking shots, and Hitchcock influence. Blow Out is one of his best.

Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS – BRIAN DE PALMA series.

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