Blow Out (1981 Brian de Palma & scr)

With its seed in Blow Up, de Palma then shamelessly steals from everyone else including his mate Coppola (The Conversation) and of course Hitchcock (Vertigo in both plot and colouring).

Travolta and Lithgow are fine, not so sure about acting talents of de Palma regulars Nancy Allen and Dennis Franz. Quite diffused lighting from Vilmos Zsigmond (with some fantastic moments of deep focus), music by Pino Donaggio that sometimes works: a bit of a mixed bag though pretty enjoyable. Actually lots and lots to recommend it, including seriously skilful editing by Paul Hirsch.

Astonishing night deep focus from Vilmos Zsigmond

At one point anyway, Quentin Tarantino's named this as one of his three favourite films (the other two being Rio Bravo and Taxi Driver).

Thanks to Angelfire for quoting the ASC article which confirms that furious finish is an optical effect (bluescreen filming with the fireworks added later). Still looks amazing though, and seasonally timely, though in fact Vilmos' mate Laszlo had to reshoot the last two reels which went missing (you'd never know):