When Salamon got carte blanche to follow the production of Brian De Palma’s Bonfire of the Vanities from planning to completion, she couldn’t have known it’d become synonymous with Ishtar in the annals of Hollywood excess. True, De Palma had more or less flopped with Casualties of War, but this was the director of Dressed to Kill, Scarfac, and The Untouchables. With stars Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, and man-of-the-hour Bruce Willis. Surely a safe bet for an expose of modern filmmaking.
( burn, baby, burn )