It can’t get more direct than getting to hear the word from the source himself. De Palma features only one interview subject: the Blow Out, Carrie and Scarface (how do you only choose three?!) filmmaker, Brian De Palma. What could have easily been a self-indulgent or rose-tinted retrospective discussion is made fascinating by De Palma’s openness about his aspirations and influences, as well as his willingness to admit to several failures. That forthright demeanor is what might make De Palma accessible to those who don’t even consider themselves De Palma fans in the slightest. It’s also why, for the De Palma championers, this documentary is an ideal look into the director’s collected works. Brian De Palma’s noteworthy career is put into new perspective by the man at its helm.

Filmmakers Noah Baumbach (Greenberg, Frances Ha) and Jake Paltrow (The Good Night, Young Ones) seem like an odd pair to author a portrait on the legendary Brian De Palma; however, the trio of directors frequently have dinner with one another, engaging in conversations apparently not too dissimilar to this one—filmed in Paltrow’s living room. Baumbach & Paltrow jump cut through De Palma’s responses in a way that maintains a speedy pace. The rapid assembly assures that the film never really wastes a moment. They briefly acknowledge the filmmaker’s upbringing before speeding into De Palma’s early career, leaving most of the runtime for diving into his filmography piece by piece. Certain sections go into greater depth than others, although it’s not always the expected films where De Palma decides to go into detail. His work on the aforementioned films as well as The Bonfire of the Vanities, Casualties of War and Home Movies are all given extended sequences in which De Palma gets specific on his vision, then trashes on all subsequent film and TV versions of Carrie.

De Palma has plenty of name-dropping and behind-the-scenes stories to satisfy movie nerds. Some photosets show De Palma dining with friends Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg—there’s even an old home movie of Spielberg calling Lucas from a car phone. Among the most fascinating looks into the production process that De Palma provides is the director’s account of how he became attached to Scarface, before abandoning the film while Sidney Lumet took over, only to return to the director’s chair before filming commenced. When De Palma brings up his inspirations, from personal experiences like watching his doctor father’s surgeries to cultural influences like Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, the movie makes the filmmaker’s artistic ambitions much clearer.

There are points where De Palma’s single subject structure limits its insights. De Palma mostly waves off the accusations of misogyny in his films and chooses to not elaborate on his divorces. Yet, De Palma is willing to address his legacy honestly more than one would assume from a director of his stature. The result is a captivating look through an iconic filmmaker’s work that goes far beyond a simple DVD commentary feature. The documentary sheds enough light on the long list of movies attributed to Mr. De Palma that you’ll want to revisit the ones you’ve seen and finally watch the titles that you’ve put off.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center today revealed the 26 features making up its main slate for the 53rd New York Film Festival running September 25th to October 11th. Joining Opening Night selection The Walk and Closing Night selection Miles Ahead in making their World Premieres at the 2015 festival are Steven Spielberg‘s Cold War drama Bridge of Spies (starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance) and Laura Israel‘s documentary portrait Don’t Blink: Robert Frank. Several other highly lauded films taking part in the three-week showcase includes Hou Hsiao-hsien‘s Cannes award-winning film The Assassin, John Crowley‘s romantic drama Brooklyn, as well as Centerpiece screening Steve Jobs.

New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair, Kent Jones remarked, “I could talk about the geographical range of the films in the selection, the mix of artistic sensibilities … but the only thing that really matters is how uniformly beautiful and vital each of these movies are.” Additional special events, the documentary section, filmmaker conversations and panels, as well as the festival’s Projections and Convergence programs will be announced in full closer to festival’s September start date. Tickets go on sale to the general public Sunday, September 13th.

Read the list of features making up the 53rd NYFF main slate below:

Opening Night

The Walk
Director, Robert Zemeckis

Centerpiece

Steve Jobs
Director, Danny Boyle

Closing Night

Miles Ahead
Director, Don Cheadle

Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One
Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One
Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One
Director, Miguel Gomes

The Assassin
Director, Hou Hsiao-hsien

Bridge of Spies
Director, Steven Spielberg

Brooklyn
Director, John Crowley

Carol
Director, Todd Haynes

Cemetery of Splendour
Director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Les Cowboys
Director, Thomas Bidegain

Don’t Blink: Robert Frank
Director, Laura Israel

Experimenter
Director, Michael Almereyda

The Forbidden Room
Directors, Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson

In the Shadow of Women / L’Ombre des femmes
Director, Philippe Garrel

Journey to the Shore / Kishibe no tabi
Director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa

The Lobster
Director, Yorgos Lanthimos

Maggie’s Plan
Director, Rebecca Miller

The Measure of a Man / La Loi du marché
Director, Stéphane Brizé

Mia Madre
Director, Nanni Moretti

Microbe & Gasoline / Microbe et Gasoil
Director, Michel Gondry

Mountains May Depart
Director, Jia Zhangke

My Golden Days / Trois Souvenirs de ma jeunesse
Director, Arnaud Desplechin

No Home Movie
Director, Chantal Akerman

Right Now, Wrong Then
Director, Hong Sangsoo

The Treasure / Comoara
Director, Corneliu Porumboiu

Where To Invade Next
Director, Michael Moore

Those who have read the cult favorite novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline understand that news that one of pop cultures founding members, Steven Spielberg, is now set to direct the film adaptation is pretty geek-out worthy news. Ready Player One is a sci-fi novel about a boy, Wade Watts, who spends his time plugged into the OASIS, a virtual utopia where people attend school and work and also explore the vast virtual universe created by James Halliday, a man obsessed with the ’80s. When Halliday dies, he leaves behind an easter egg hunt for his dedicated followers to embark on to gain control of the OASIS. The book references tons of games and movies, many of which Spielberg had a hand in making, which makes for some pretty meta news. Who best to direct a film about a futuristic gaming community obsessed with the ’80s than the man who helped shape that decade?

The film project has had some trouble attaching a director with both Robert Zemeckis and even Christopher Nolan showing interest at certain points.

Spielberg is finishing production on his Tom Hanks helmed drama Bridge of Spies which comes out in October and he has yet to start shooting his next project, Roald Dahl’s The BFG—(for which our inner child is also extremely excited). We’ll wait as long as it takes Steven, just bring our futuristic ’80s dreams to life!

Super 8 is a summer blockbuster film by director J.J. Abrams that contains obvious hints of Spielberg throughout. The film is both entertaining and predictable when a group of adolescent filmmakers stumble upon a magical discovery. It is everything you would expect from a summer blockbuster; it’s exciting, entertaining, mindless and the plot could have used a little work.

Super 8 takes place in a small Ohio town set in 1979, with 12 year old Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) helping his friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) make an 8mm zombie movie for a local film festival. Those two have a few other friends to join them that are committed to filmmaking as well. Together they try keeping it mostly a secret from their parents as best as they can.

Somehow the group of boys gets the attractive girl, Alice (Elle Fanning), to star in their film but she is reluctant when she figures out Joe is a part of it. This is because she is driving her father’s vehicle without a license and Joe’s father is a deputy. Joe is at first shocked that she even knew who he was and tells her that he will never tell his father about it.

Once they arrive at the train station where they are going to shoot the next scene, they begin to setup lights, get makeup on and rehearse the lines. I must say it was truly impressive for a group of 12 year olds. As they are reading their lines everyone is taken aback at how wonderful Alice conveys emotion through her lines. She does so in a way that is brilliant because you can tell she is acting like she is acting.

The scene suddenly gets a huge break when they hear a train coming on the tracks next to them. Charles realizes that this opportunity will add a great amount of production value to the film if they can use it in the scene. So Charles rushes everyone into position and starts filming.

Everything goes as planned and the scene nears the end as the train is passing until Joe witnesses something odd. He spots a pickup truck getting on the tracks and heading towards the train at full speed. The train and pickup collide head-on that derails the train and setting off an enormous explosion. The camera gets knocked over on its side during all the commotion but continues to film the entire thing.

The group slowly wanders around the site looking at all the train parts on fire when they spot the truck that caused the accident. They approach the truck cautiously and find that the person behind the wheel of the truck had a schedule of the train. The man who is barely alive tells them not to tell anyone else about the accident.

You cannot read any reviews of this film without someone comparing this to a Steven Spielberg film but it is easy to see why. First of all, Spielberg is an executive producer of this film. Second of all, the film contains a ton of classic Spielberg elements such as; having a small courageous group of friends who all vary in different talents that are slightly beyond normal for their age. In my head I could not stop comparing this to a modern day version of The Goonies. It did lack one element that Spielberg seemed to always nail, an amazing original soundtrack.

Oddly enough, I was least impressed with the main character’s acting; Joel seemed to lack emotion that Elle and Riley expressed. Elle Fanning’s performance stood out the most for me but knowing that she is the younger sister of actress Dakota Fanning, it is not surprising she has so much talent. I would be shocked if she did not start getting some larger roles and later down the road pick up an Oscar for one of them.

I very much enjoyed the first two-thirds of Super 8 because it was focused much more on the group of kids trying to make a film together and less on the monster itself. However, the film seemed to abandon that in the last third of the film. This made it seem like the whole idea of them making a film for a festival seem like an afterthought by showing it in the ending credits only instead of referencing it again beforehand. The film is called Super 8 after all. I wonder if they won the local film festival?