Travolta Double Feature

Mostly what John Badham did with Saturday Night Fever was to ape Scorsese, but he did one thing gloriously right: Travolta’s dance scenes are shot full body, without too much cutting. That’s reason enough to revisit the film, but the second half of your evening should go to De Palma’s Blow Out. The Criterion Blu-ray edition of this remarkable movie belongs in your collection for any number of reasons: it’s De Palma’s best film; it contains Travolta’s best performance; it features an ingenious wind-up plot that climaxes with the bleakest, blackest joke possible.