It's as if Brian de Palma were saying, "What is getting older if it isn't learning more ways that you're vulnerable?" - Pauline Kael

A mistake in judgment isn't fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is.

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) — This New York-set thriller operates on mood and atmosphere and moves so fast, with such delicate changes of rhythm, that its excitement has a subterranean sexiness. Faye Dunaway, with long, thick, dark-red hair, is Laura Mars, a celebrity fashion photographer who specializes in the chic and pungency of sadism; the pictures she shoots have a furtive charge — we can see why they sell. Directed by Irvin Kershner, the film has a few shocking fast cuts, but it also has scabrous elegance and a surprising amount of humor. Laura’s scruffy, wild-eyed driver (Brad Dourif) epitomizes New York’s crazed, hostile flunkies; he’s so wound up he seems to have the tensions of the whole city in his gut. Her manager (René Auberjonois) is tense and ambivalent about Laura — about everything. Her models (Lisa Taylor and Dar-lanne Fluegel), who in their poses look wickedly decadent, are really just fun-loving dingalings.

Is there something in druggy subjects that encourages directors to make imitation film noir? Film noir itself becomes an addiction.