Word: phantoms
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...PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE
...title implies, Phantom of the Paradise is a contemporary version of The Phantom of the Opera. This time the maimed and maddened musician, haunting the theater whose owner has stolen his composition, has been transformed into a pop composer. His plagiarist in Brian De Palma's film has become an evil, omnipotent promoter of rock music named Swan. The theater the Phantom haunts is no longer an opera house but a rock palace on the order of the old Fillmore. Phoenix (Jessica Harper), the woman he hopelessly loves, is now an aspiring pop singer. The organ the Phantom used...
...Phantom of the Paradise is much more than a bundle of neat, often amusing analogies. De Palma has something richer-and more relevant-in mind than parodying a theatrical property he knows is too old and, in its way, too good for mere camp treatment. He has borrowed the plot as a vehicle to satirize the whole corrupt, pretentious and self-important world of pop culture...
Dorian's Wrinkles. The work filched from the modern Phantom (William Finley) is a rock-cantata retelling of the Faust legend. In order to hear it properly performed, the Phantom, as well as his dream singer, must strike similar bargains with Swan, juicily played by Paul Williams, who also composed the film's good score. Swan in turn owes his power to an earlier Faustian deal of his own, a pact that borrows a few wrinkles from Dorian Gray's compact. This repetition reduces contemporary middlebrow mythomania to absurd shambles...
...story is masterful. It is 1891 and Holmes's fondness for cocaine is now an addiction. He has acquired a phantom: Professor Moriarty, a shuffling grammar-school teacher who becomes "the Napoleon of crime" when the sleuth is in a narcotic state. Shocked but dutiful, Watson lures Holmes to Vienna where the possessed detective encounters the equal genius of Sigmund Freud...