Blow-Up + Blow Out Anniversary Double Feature

Paramount and Stateside Theatres are pairing two obsession-driven thrillers for a double feature on Wednesday, August 26, as part of the Paramount Summer Classic Film Series. The lineup is Blow-Up (1966) and Blow Out (1981), two movies separated by fifteen years and an ocean, both centered on a professional who accidentally records something they weren't meant to see or hear.

Blow-Up was Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language feature, set in swinging London and starring Vanessa Redgrave, David Hemmings, Sarah Miles, John Castle, and Jane Birkin. It follows a fashion photographer who unknowingly captures a death on film, with a score by Herbie Hancock and a cameo by the Yardbirds. It runs 111 minutes. Blow Out is a Brian De Palma American paranoia thriller starring John Travolta as a sound-effects man who believes he's recorded a political assassination, with Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, and Dennis Franz. That one runs 108 minutes.

The two films share a similar setup—a specialist with a technical tool who finds a piece of evidence that pulls them into a mystery—but they take it in different directions. Antonioni's Blow-Up is more of a slow-burn meditation on perception and the nature of the image, while De Palma's Blow Out leans into the tension and conspiracy of the American thriller. Watching them back-to-back lets you see how two different directors handle the same basic premise.

Doors open at 6 PM, Blow-Up starts at 7 PM, and Blow Out follows at 9:05 PM. Both are showing at the State Theatre, part of the Paramount and Stateside Theatres in Austin.