TITLE: RAISING CAIN
WRITER AND DIRECTOR: BRIAN DE PALMA
TITLE: SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
DIRECTOR: BARBET SCHROEDER
WRITER: DON ROOS
THE BOTTOM LINE: Two thrillers from clever directors. One outsmarts the audience; the other outsmarts itself.
We are all our own twins. We wage fratricidal war -- ego vs. id, propriety vs. instinct, the will to do good vs. the itch to raise hell -- on the battlefield of our split souls. What is civilization if not the successful repression of the evil twin in all of us? And what is cinema if not an artful evocation of that same malevolent impulse?...