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writers gone wild!
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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 46 | November 2004

from the editor

Now that the pre-election jitters are gone (and the real horror is here), we've decided to do our small bit here at La Casa de La Luz Bright by redesigning the site to take it, to paraphrase George Brown (who actually did the redesign), "to insane new levels of minimalism." We agree with George that when the world spins off its axis, nothing quite satisfies like a little redecorating. Danke, George!

Of course, that made us late, which caused much muttering and vague threats among our student readers who demand a new issue to plagiarize every three months. So sorry, kids. But we do think you'll like the new look.

Readers still shaking from recent political developments can relax in our articles antechamber with BL friends old and new. Robert Castle explores 2001 in ways hitherto unnoticed; Omar Odeh takes a stroll through the "punishment park" represented by The Battle of Algiers; and BL vet and associate editor Alan Vanneman continues the Fred Astaire exegesis with a look at Blue Skies and then takes a side trip to the timeless screwball comedy The Awful Truth. Three newbies have boarded the BL Express this time. D. J. M. Saunders dives into Capra's supposed sentimentality and comes up with quite different conclusions. Ian Johnston grapples with Fassbinder's study in the sadomasochism of marrage, Martha. And Sarah Pessin offers a sensitive reading of George Sluizer's two versions of The Vanishing. Bienvenidos, all!

Moving on to the features foyer uncovers a tasty mix. The irrepressible Vanneman disinters the iconic (and we think wildly overrated) Pauline Kael to bracing effect. Andrew Grossman "expresses the inexpressible" (to quote Aldous Huxley) in a wide-ranging piece that only begins with film music. Herr Robert Keser attacks three Nazi-era films with gusto. And our old buddy Mark Vieira writes on horror queens in an excerpt from his excellent book Hollywood Horror. Bon appetit!

If you're still a little jangled, may we suggest you sample some of the other goodies in this go-round. Alan Jacobson fondly recalls Preminger's The Moon Is Blue, while Monsieur Keser dips his acid quill into the latest Chicago International Film Festival. Megan Ratner does the 2004 New York Film Festival to the nines, while yours truly slips into leather and chrome for a look at the 2004 CineKink festival.

Some recent films get the once-over (and in some cases the heave-ho) this time. Two reviews of Friday Night Lights, by Alan Vanneman and Tony Macklin, find little to love there. BL newbie Bryan Grady warns us of the perils of woods and ocean in a look at Open Water and Blair Witch; while fellow inductee Natalie Reitano finds much more in Vera Drake than social repression. Bienvenue, worthies!

The late composer Norbert Schultze is eulogized by BL virgin Boris Trbic, while the far-from-virginal yours truly weighs in with reviews of Raoul Peck's Lumumba, a documentary on gay rights pioneer Evelyn Hooker, and the "Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror)" that have become a staple of Bright Lights despite widespread indifference.

On a practical note, we've decided to stop Americanizing every damn thing in the issue. We'll still do it with quotes, but, for example, British usages like "colour" and "judgement" from British writers will from now on remain. Bright Lights has writers all over the world, not just this third-rate First World country. Bending over backwards to promote American hegemony, even in small matters of literary style, is hard on the back — and the soul. We prefer to stand.

Ciao, Gary Morris

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Watch for new issues of Bright Lights every three months: August, November, February, and May. To be automatically notified when the next issue is posted, join our mailing list.

Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.

articles antechamber

The Interpretative Odyssey of 2001: Of Humanity and Hyperspace — More fun in the new (old) world

Punishment Parks: The Battle of Algiers on DVD — Look familiar?

"If I were different, maybe things could be the same, only different." The Awful Truth on DVD — Cary Grant and Irene Dunne live our dreams

Blue Skies?: Well, Partly Sunny — Fred ‘n' Bing ‘n' Irv, Part II

Capra's Corn? Dante ... Dickens ... Capra — George Bailey's wartime America looks eerily familiar

Martha, Interrupted: Fassbinder's 1974 Masterpiece on DVD — "You're always wanting to touch me!"

The Vanishing Remade: From the Desire of Being to the Burial of Human Subjectivity — Burying an original

features foyer

Horror Queens: Divas from Hollywood's Golden Age Rampage Through the Sixties — "She's supposed to be shriveling away," observed Davis, "but her tits keep growing. I keep running into them, like the Hollywood hills."

The Pearls of Pauline: (Kael, That Is) — The little film critic who could — sort of

How to Murder John Williams: Toward an Ideology of Contrapuntal Antirealism — To construct musicality through expressionism, or to express musicality through constructivism?

Pride of the Nazis: La Habañera, Titanic, and Münchhausen on DVD — Grand Teutons

revival room

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby: Revisiting Preminger's The Moon Is Blue — Mixing it up with Otto and Alfred (Kinsey, that is)

biopic boudoir

Resurrecting Lumumba: Raoul Peck's Biopic of the Martyred Revolutionary — He's back

film festival flying buttress

Theda Bara's Eyes: The 40th Chicago International Film Festival, Part 1 —
From Akerman to Zhu

The Verve Is Back: The New York Film Festival 2004 — This year's fest features a wealth of winners — and a few flops

Where Kink Is King: CineKink Festival 2004 — Won't you be my pony boy?

recent film roundabout

Odessa, Texas Goes Hollywood: Friday Night
Lights I — Are you ready for some rural idiocy?

Tears in the Astroturf: Friday Night Lights II —
This feel-good movie doesn't

Open Water, Open Woods: The Camera as Conflict in Horror Films — Let's get lost

Secrets and Lives: Mike Leigh's Vera Drake —
"We know what we are, but not what we may be"

documentary dormer

Defending the Deviates: — Evelyn Hooker Documentary Changing Our Minds on Video — "It had something to do with my sexual intercourse"

Going Mental: The Travesties of Tarnation —
"He'd fuck himself if he could"

cornucopia corner

Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror): Random Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old-School Cinema — "Ah'm no freak! They ah disgustin'!"

the empty guest room

Norbert, We Hardly Knew Ye: Rethinking the Late German Composer — He composed "Lili Marleen" — and, oh yeah, hundreds of other songs and scores