The Pearls of Pauline (Kael, That Is)
The little film critic who could sort of
Author: Alan Vanneman
Alan Vanneman is a writer living in Washington, DC. He is the author of two dead-tree novels, Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat of Sumatra and Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara, both published by Penzler Press. Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara is available as an audiobook from Blackstone/Downpour. He is also the author of three new Nero Wolfe novellas recreating Rex Stout’s famous fat detective, a FREE ebook, and Author! Author! Auden, Oates, and Updike, a collection of two short stories and a novella, available both as an ebook and print on demand. All of his fiction can be accessed here at his blog Literature R Us. Portions of his article "Alfred Hitchcock: A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone," which originally appeared online in Bright Lights, have been included in a textbook anthology by Allison Smith, Trixie Smith, and Stacia Watkins.
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors · Historical & Epic · Politics
Looking at Charlie — Modern Times (An Occasional Series on the Life and Work of Charlie Chaplin)
Charlie Chaplin was born on April 16, 1889. To honor the old boy, we herewith present Alan Vanneman’s witty discussion of one of Charlie’s masterpieces, originally published in Bright Lights[…]
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Happy Birthday, Baby! Irving Berlin (b. May 11, 1888) on Film
This article first appeared in Bright Lights in October 2000. We reprint it as a tribute to the seminal composer on what would have been his 130th birthday. (And frankly, we’re surprised[…]
Biopic · Directors · Drama · Experimental & Underground
James Franco’s The Disaster Artist: Hollywood Caught in the Act of Kissing Its Own Ass
“Hollywood oddballs are like everything else in Hollywood. Don’t look too close.” * * * Greg Sestero’s now reasonably famous book The Disaster Artist, co-written by Tom Bissell, is much[…]
Tempest in a Teaspoon – Thomas Adès Opera of Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel
Alan Vanneman goes to the Met – the Metropolitan Opera, that is. The Met was looking for a film critic who likes opera to review Thomas Adès operatic version of[…]
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk: Too Cute!
A particular issue is the degree to which the film departs from “fact.” Significant departures from the historical record, if they become frequent enough, are sufficient to sabotage any “historical[…]
Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy
Silence is golden, so it would seem: On War for the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)
Is it rude to point out that male chimps don’t hug their sons? That’s because they don’t know they have sons! They aren’t “faithful” to their “wives,” which they don’t[…]
On Café Society and Woody Allen – Last seen in search of lost innocence, and rich wood paneling!
Art doesn’t have to be autobiographical, does it? Woody can write about the kid he wasn’t as well as the kid he was, can’t he? * * * I haven’t[…]
Jurassic Parks: Stevie and the Dinosaurs
Spielberg, like many film directors, appears to be far more interested in film than life – interested in film, and interested in audiences, and how to move them through film.[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews · TV & Streaming · Westerns
Happy Birthday, Richard Boone! Got Trouble? Wire Paladin! The Western for Existentialists
Today is actor Richard Boone’s birthday (June 18, 1917 – January 10, 1981). We’re celebrating it by reprinting Alan Vanneman’s pithy write-up (previously published in issue 48, May 2005) of[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
Easter 2014, Part Deux: Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade, in which Fred and Judy celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ
In part “deux” of Bright Lights’ tribute to Easter, we present that devout duo, Fred and Judy, offering spiritual and musical solace on this day of reflection. Remember how it[…]
Heavy TV, Part Deux: Breaking Bad ends badly, Girls gets girly, and Mad Men explores sex, death, and ketchup
Nothing about Downton Abbey in this article By the end of season four of Breaking Bad, chem teacher gone wild Walter White (Bryan Cranston) had killed just about everyone worth[…]
Marion Davies and Bing Crosby are Going Hollywood! But only one of them makes it
“Praise the Lord and pass the absinthe!” When Marion Davies first met William Randolph Hearst, she was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, and a showgirl she remained. She had an uncertain[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
It’s Always Fair Weather? I’m Afraid Not: Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse Say Good-bye to Broadway
What’s black and white and destroys Western Civilization?
Actors & Personalities · Writers & Critics
“We’ll Roll in the Hey Nonny Nonny!” Antic Antiques to Keep a Drowsy Emperor Awake, if He’s Not Too Sleepy
Some of the films of Noël Coward, some of the films of Ernst Lubitsch, and one of the films of Oscar Wilde
Whoopee! released on DVD! (courtesy of the Goldwyn Archive)
The first review I wrote for Bright Lights was of Eddie Cantor’s Whoopee! (I left off the exclamation point) in the early days of the web (May 1998). This 1930 Sam[…]
Heavy TV: Breaking Bad, Girls, and Mad Men
Who needs an Oscar when you can have an Emmy?
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors · Silents
Looking at Charlie — Limelight: An Occasional Series on the Life and Work of Charlie Chaplin
“I have ideas!” If only that were true!
DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals
Opera Goes Blu, and So Should You: An Amateur’s Guide to Mozart’s Operas on Blu-ray
“Passions, whether violent or not, must never be expressed to the point of exciting disgust, and as music, even in the most terrible situations, must never offend the ear, but must please the listener, or in other words must never cease to be music… .”
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