Activist & Political · African American · Essays · Franchises & Series · Race · SF & Fantasy · SF/Fantasy · Societal Trends
If Deep Space 9 demonstrates how the casting of African American commanders in chief – and their election – may constitute or create a backlash disguised as “progress,” it has[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · Muslims
Stranger at the Gate is sharp, and benefits from a tense and credible narrative. It’s constructed like a bomb – a heavy orb with a lit fuse, carefully and reassuringly[…]
Activist & Political · Comedy · Counterculture · Experimental & Underground
This is an excerpt from the introduction to the author’s new book on Mr. Freedom (https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/isbn/9781800856943/). * * * The film calls into question both the American international and domestic[…]
Activist & Political · African American · Essays · Societal Trends
Editor’s Note: As part of Bright Lights’ ongoing campaign to challenge dogmatic viewpoints and advocate for nuanced analysis of cultural controversies, we present Graham Daseler’s powerful discussion of one of[…]
#MeToo · Activist & Political · Animation · Commentary · Essays · Women in Film
Editor’s Note: In an era where dogma rules and layered approaches to cultural creations are considered problematic, we repost M. C. Myers’ brilliant and timely analysis of Disney’s Snow White[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Education
The Unmaking of a College is a stealthy Hampshire College recruitment/endowment film, but it’s easier to breathe through the subtle sales pitch because the story is true and the message[…]
Activist & Political · Asian · TV & Streaming · War
This is the first piece of a multi-part, long-form series entitled “The Twilight Zone and the Culture Wars.” The series spotlights several episodes from Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone and[…]
Activist & Political · Biopic · Documentaries · Drama · Eastern European · Middle East
Like Assayas’s Carlos, Ujică’s Autobiography mostly remains an investigation of a public figure in its public functions. And both films subtly decenter their Big Man of History protagonists. Both document[…]
Activist & Political · African American · Essays · Historical & Epic · Silents
D. W. Griffith died on July 23, 1948. To commemorate this seminal figure in cinema history, we repost BLFJ regular Gordon Thomas’s deep dive, which first appeared in 2016, into[…]
Activist & Political · Pandemic · SF & Fantasy
I can’t believe it took me almost four decades and living through a global pandemic to realize it, but in E.T., Elliott and his motley crew of rascals might well[…]
Activist & Political · Animals · Drama
Although Babe was released a quarter-century ago, its critique of animal agriculture remains timely. Babe celebrates the “unprejudiced heart” of its eponymous piggy hero, who narrowly escapes becoming Christmas dinner[…]
Activist & Political · African American · Societal Trends
Fredric March stands alongside four other mid-century drum majors for civil rights during the 1943 national radio broadcast of “Race-Relations Sunday.” Left to right: concert soprano Dorothy Maynor, actor Canada[…]
Activist & Political · Hollywood · Teaching · War · Women in Film
It is in the American women’s picture that, in my classroom at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, I’m able to lead students in a global reading of women’s[…]
Activist & Political · African American · Cinematographers · Interviews · War
When I take on a project, one of the first things I try to do is get an idea of the overarching tone the director is looking for. Then I[…]
Activist & Political · Directors · LGBT & Queer
Despite their focus on timely sociopolitical matters, the films are almost never didactic (the final act of Temblores is an exception), because Bustamante is too keen to explore and shed[…]
Activist & Political · African American · Drama
Like Dassin’s 1950 noir classic Night and the City, Uptight is shot predominantly at night, with oddly titled camera angles and bright, glaring colours, ironically organised around the shades of[…]
#MeToo · Activist & Political · Drama · Women in Film · Workplace
#MeToo has been an unequivocal success in terms of calling out the rampant sexual abuse that exists in the veins of Hollywood, but has been less successful in allowing room[…]
Activist & Political · Brazilian Cinema · Indigenous · SF & Fantasy · Westerns
When I watched Bacurau again this summer online, so much felt different: the open-air communal life of the villagers seemed even more distant and utopian; after months of Brazil’s president[…]
Activist & Political · Asian · Drama · Societal Trends
Hu Bo leaves us suspended over this bleak interregnum – where the old has gone but the new is not yet born. His death too, leaves a similar blank spot.[…]
Activist & Political · Disease and Epidemics · Economy · Horror · Pandemic
What the decade’s scariest film can tell us about pandemics, poverty, and the web of financial risk that ensnares us all * * * It comes for you when you’re[…]
