Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals · Reviews
There may be trouble ahead.” Follow the Fleet is perhaps the most problematic film in the Astaire/Rogers series. It has an excruciatingly bad plot; it has a singularly lame performance[…]
Crime · Reviews · Thrillers & Action
Scorsese’s wiseguy gangsters as modern-day knights errant In medieval times there were no countries and few strong kings. Monks hid in fortress monasteries while marauding knights brutalized the peasants. Most[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Horror
It wasn’t long ago that the idea of seeing a Lucio Fulci film outside its natural habitat of the urban grindhouse or the obscure home video would have been too[…]
This article appeared originally in the all-Hong Kong issue of Bright Lights #13 (1994). Based on research by Sek Kei. Edited, with additional material, by Rolanda Chu and Grant Foerster[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals · Reviews
What’s black and white and simply reeks with class? Top Hat is the apotheosis of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It has five dances, a total they matched in only[…]
Asian · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Two HK classics blur – make that erase – gender boundaries with thrilling results Films from Hong Kong have emerged to mainstream non–Chinese-speaking film audiences in the United States. Last[…]
Damn we’re good. With the single exception of biting the heads off of rats, lounge acts are the lowest form of show business. As such, they exert a perverse fascination[…]
Actors & Personalities · Asian · Interviews
This article appeared originally in the all-Hong Kong issue of Bright Lights #13 (1994). * * * Jackie spills his guts – verbally, this time I first met Jackie Chan in 1980,[…]
This article appeared originally in the all-Hong Kong issue of Bright Lights #13 (1994). * * * Among their thrills, Woo’s homoerotic bullet ballets offered welcome distraction from 1997’s doomsday[…]
Asian · Directors · Interviews
This article appeared originally in the all-Hong Kong issue of Bright Lights #13 (1994). * * * Hong Kong’s master of balletic blood ‘n bulletplay speaks John Woo, one of[…]
Asian · Historical & Epic · Reviews
A 19-year-old newcomer and a middle-aged veteran steal the show from two legends of Hong Kong cinema Director Ang Lee would not be an obvious first choice to direct a[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
A grim intersection of homophobia and hysteria ruins two men’s lives America’s criminal justice system has been under increasing attack in the past few years, and it’s hardly surprising. The[…]
The latest attempt at a “gay crossover date movie” almost succeeds Just One Time will trigger déjà vu in some viewers. This feature-length comedy is an expanded version of a popular[…]
Asian · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Like the macho dancers it portrays, this uneasy mix of melodrama and realism never quite gets it up With Macho Dancer (1988), the late Filipino director Lino Brocka (1940-1991) pioneered a[…]
Soldier by day, tranny slut by night Giorgios Katakouzinos’s 1982 feature Angel (Aggelos) is one of the most acclaimed and popular Greek films ever, allegedly having been seen by one Greek[…]
Is Tom Neal’s Al Roberts really Fate’s Plaything or just the ultimate pushy bottom? Edgar G. Ulmer is one of the more provocative auteurs in movie history. His provenance is impeccable[…]
Schoolboys on strike, farting contests, and a mysteriously acquired washer make up the world of this Japanese classic Of the three great directors of classical Japanese cinema, Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) remains[…]
Documentaries · Experimental & Underground
The “moment” is both defined and celebrated in this exceptional documentary “I don’t know what truth is. Truth is something unattainable. We can’t think we’re creating truth with a camera.[…]
This article appeared originally in the all-Hong Kong issue of Bright Lights #13 (1994). * * * A comprehensive look at a seminal decade in one of the world’s great[…]
This article appeared originally in the all-Hong Kong issue of Bright Lights #13 (1994). * * * HK’s martial arts film stylishly bridge time, space, and now cultures More popularly[…]
