Lewton/Tourneur – The Lennon & McCartney of Cinema
Bright Lights After Dark tips its hat to the Val Lewton Blogathon hosted here, and encourages its readers to check out the documentary, Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows,[…]
Category: Reviews
2007: A Look Back in the Old Texas Rearview Cinema
I am heralding 2007 as the year American cinema re-embraced Texas-sized ambiguity and best you do the same. Everyone’s got a good thing to say about old NO COUNTRY FOR[…]
Depp’s Todd
Those of us who feared Johnny Depp might not be able to execute the vocal gymnastics required for Stephen Sondheim’s revenge-musical, Sweeney Todd, can breathe a sigh of relief. Depp[…]
Merry Christmas From Hans and Adolph
Hans Jurgen Syberberg’s Hitler: A Film From Germany aka Our Hitler (1978) is one of the most unusual movies ever made, a 7½ hour meditation on Hitler and what he[…]
No Country For Old Men – Breaking the Rules
[SPOILERPHOBES BEWARE!! The following post comments in a general fashion on the endings of No Country for Old Men and The Great Silence, as well as what happens to Marion[…]
The White Reindeer (Valkoinen Peura, 1952)
Christa Lang Fuller, widow of Sam, in response to my post re 31 Essential Horror Films writes: “Please add Valkoinen peura (1952) to the top of your list as one[…]
Still, Life: Looking at Jia Zhang-ke’s Recent Masterpiece
“Present-day society doesn’t suit us because we’re too nostalgic.” August 8, 2007 saw a huge celebration in Beijing marking the one-year countdown to the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.[…]
The Searcher: On Ethan Edwards and John Ford’s Masterpiece
“Ride away . . . ride away . . .” John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) opens with the arrival of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) at his brother’s home in southern[…]
“What Is Beauty Worth?” On Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
(And an Artist) Tom Tykwer’s film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer has the bones of a cinematic fairytale (with its male narration and ethereal lighting) and the flesh of[…]
Mother to the Man? Rethinking Luc Besson’s Léon
Age is just a number I was both enchanted and disturbed by viewing Léon again today. Luc Besson’s film has undoubted charm, and the performances, especially by the precocious Natalie[…]
“Give My Love to the Sunrise” The Lady from Shanghai
Welles bids farewell to Hayworth and Hollywood With Wong Kar Wai’s remake of The Lady from Shanghai (1948) set for release in 2008, it is a fitting time to re-evaluate[…]
Whose Noir Is It, Anyway? Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly
Mike Hammer deconstructed, or Mike Hammer disrespected? Back in the day — way, way back in the day, when life in America was not a total girlie show — Americans[…]
The Poisoned Story: The Myth of Magic in Wait ‘Til You’re Older
“Even the least imaginative people are incredulous about aging: surely this isn’t the only story, the only body I get to inhabit.” To start off, Hong Kong films may not[…]
Will the Shark Bite? G. W. Pabst and The Threepenny Opera
“Macheath: I’m not asking you to put on an opera.” ~ Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera, Act 1, scene 2 Down the crooked lanes of London, gangster Mackie Messer stalks a[…]
Colleen Moore Comes Back: On the Rediscovered, Restored 1927 Rarity Her Wild Oat
“Go sit on a flagpole!” Film is inherently fragile, so no success story feels more impressive or heartening than the sudden reappearance of an artwork thought irretrievably lost in the[…]
The Devil Wears a Fatsuit: John Travolta in Hairspray
“Even if the new Hairspray seems a welcome return to camp for Travolta, his mock-seriousness is as frozen as ever.” When Hairspray was released in 1988, cult cinema fans lamented the softening[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Reviews
Looking at Charlie — The Gold Rush: An Occasional Series on the Art and Life of Charlie Chaplin
Hats off, dudes! A masterpiece! The Gold Rush is Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece — the one film in which his desire to make the audience laugh and the desire to make[…]
Imagine a Man in a Box: Berlin Alexanderplatz on DVD
“As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” Rainer Werner Fassbinder was born in Bavaria in 1945, and made his first feature, Love Is Colder Than Death, in 1969[…]
“Ode to a Nectarite Harvest”: On Brand Upon the Brain!
Maddin at his most masochistic — and magical For a film as deliriously fecund and fittingly bizarre as Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain! (2006), declaring the well-deservedness of its[…]
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