Moanin’ Low: On Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan
Stick to the trailer If you’ve seen the trailer to Black Snake Moan, stop while you’re ahead. Those two minutes of Samuel L. Jackson’s self-righteousness and Christina Ricci’s writhing make[…]
On the Border of the Thermian Gulf: The Ninth Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival
“The documentaries that most stood out have a near fictional flair, blurring the border between reality and fable.” For the ninth year, the formerly predominantly Jewish city of Thessaloniki in[…]
Anorexic Logic: On American Psycho
“Nothing evokes the end of the world more than a man running straight ahead on a beach … cocooned in the solitary sacrifice of his energy … In a sense,[…]
Sovereign Remedies: Queen of Hearts to President
A Progress Boccaccio’s Decameron, written immediately after the Black Death, hints at the arrival of a more egalitarian post-pandemic world. This was especially evident in the new approach to gender[…]
Of Sexual Hate and Lonely Death: The Mysteries of Pandora’s Box
“When what you write about is what you see/ What do you write about when it’s dark?” ~ Charles Wright 1. “You’ll have to kill me to get rid of[…]
Isn’t It Romantic? Hugh and Drew in Marc Lawrence’s Music and Lyrics
The King of the Backseat Blowjob gets mildly post-ironist on your ass You can do anything if you try. You must always be yourself, and never compromise. And it’s OK[…]
Fear of Fishing: Closets and Product Placement in Hawks’ Man’s Favorite Sport?
“The sorrows of narrative immersion are the joys of Brechtian postmodernism …” I love the films of Howard Hawks but I’ve always dismissed Man’s Favorite Sport as unwatchable, mainly because[…]
DVD & Blu-ray · TV & Streaming
Tight Pants in Paradise: Tom Selleck Is Magnum, P.I.
Keats, Shelley, and firm, manly thighs Ever wonder what life would be like if English majors ruled the world? A chilling prospect, to be sure, but a damned unlikely one.[…]
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Mouchette, Siberiade, 1900, The Oyster Princess, I Don’t Want to Be a Man, King Lear, Another Sky
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1967) Robert Bresson’s film, Mouchette, like his previous release, Au Hasard Balthasar[…]
Being John, Seeing Stanley: John Malkovich in Brian Cook’s Colour Me Kubrick: A True … ish Story
“Plot keywords: drugs, glamour, party, rent boy, sex, bisexual, celebrity, con artist, male model” Say, who’s that old queen in the corner? Why, it’s John Malkovich, having a fairy good[…]
Documentaries · Genres · Movies · Reviews
Treed by the Family: On 51 Birch Street
For boomers, “the idea that Mom and Dad are flawed human beings with complicated histories and real feelings can be hard to accept.” The straight out of a first-grade primer[…]
Our Time of Troubles: Ken Loach on War, Irish History, and The Wind That Shakes the Barley
“But I was accused of enjoying walking up and down the red carpet! Their rage knew no bounds.” Now 70, British director Ken Loach has for over 40 years made intimate, compelling,[…]
Uneasy Living: The Insecure Charm of Jean Arthur
“Funny, tender, a little neurotic, a little erotic, and always spontaneous …” A Foreign Affair (1948) is a blunt Billy Wilder comedy set amid the ruins of Berlin, and it’s[…]
No Exit: On Matthias Glasner’s The Free Will
“It’s a critique that is one step away from excusing Theo (the ‘woman was asking for it’ defence) …” Matthias Glasner’s The Free Will (Der freie Wille,1 2006) is a[…]
Fashion and Dunst: The Substance of Marie Antoinette
“The Coppola ideal is a young girl trapped in fustiness: she can be an object of voyeurism without a trace of lewdness, and remain spiritually intact even when accessorized.” Sofia[…]
Secrets of the European Union: Chicago’s Tenth Annual EU Film Festival
They saw what you did! Could anyone foresee, when six nations signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957, that this economic agreement would evolve into the unprecedented political experiment called[…]
Across the Great Divide: Canadian Popular Cinema in the 21st Century
Indigenous film, global dreams1 For most of the film critics who have given it any thought, the term “Canadian Popular Cinema” is a vexing oxymoron. In a paradox that goes[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
More Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, The Nutty Professor, no Gorilla (I think), and no Allen Ginsberg (or Ginzberg)
Since my esteemed Bright Lights After Dark (and Bright Lights Film Journal) co-contributor C. Jerry Kutner posted his last entry in the (now) ongoing Nutty Professor debate out here in[…]
FREDDIE FRANCIS (1917-2007)
I’d like to join Tim Lucas and others in acknowledging the passing of Freddie Francis, a fine underrated director and one of the greatest of English cinematographers. He deservedly won[…]
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