Rousseau Redux: Regis Wargnier’s Disappointing Pygmy Tale Man to Man
These “noble savages” — and the issues they embody — deserve better
Activist & Political · Animation
Only in America: On Team America: World Police
Trey Parker and Matt Stone fight Hollywood ignorance with some ignorance of their own
Losing Liam: On Ken Loach’s Realist Masterpiece, Sweet Sixteen
The best British film of its time?
Zuckerman and Zugsmith on Sirk
GEORGE ZUCKERMAN ON SIRK Robert Wilder’s novel had been shelved and written off (because of Breen office objections and a threatened lawsuit by the Reynolds tobacco family) when I first[…]
Sarris on Sirk
The very strange, controversial career of Douglas Sirk raises perplexing questions about form and content in the cinema. For one thing, Sirk’s literary source material has ranged from Anton Chekhov[…]
The Lure of the Gilded Cage: All I Desire and There’s Always Tomorrow
“Once upon a time in sunny California” reads a title card immediately after the credits for Sirk’s There’s Always Tomorrow. “Once upon a time” triggers an expectation of a fairy[…]
Love Affairs That Always Fade: Sirk’s Doomed Romances
In Douglas Sirk’s world, romantic love doesn’t play much of a part. His characters are boxed into ruts which are ever-deepening; they cannot understand themselves or their desperate predicaments, let[…]
Introduction to Bright Lights’ Douglas Sirk Issue
This is our first issue dedicated to a single director. Douglas Sirk was the logical choice. While not exactly a household word himself, some of his films were among the[…]
Two Weeks in Another Town: Interview with Douglas Sirk
Introduction (Jane Stern) There are more drugstores in Lugano, Switzerland than in any other town in Europe. They are small cliniques, filled with Jacuzzi pumps, sitz bath salts, pine oil[…]
God Is Dead, or Through a Glass Darkly: On Sirk’s Magnificent Obsession
Jon Halliday’s indispensable Sirk on Sirk has confirmed what Sirk’s admirers and students had long suspected: that his films are not all equally “personal,” and that he had a much[…]
Sirk and the Critics
(above) The happy-go-lucky “Sirk ensemble” from All That Heaven Allows: Russell Metty, Agnes Moorehead, Sirk, Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Ross Hunter, and dialogue director Jack Davis.
Class Dismissed: Revisiting Losey and Pinter’s Misunderstood Masterpiece, The Servant
They also serve who only stand and annihilate
DVD & Blu-ray · LGBT & Queer · Silents
Queer Silents: Different from the Others, Michael, and Sex in Chains on DVD
Kino’s unusual series spotlights German silent gay-themed cinema
Pucker Up: The Enchantments of Resnais’ Not on the Lips
The world’s first Spherist masterpiece?
The Archers Hit a Bull’s-eye: Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death
“This is the universe. Big, isn’t it.”
DVD & Blu-ray · Noir · Reviews
“She Loves Too Much”: The Ravishing Leave Her to Heaven on DVD
No matter what she says, don’t upset her
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Hooker with a Heart of Darkness: Jane Fonda in Klute
Bree Daniels trumps all Fonda’s real-life characters
Documentaries · Exploitation & Erotica
Dancing and Dirging with Jason: On Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason
“Going on stage would’ve been awfully redundant”
Compliments to the Chef: Three . . . Extremes: Dumplings Expertly Mixes Social Critique and Questionable Cuisine
Bring some dramamine to Fruit Chan’s best film to date
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
In the Realm of the Real: The 3rd Chicago International Documentary Film Festival
“The governments will be forgotten but the masterpieces will remain.”
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