Tragic Poignancy: Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Loyal 47 Ronin
The great director’s legendary version of Chushingura is finally available in a sparkling DVD transfer Genroku Chushingura, also known as The Forty-Seven Ronin of the Genroku Era, or in the[…]
Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin’s Little Fugitive Escapes to DVD
A breakthrough indie and a crash course in no-budget film production Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin’s groundbreaking 1953 indie, Little Fugitive (reviewed more extensively elsewhere in Bright Lights, along with[…]
Antonioni’s Red Desert
The Italian maestro’s stroll through the modern wasteland Red Desert occupies a curious place in Antonioni’s canon. Made in 1964 as a French-Italian coproduction, it’s wedged between the international success[…]
Mario Bava’s Baron Blood on DVD
This middle-range Bava looks better than ever on DVD Baron Blood (original title Orrori del castello di Norimberga, Gli) is often written off as middle-range Bava at best, and with[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
Radley Metzger: The Dirty Girls, Carmen Baby, The Princess and the Call Girl on DVD
Will Metzger mania never end? Image Entertainment’s ambitious program of releasing what appears to be just about every Radley Metzger film is a feast for completists and fans of the[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
Maverick Metzger: Dark Odyssey and Little Mother
Radley Metzger’s first film and his veiled biopic of saintly slut Evita now on DVD. Radley Metzger’s fame rests largely on having brought sophistication to softcore porn in films like[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground
Poets of Everyday Life: Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin
Three pioneering American neorealist indies: Little Fugitive, Weddings and Babies, Lovers and Lollipops “The concept of making the film almost unnoticed among crowds seemed to be working.” – Morris Engel, on[…]
Lonesome Leni: The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
Hitler’s hired hand and master filmmaker Riefenstahl is indeed both wonderful and horrible in Ray Muller’s 1993 documentary. Ray Müller’s monumental (3 hours-plus) The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl[…]
Music & Musicals · Pre-Code · Reviews
Pre-Code Follies: Murder at the Vanities
This 1934 musical mystery has girls, grins, guns, and Duke Ellington, too “Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world.” That was the legend above the entrance[…]
Forgotten and Fantastic: The King of Jazz
Hot licks and high kicks in a rare early musical The King of Jazz is a time machine. This 1929 musical, filmed in Technicolor, preserves a part of America’s musical[…]
Book review: The Vampire Book: by, J. Gordon Melton
The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead, by J. Gordon Melton. (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999). Trade paper, $19.95, 919pp. ISBN 1-57859-071-X. This is one encyclopedia that deserves the name. J.[…]
Book review: The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia, edited by Amy L. Unterberger
The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia: Women on the Other Side of the Camera, edited by Amy L. Unterberger. (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999). Trade paper, $29.95, 568pp. ISBN 1-57859-092-2. This is[…]
Book review: Stranger Than Paradise, by Geoff Andrew
Stranger Than Paradise: Maverick Film-makers in Recent American Cinema, by Geoff Andrew. (New York: Limelight Editions, 1999). Cloth, $38.00, 374pp, ISBN 0-87910-277-2. Geoff Andrew is the film editor of London’s esteemed Time[…]
Documentaries · Writers & Critics
“Screw the Algonquin, Let’s Catch the Stooges”: Wits from Manhattan’s Golden Age Offer Few Laughs
Yesteryear’s brilliant wags are apparently this year’s terminal bores Film historians and social anthropologists will applaud Kino Video’s recent release of Robert Benchley and the Knights of the Algonquin. Viewers[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
Ask, Tell: Documentaries in the 1999 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
Gendernauts, military drag queens, communist queers – and, oh yes, John Waters distinguish this year’s docs. Those who make them and those who follow them have long lamented the lack[…]
Empty Closets: The 1999 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
For the SFILGFF, this is the year of the closet – empty! The proportion of successes to stinkers is reassuringly high in this year’s San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay[…]
Directors · Interviews · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Ellen Cabot – no, Victoria Sloan -, no, David DeCoteau Speaks!
The auteur of Petticoat Planet and Retro-Puppetmaster discusses his the kinky leatherboy arthouse epic Leather Jacket Love Story and other things How much did Leather Jacket Love Story (1998) cost?[…]
Return of the Repressed: John Huckert’s Hard (1998)
One of the hardest things about Hard was getting the damn thing made The gay community hasn’t always looked kindly on movies about gay mass murderers. The infamous Cruising (1980),[…]
A Realm of Pure Feeling: Defying Gravity (1997)
This sweet film about queer fratboys in love defies the odds, too. Summer is when the studios unleash their biggest potential moneymakers, which this year have also turned out to[…]
Relax . . . It’s Just Sex (1999)
Relax . . . it’s just a movie – and a good one thanks to a sharp script and Jennifer Tilly * * * Relax . . . It’s Just[…]
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