Bright Lights Film Journal

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Day the Earth Stood Still

Activist & Political · Essays · SF & Fantasy

1

Klaatu’s Police Action: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Remembered

  • December 16, 2019

Suddenly, Gort doesn’t seem so powerful. We’re told of his strength and given a few meager examples. We have to take Klaatu’s word for it. The universe/world policeman is a[…]

Kirlian Witness

Essays · Mystery · SF & Fantasy

0

Talkin’ ’bout My Gentrification: The Secret Life of The Kirlian Witness (1979)

  • December 11, 2019

“The city was dirty. And dirt is fertile.” – Jeremiah Moss * * * New York City ca. 1976 was dying on the vine. With over a million citizens on[…]

Favourite

Comedy · Costume Drama · Historical & Epic

0

The Favourite (2018): A Comedy of Pity

  • December 5, 2019

This gets at the heart of The Favourite, which is one of the most evident trends in anti-sexist filmmaking lately: to be willing to portray women as unadulteratedly evil, as[…]

Parasite

Asian · Drama

0

Of Parasites and Their Hosts: Bong Joon-ho’s Gisaengchung (2019)

  • November 27, 2019

One of the ways in which Parasite differs from many more naturalistic movies about urban poverty is that access to mediated experience is shown to be a function of opportunity[…]

Tarantino

Activist & Political · Essays · Philosophy

1

Once Upon a Time – Shots in the Hyperreal (on Tarantino’s New Film)

  • November 23, 2019

“Hey, you’re Rick fucking Dalton. Don’t you forget it.” – Once Upon a Time – in Hollywood “And so art is everywhere, since artifice is at the very heart of reality.”[…]

Joker

Franchises & Series · Superheroes

0

Joker: Sympathy Epic

  • November 20, 2019

“It’s there all the time, driving me out to wander the streets, following me, silently, but I can feel it there. It’s me, pursuing myself. . . . But who[…]

Documentary

Documentaries

0

Dispatches #2 and #3 from Doc NYC: Mr. Toilet: The World’s #2 Man and We Believe in Dinosaurs

  • November 17, 2019

This is the second (and third) in a series of reviews by our New York correspondent Claire Baiz of entries in this year’s Doc NYC, the Big Apple’s – and one[…]

Joker

Franchises & Series · Superheroes

0

Lesser Expectations: Joker and Classical Hollywood Cinema

  • November 13, 2019

Phoenix’s body is mostly skin and bones, which is ironic since the film attempts to flesh out the Joker. In fact, this Joker’s ribs and shoulder blades seem to be[…]

Barbara Kopple

Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · War

0

Dispatch #1 from 2019 Doc NYC: Barbara Kopple’s Desert One

  • November 11, 2019

This is the first in a series of reviews by our New York correspondent Claire Baiz of entries in this year’s Doc NYC, the Big Apple’s – and one of[…]

Baltic cinema

Eastern European · Festivals & Awards

0

Ready for the Close-up: Filmmaking Then and Now in the Baltic States

  • November 6, 2019

Note: We’re publishing this to coincide with New York’s Scandinavia House’s important second festival devoted to Baltic cinema.  * * * Introduction The second New York Baltic Film Festival will[…]

Bob Ted Carol Alice

Comedy · Counterculture · Drama · Sex & Relationships

0

Who Carries the Banner? Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice 50 Years Later

  • November 3, 2019

Concepts of sex and marriage have changed monumentally in the last few decades and still today prove endlessly malleable and undefinable. We spend our whole lives attempting to shape our[…]

Shyamalan

Drama · New Media · Philosophy

0

Videograms of a Revolution: Surveillance, Self-Regulation, and Techno-Progressivism in M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass (2019)

  • October 30, 2019

[This review contains spoilers for the films Glass and The Village.]   “There are unknown forces that don’t want us to realise what we are truly capable of. They don’t[…]

Dear Ex

Asian · Drama · LGBT & Queer

0

“This Film Is Blessed by the Gods”: Talking with Mag Hsu, Director of Dear Ex (Netflix, 2018)

  • October 25, 2019

Hsu Chih-Yen and I immediately agreed that we wanted to represent a Taipei in July, especially the sun in Taipei. Under this July sun, everything is steaming, all the colours[…]

Wizard of Oz

Essays · Historical & Epic · Memoir · SF & Fantasy

1

The Wizard of Oz at 80: Archive of a Rust Belt Girl

  • October 20, 2019

The Wizard of Oz, the film, turns 80 this year, 2019. To celebrate, we present Amy Kenyon’s striking analysis/memoir, which explores growing up a “rust belt girl” in postwar Detroit[…]

8 Million

Crime · Neo-Noir · Writers & Critics

0

8 Million Ways to Die (1986): An Autopsy of the Great L.A. Noir That Never Was

  • October 13, 2019

So what the fuck happened? * * * 8 Million Ways to Die is a mess. Not a glorious mess, or an interesting mess. It’s not a fiasco on the[…]

Drama · War

0

On the Beautiful Pain of Saying Nothing: Desire, Silence, and Visual Inheritance in Pawlikowski’s Cold War and Antonioni’s L’Eclisse

  • October 8, 2019

“We’ve avoided saying certain things. Why bring them up now?” – L’Eclisse “Two hearts, four eyes, Crying all day and all night/ Dark eyes, you cry because you can’t be[…]

Drama · Essays

0

Time and Friendship in Old Joy (Kelly Reichardt, 2006), or How We Age with Film

  • October 4, 2019

The film withholds memory and history from us, always knowing more than us, plot-wise, but inviting and compelling our projection of how we fill the space of our own friendships.[…]

Melbourne International Film Festival

Festivals & Awards

0

The View on Parade: Xavier Dolan, Richard Billingham, and the Limits of Australian Cinema at the 2019 Melbourne International Film Festival (Aug. 6-23)

  • September 30, 2019

It seems a good opportunity to talk about film and nationhood, given that so many of this year’s local films – not only A Family but Alice, Buoyancy, and Animals[…]

My Man and I

Production History · Writers & Critics

0

Lost Letter: HUAC, Immigration, and William Wellman’s My Man and I (1952)

  • September 26, 2019

In My Man and I, “it seems that America has fallen into decline and the Stones and Nancy Walkers of America need the redemptive power, the cultural revivification offered by[…]

Hereditary

Directors · Horror · Theory

1

The Architecture of Horror: Space, Light, and Atmosphere in Ari Aster’s Hereditary and Midsommar

  • September 20, 2019

We encounter filmic atmosphere vaguely, imperceptibly, but emotively and reflexively; a movie is a mood. Hereditary and Midsommar creep into our consciousness through subtle shifts in light, sound, and camerawork.[…]

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