Bright Lights Film Journal

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Sicario

Drugs · Military and Paramilitary · Thrillers & Action · Urban Conflict · War

0

A Land of Wolves: Sicario and the New Drug War Film

  • February 10, 2018

“In the company of wolves was a stretcher made of cobblestone curfews as the federales performed their custodial customs quite well.” – At the Drive In * * * In[…]

Blade Runner 2049

Philosophy · SF & Fantasy

0

Vibrant Matter in Blade Runner 2049

  • February 6, 2018

Blade Runner 2049 resists our contemporary moment of political and cultural polarization that exploits difference as a cudgel to reinforce (inevitably racialized) hostilities. The film instead forwards a vision of[…]

Activist & Political · Drama · Essays

3

Beatriz at Dinner: Eating Up the Whole World

  • February 2, 2018

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a[…]

Activist & Political · African American · Essays

1

Between The Butler and Black Dynamite: Servility, Militancy, and the Meaning of Blaxploitation

  • January 28, 2018

The existence of films such as Black Samson and The Spook Who Sat by the Door reminds us that there was an era, however fleeting, in which commercial films discarded[…]

What is Reality

Documentaries · Philosophy · Religion & Spirituality

2

So, “What Is Reality?” The E8 Lattice Theory and the Angel of History

  • January 24, 2018

“All time exists all the time” – from the documentary What Is Reality?  * * * Emancipate yourself from the tunnel-visioned timekeeper! Return the unbending arrow of time to its[…]

Thessaloniki

Activist & Political · Festivals & Awards

0

Dislocations: The 58th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (2-12 November 2017)

  • January 21, 2018

Emblematic of the prevailing sober atmosphere was the festival’s Invisible Hands Tribute, a series of five films about the erosion of workers’ rights, unemployment, and collective action. * * *[…]

Secret Cinema's 2013 performance of Brazil. © Secret Cinema / Alastair Philip Wiper

Interviews · New Media

0

Being the Story: Talking with Fabien Riggall about Secret Cinema

  • January 18, 2018

The secrecy part of Secret Cinema relates very much to this digital and automated world that we are living in. People increasingly want to get away from screens. They want[…]

Society

Activist & Political · Comedy · Horror

1

Watch it Again! Society (Brian Yuzna, 1989)

  • January 16, 2018

Yes, Society supplies the body horror, well crafted in all its sticky glory by Japanese effects expert Screaming Mad George, but it fuses it with teen movie, conspiracy thriller, and[…]

Dean Cain. All photos courtesy of Steven Woolf / The I.P.A. Network

Actors & Personalities · Franchises & Series · Interviews

0

A Man for All Seasons: An Interview with Dean Cain

  • January 12, 2018

I feel like I get to go and play at it now. I mean, I take it very seriously and I do the work. But it feels more like play[…]

Actors & Personalities · Festivals & Awards · Historical & Epic

0

Keeping It Royal: Oscar Loves British Monarchs Much More Than American Presidents

  • January 5, 2018

The moral of this particular dose of Oscar reality: You don’t have to be a royal to grab the Academy’s attention, but it sure helps if you’re pretending to be[…]

Drama · LGBT & Queer · SF & Fantasy

0

A Fine Romance? On Call Me by Your Name

  • January 2, 2018

As in romance novels, the excitement of sexual provocation is the heart of the story. It occupies two-thirds of the film: “His finger brushed mine” developed in fifteen stages. The[…]

Margaret Sullavan

Actors & Personalities

4

Margaret Sullavan and the Art of Dying

  • January 1, 2018

Note: One of our favorite actresses, Margaret Sullavan, was born on May 16, 1909, which means she’d be 111 if she’d lived. Not that she’d necessarily have wanted to, as[…]

The Last Jedi

Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy

3

The Last Jedi: Enjoying Corporate Cinema’s Quasi-Risks While They Last

  • December 25, 2017

One might argue that Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi attempts at deconstruction yet again, depicting the original trilogy’s heroic Luke as an inexplicably jaded Jedi living in self-imposed exile on[…]

Batman v Superman

Comics · Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy

4

Watch it Again! Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

  • December 21, 2017

So as you peel back the folds of the opening of Batman v Superman you get the sense that even in its immediately awkward, tone-deaf plotting, this is not a perfectly[…]

Biopic · Directors · Drama · Experimental & Underground

1

James Franco’s The Disaster Artist: Hollywood Caught in the Act of Kissing Its Own Ass

  • December 18, 2017

“Hollywood oddballs are like everything else in Hollywood. Don’t look too close.” * * * Greg Sestero’s now reasonably famous book The Disaster Artist, co-written by Tom Bissell, is much[…]

Saint Jack

Activist & Political · Historical & Epic · LGBT & Queer

1

The Counter-Imperialist: Reflections on Bogdanovich’s Saint Jack (1979) by a Singaporean

  • December 3, 2017

Ironically, with the passing of the Singapore of yesteryear, the work that best captures the significant geographical landmarks lost to time is not a local film or documentary, but a[…]

Actors & Personalities

2

Fatal Instincts: The Dangerous Pout of Gloria Grahame

  • November 28, 2017

“I’m a girl who loves to be manhandled! After all, what are a few contusions or abrasions if you get the man you love?”

Jade Healy

Designers · Interviews

1

On Sacred Deers and Ghost Stories: Talking with Production Designer Jade Healy

  • November 25, 2017

When it comes to design, I always try to get into the heads of the characters and then I try to map out the history of the location itself. Who[…]

Sopranos

Crime · Franchises & Series · Philosophy · TV & Streaming

7

Ten Years Since the Cable Went Out: Disassembling The Sopranos’ Finale, “Made in America”

  • November 15, 2017

As Jonah Weiner puts it, the final scene “does stage a violent death, patently and unambiguously: ours.” If the cut-to-black is punitive, it’s also Chase’s memento mori: remember that you[…]

Caniba

Documentaries · Horror

0

Still Life with Cannibal: On Issei Sagawa and the Documentary Caniba (2017)

  • November 12, 2017

The notion of the body as entry to the soul becomes a fallacy: penetration is not a portal to another person’s psyche – just as Sagawa’s cannibalism of Hartevelt could[…]

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