Bright Lights Film Journal

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Animation · Animators

1

Tex Avery: Arch-Radicalizer of the Hollywood Cartoon

  • April 30, 2009

“Tex Avery — Arch Radicalizer of the Hollywood Cartoon” consists of slightly glorified program notes that I wrote for the Zagreb Animation Festival in 1978. It was a big hit in the Old World and was published in Russian, Croatian, Dutch, French, and Italian (twice), but the only time it ever got printed in English was by Gary Morris in his cinephile-revered rag called Bright Lights. Now, thirty-one years later, Mr. Morris has decided to reissue the piece online. I have forgone attempting any actual rewrites, though, because the observations have not dated especially egregiously, except for my discussion of the then-current state of cartoon criticism. The biggest faux pas contained herein is my overconfident assertion that cel animation would inevitably dominate the future of the medium (oops – maybe not), as CGI was then but a distant pixel on the historical horizon.

Directors · Interviews

0

Impressions of an Auteur, Tehran Today: Talking with Iranian Director Khosrow Sinai

  • April 30, 2009

“This situation requires the filmmakers to be more creative in handling their mostly simple stories, which sometimes are so simple as to seem very modern and minimalistic.”

Actors & Personalities · Asian · Silents

0

The Goddess in Her Element: Ruan Lingyu in Shanghai

  • April 30, 2009

“This is an actress who shows excitement down to the curl of her fingers, and whose face reveals every kind of mercurial change.”

Essays · LGBT & Queer · Photo Essays

0

Retro Virus: Did AIDS Perform Nensha?

  • April 30, 2009

“Be aware: there are forces at work here of which we have no knowledge.”

Directors · Genres · Pre-Code · Reviews

1

Wild Boys and Midnight Maries: Social Realism and Pre-Code in Forbidden Hollywood (Vol. 3)

  • April 30, 2009

“We can’t help but roll our eyes at a woman who would rather wear holes in her shoes looking for a ‘good honest job’ than roll around in money and mink.”

Essays · Exploitation & Erotica

0

Between Nudist Morality and Freudian Realism! Denuding Fleshly Hypocrisies, Cinematic and Otherwise

  • April 30, 2009

“Nude on the Moon’s exploitation is as innocent as the Good Christo-Nudist’s reclaiming of a pre-figleafed (albeit non-recreational) Eden.”

Essays · Writers & Critics

0

The Complete A of Altruism: In Which the Selfish Gene Explains Everything

  • April 30, 2009

Except whether to laugh or cry

Reviews

0

Women Larger Than Life: Program Notes 1: Allan Dwan’s Woman They Almost Lynched (1953) / Slightly Scarlet (1956)

  • April 30, 2009

Note: The humble program note has a long and noble history. Sometimes anonymous, sometimes not, cheered as often as they were reviled, these brief, ephemeral, often illuminating handouts, likely destined for the dustbin the same night they appeared, offer “wisdom in a nutshell,” as one of Ivy Compton-Burnett’s characters aptly put it. This article is the second in Bright Lights’ series of vintage program notes from those heady days of the 1970s when unstoppable auteurists started their own cine clubs and commandeered movie theaters to bring their idea of cine-culture to audiences. Our late friend Roger McNiven continues the series with fascinating write-ups of two more works on the subject of “women larger than life,” in this case Allan Dwan’s Slightly Scarlet and The Woman They Almost Lynched, screened at the legendary Thalia Theatre in New York City on Tuesday, December 4, 1979. We have added images but not edited the text, deferring to the time and spirit in which it was written.

Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals

0

Let’s Dance? Must We? Fred Astaire Collides with Betty Hutton

  • April 30, 2009

Ouch!

Actors & Personalities · Interviews

0

“Strong, Righteous, and Rustic”: An Interview with Joel McCrea

  • April 30, 2009

“I told Hitchcock, ‘I do miss my horse.'”

Music & Musicals

0

Busby Berkeley’s Hollywood Hotel: Bring on the dancing girls! Oh, wait! There aren’t any!

  • April 30, 2009

Thank God for the Benny Goodman Quartet

Genres · Horror

0

The Child Is Father to the Child: On the Friday the 13th Series

  • April 30, 2009

“You can depend on Jason.”

Festivals & Awards

0

The View from Here: Middle Eastern Cinema at the 49th Thessaloniki International Film Festival

  • April 30, 2009

“What happens when the gaze is returned?”

Asian · Festivals & Awards

0

Screening Hong Kong: The 33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival

  • April 30, 2009

One of the world’s largest cinema events is also one of the most ambitious

Actors & Personalities · Exploitation & Erotica · Pre-Code

0

Desperation and Divinity: “Help us, Mae!”

  • April 30, 2009

Hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations

DVD & Blu-ray · Reviews

0

Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Hobson’s Choice, Murnau Silents, Divorce Iranian Style, Runaway, Poil de Carotte, Celia

  • April 30, 2009

Hobson’s Choice (David Lean, 1954) Approaching this film — one of two comedies Lean made in his career, the other being Blithe Spirit (1945) — you expect it to be[…]

DVD & Blu-ray · Experimental & Underground

0

Opposition Compositions: Treasures IV: American Avant Garde Film 1947-1986 on DVD

  • April 30, 2009

“Avant garde filmmaking has been defined almost entirely in opposition to the Hollywood mainstream.”

DVD & Blu-ray · Pre-Code

0

The Branding of THE CHEAT

  • April 22, 2009

Kicking off the second pre-code set to come out this year, we’ve got THE CHEAT (1931, another in the “rich ne’er do well offers to ‘help’ married woman” genre. This[…]

Reviews

0

Shock of the New

  • April 18, 2009

This weekend, it being lovely and all, why not go to the movies and see OBSERVE AND REPORT? The film needs money. Writer-director Jody Hill is getting a drubbing apparently,[…]

DVD & Blu-ray · Pre-Code

0

The Code and its Perfect Specimens

  • April 9, 2009

There’s TWO pre-code sets out for spring: Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 3 and this week comes the Pre-Code Hollywood set from Universal. None of the films quite measure up to the[…]

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