Only the Pictures: We’re All Editing, Ed
But about this audit
Communication Breakdown: Reboarding Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train
“You only need one leg to get around. Sure helps to have two.”
Directors · Experimental & Underground
Peter Watkins and the Politics of Expression: On Edvard Munch (1974) and The Freethinker (1994)
“Watkins’ filmmaking bravely seeks an insistence on personal truth his own and the viewer’s.”
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
Ode to Lili: And Leslie Caron
“This MGM movie is studio-system filmmaking at its most protective, and it’s designed entirely to showcase Leslie Caron …”
Actors & Personalities · Essays · SF & Fantasy
A Boy and His Dog: On Will Smith, Apocalypse, and I Am Legend
“Neville remains wholly oblivious, falling into each trap the ferals set … “
When Virtue Sleeps: The Moral World of Denys Arcand’s L’Âge des Ténèbres
“We are asked to think morally: is the happiness these characters seek possible or desirable?”
Documentaries · Religion & Spirituality
Innocence Lost or Regained? The Clear-Eyed Vision of Jesus Camp
“Real things happening to real people”
Thank God for Uncle Tom: Race and Religion Collide in The Green Pastures
A kinder, gentler condescension
Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
The Foxy, the Dead, and the Foxier: Re-Visiting Death Proof
“He’s old enough to be my dad!”
Tickets to the Dark Side: The 43rd Chicago International Film Festival
“We will see whose heart is sharpest!”
Nuts to the Squirrels and Roués Redeemed: The Discreet Charm of Charles Boyer
“In Boyer, self-belief and theatrical technique are seamlessly fused together.”
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Our Hitler, Sawdust and Tinsel, Black Sun, Marketa Lazarova, Battleship Potemkin, Nosferatu, Automatons
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Downward Mobility: On Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama
“You never could make a decent living … you never did mount me proper.”
Rebel, Rebel: Gregg Araki Reflects on The Living End and His Totally F***ed Up Career at Sundance 2008
“My whole thing, all my life, was march to your own drummer.”
Actors & Personalities · Essays
Presence and Absence: Toward a Working Conception of Screen Characters
“A basic consistency on the actor’s part remains uniquely convincing as character, no matter how simplistic that character’s definition.”
Stunted Lives: On 4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days
Unsettling and unmissable
The Double Standard: The Twins of Two-Faced Woman and Sylvia Scarlett
“She is both sentimental and shameless.”
Lewton/Tourneur – The Lennon & McCartney of Cinema
Bright Lights After Dark tips its hat to the Val Lewton Blogathon hosted here, and encourages its readers to check out the documentary, Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows,[…]
Remembering Maila Nurmi (1921-2008)
Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira – actress, comedienne, artist, and horror hostess – was one of the most interesting and extraordinary persons I have ever met. MAILA KNEW EVERYBODY The first[…]
Daniel Day Lewis… the New Dark God of Actors
If you’re as hung up on the mythic greatness of THERE WILL BE BLOOD as I am (if you haven’t seen it, may I advise you do so?) then you’re[…]
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