The Fabulous Baker Boys Explains Why There’s No People Like Show People
Damn we’re good. With the single exception of biting the heads off of rats, lounge acts are the lowest form of show business. As such, they exert a perverse fascination[…]
53 Search results for "jerry lewis"
Actors & Personalities · LGBT & Queer
The Sissy Gaze in American Cinema
Shed a tear for that shimmering, noble, lost creature of the cinema — the sissy! What’s wrong with Hollywood? Nowadays you hear everyone asking that. This very morning, I heard[…]
Some Like It Not: The Key to Successful Relationships in the Films of Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (1906-2002) died on March 27, age 95. We honor him by reposting Jason Carpenter’s fine analysis of the master’s work, first published in Bright Lights in 2016. *[…]
African American · Drama · Dreams · Horror · Urban Conflict
Candymen: Slumming, Scarifying, and Gentrifying in 1992 and 2022
Good mornin’, Mr. Benson, I see you’re doin’ well. If I had me a shotgun I’d blow you straight to hell. – Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia, “Candyman,” 1970 * * *[…]
Biopic · Drama · Gothic · Mystery · Myth and Archetype · Psychology
Death Came to Charles Foster Kane: Orson Welles in the Underworld
“The opus begins in dying.” – James Hillman “Just as each Gothic tale is itself a dream and also a mirror showing the reader his mind, everything within these symbolic[…]
The Fall of the House of Warner: The Warner Brothers
“In the 1930s, Warners effectively became the studio to go to for social critique, a risky position to hold under the Hays Code when pictures could be censored not just[…]
Ozymandias Melancholia: Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love: A Personal History
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed . . . — from Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”
Between the Idea and the Reality the Shadow Falls
So please mind the gap
In Lonely Places: Film Noir Outside the City
“Noir films with non-urban settings exploded the idea that escape into a safer or healthier world was possible, showing how temptation and violence can attack anyone, anywhere.”
Essays · Exploitation & Erotica · Genres
Men in Women-in-Prison: Masochism, Feminism, Fetish
“Nobody wants to pay to becastrated anymore.”
Sirk and the Critics
(above) The happy-go-lucky “Sirk ensemble” from All That Heaven Allows: Russell Metty, Agnes Moorehead, Sirk, Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Ross Hunter, and dialogue director Jack Davis.
Historical & Epic · Reviews · SF & Fantasy · Writers & Critics
Robinson Crusoe and the Ethnic Sidekick
Who knew that Crusoe and Friday would be resurrected daily for service to western culture’s nefarious needs? While we are waiting for Dreamworks’ The Legend of Bagger Vance (starring Matt[…]
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