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Bright Sights: Recent DVDs — A look at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror) — Random short reviews of the worthy and worthless in recent and old-school cinema
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Alfred Hitchcock
at the Drag Ball
When Being Blonde and Soulless
Is Not Enough
"Mother . . . my mother . . . um, what's the phrase? She isn't quite herself today." — Anthony Perkins, making a colossal understatement in Psycho
from the editor
features foyer
Finding Unlikely Ideology in Prokofiev: Polyphonic and Anti-Authoritarian Gestures in The Gambler — "Alexei must be condemned to the pointless, loveless, and finally false freedom of a spinning limbo, as unfinished and unfinishable as the best Bakhtinian polyphony."
articles antechamber
Alfred Hitchcock at the Drag Ball: When Being Blonde and Soulless Is Not Enough — "Mother . . . my mother . . . um, what's the phrase? She isn't quite herself today." — Anthony Perkins, making a colossal understatement in Psycho
Lost Watches and Lost Souls: From New Jersey to Old Istanbul — Fresh Starts Don’t Come Easy
Death, Excess, and Discontinuity: On Lost Highway, Irreversible, and Visitor Q — "All feature reactive heroes hurtling toward death as a means of reconciling the ruptures between them and their objects of desire."
Music, Morricone, and Jack Nicholson's Voice: The Soundscape of Wolf — "Suddenly my senses are all incredibly acute . . . I'm different, more alive, stronger . . ."
Metropolis, Ezra Pound, Mammon — And the Law of Too-Large Numbers — "The old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters" — Antonio Gramsci
actors atelier
Japanese Cinema's Uncommon Man: Tatsuya Nakadai's Dissidents, Outcasts, and Shadow Warriors — "Like Hollywood's new postwar men, he offered a multifaceted, ambivalent masculinity far from monolithic wartime ideals."
film festival flying buttress
Music in the Making: Highlights from the 2008 Melbourne International Film Festival — "The surprise musical number can represent a facile avoidance of complexity, a moment of true strangeness, or a way of harmonizing existing, underlying themes."
Queer Angles: The 2008 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival — Feisty orthodox Jewish dykes, globe-trotting ladyboys, fascistic Armani queens — you know, the gang
What's Up, QDoc? Portland's 2008 Queer Documentary Festival — Seeing queer lives from the U.S. and Canada to South Africa and Iran
vale of video
The First-Class Jewels: An American in Paris and Gigi — Two golden-age musicals get the deluxe treatment
bright sights
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: The Italian, Traffic in Souls, Privilege, Wings, The Ascent, Tropical Malady, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, J'Accuse — An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
- - - - - -
Issue 62 | November 2008
Next issue: February 2009
www.brightlightsfilm.com
Online since 1996
bright lights after dark
recent cinema roundabout
Linda, Harry, and the Pseudo-Screw: Burn After Reading: The Coen Brothers' DC Story — "Burn After Reading holds the notable distinction of being the only screwball comedy to leave all of its characters either moderately satisfied or dead."
Sinful Remake: The Women Problem — "Wife, get a real life for yourself. Career woman, the career isn't everything. Hussy, men still marry ladies. Lesbian, explore your 'male' issues . . ."
It Ain't Me Babe: On Dylan and Todd Haynes' I'm Not There — See the incredible vanishing American
An Argento Family Reunion Special: Crying over the Spilled Mother of Tears — Bwaaah!
Vicky and Woody and François: On Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona — The return of Jules and Jim?
Out of Oblivion: Chris Marker and Cinematic Memories of Israel in Dan Geva's Description of a Memory — "It is an opportunity to film people and events that could be recalled at any time to affirm, lament, or challenge a moment in time in this troubled region."
the empty guest room
Dana Andrews: The Forties Hero and His Shadow — "It's not difficult for me to hide emotion, since I've always hidden it in my personal life." — Dana Andrews
Film Criticism as a Man's Job: A Belated Look at the Legacy of Manny Farber — "Farber's writing is the pure antithesis of academic — ornately sophisticated with a vernacular punch, stuffed with contradictory statements and astounding paradoxes."
Norma Shearer: The Primrose Path to MGM Stock — "She hovered somewhere between the realest of realities and the most blatant of impersonations." — F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Crazy Sunday," 1932
interrogation alcove
The Last Mistress: An Interview with Catherine Breillat — "When I make movies, nothing is limited."
revival room
Early Jeanne, Early Louis, Early Miles: Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows — "Paris at night in black-and-white with Miles on the soundtrack? It's a perfect fit."
The Volleyball in the Void: Tom Hanks Is Cast Away — Pascal . . . Kierkegaard . . . Nietzsche . . . Zemeckis?
Faust Goes to Hollywood: Revisiting John Frankenheimer's Seconds — "Think, for Pete's sake. What have you got now?"
little stabs
Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old-School Cinema — "Don't these children deserve the respect of a beautiful film?"
hiding in the stacks
Art in Cinema: Documents Toward a History of the Film Society, by Scott MacDonald
The Impossible David Lynch, by Todd McGowan
