We were so excited by one of this issue’s submissions, Frederick Zackel’s "Robinson Crusoe and the Ethnic Sidekick," that we brazenly violated the unspoken rule of editors everywhere that the article must conform to the magazine, not vice versa. Why should little things like editorial profile and brand identity prevent us from publishing such a thorough, persuasive piece, which nails an enormous number of targets beyond film (though that’s included): classic literature, Wall Street, capitalism, Star Trek, even Gilligan’s Island are put under Zackel’s finely polished lens. We say all this not only to praise this article but also to encourage similar submissions that treat film in a larger cultural context, not merely in a vacuum — though of course we also welcome well-written, wildly insightful pieces in the "vacuum" mode, which has, after all, been BL’s bread ‘n butter, such as it is, for lo these many years.

Serendipity, which is practically a religion here at Bright Lights, has again given this issue an unintended theme: racial politics in le cinema. Under that rubric fall a number of articles in addition to Zackel’s exegesis of the black ‘n white buddy motif: Aaron Cohen’s tantalizing look at Japan’s first film actress, Tokuko Nagai Takagi (who makes Asta Nielsen seem like a household word); Eve Kushner’s robust assault on Mike Leigh’s widely lauded Topsy-Turvy; Molly Sackler’s snappy skewering of East Is East; and of course several pieces by your ego-drenched editor, including reviews of the fine apartheid documentary Long Night’s Journey into Day and that paean to bratty Greek and Albanian rent boys, From the Edge of the City.

Other, less categorizable pleasures await, including BL warhorse Alan Vanneman’s superb long last word on Irving Berlin in the movies; Eric Schlosser’s charming interview with the darling of the film festivals, director Béla Tarr; Julian Upton’s beguiling look at Derek Jarman’s rare 1978 punk flick Jubilee. Fetishism gets the BL once-over (see "S&M Alcove"), as do several recent queerflix (see "Homo Corner" — what’s next, "Women’s Film Foyer" or perhaps "Ukrainian Movie Lanai"?). The DVD and VHS reviews cover cinema’s heights (Cocteau, Kurosawa, Sirk) and depths (Ulmer), though admittedly the difference isn’t always clear. No book reviews this time because, like practically everybody these days, every time our fingers threatened to touch a page, we shocked even ourselves by nervously lunging for the remote.