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writers gone wild!
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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 37 | August 2002
from the editor
On your knees, knave!
While we admit to spending much of our time on our knees (court records in several states will verify this), we now find ourselves “down there” for a different reason. Yes, we must offer a mea culpa for the month-plus lateness of this issue of Bright Lights. After years of enslavement in the salt mines of html, java, et al., fabulous talent and famed curmudgeon George Brown had had enough, and said so. So we, that is, I have taken over coding chores and design, based on George’s Principles, which might have inspired Joan Crawford’s comment on the first (print) issue of Bright Lights from eons past: “Clean, precise, and beautiful!” Heartfelt thanks to George for supreme efforts under fire for the last umpteen years, and for designing 8 of the 24 articles this time and helping your editor stumble through the rest.
Standing now, I’m surveying the contents of the new issue, and am happy
to say I believe it’s one of our best. BL vet Andrew
Grossman ties together special fx, Dawn of the Dead, Walter
Benjamin, and a dizzying array of other threads in an ambitious
essay on cinema realism. BL stalwart and associate editor Alan
Vanneman weighs in with a juicy five articles: a visit to the major
silent comics; a farewell to Fred
& Ginger in the last of their RKO movies; reviews of Broadway Theatre
on DVD (the 1966 Death of a Salesman
and four more obscure efforts); and a brief
assault on Spider-Man.
Another frequent contributor, Scott Thill (whose Morphizm is an excellent online zine) interviewed Margaret Cho and entered DVD hell with reviews of Larry Clark’s Teenage Caveman and 20 Million Years to Earth BL alumni Richard Armstrong and Julian Upton offer, respectively, a tribute to Ida Lupino via The Hitch-hiker and a review of the rarely sighted “good British film”: 24-Hour Party People.
Perennial BL-er Bob Castle uses Raising Arizona as a springboard for a discussion of Kubrick, A.I., parenting, and other phenomena. Our pal Matt Kennedy reviews five DVDs from all over the cinematic map. In the book review realm, Julia Leyda takes on Classic Hollywood, Classic Whiteness, while Dorna Khazeni analyzes Abbas Kiarostami’s poetry book and a couple of others on Britain’s “saucy cinema” and Hollywood vs. France.
Our siren song was answered by a fabulous new writer this issue. T. L. Putterman resurrects, or perhaps exorcises, Titanic. Meanwhile, between coding chores, yours truly managed to take in a few films and write them up. They include the gaudy doc The Cockettes, Warhol’s inimitable, exhausting Chelsea Girls, hourlong French TV docs on Bresson and Chantal Akerman, and a look at the “docs” and the “dicks” of San Francisco’s 2002 Queer filmfest.
Gary Morris
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Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.
articles foyer
"Why Are They All Ugly Little Men?" — Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon: the great silent clowns reformatted
Titanic Lovers, or How a Good Girl Pleased Her Man — (Which in this case may be better than getting him)
Recalling the Dream of Parenthood in Raising Arizona — Of babynappings and bodily fluids, Coens and Kubricks
South of the Chocolate Mountains: Scattered Impressions of The Hitch-hiker — Ida Lupino: Mother of us all!
Astaire & Rogers Fade to Black in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle — Fred dies, Ginger cries
feature cupola
Bleeding Realism Dry, or How to Turn One's Back on a Tyrant — The cripplingly small-minded art of verisimilitude becomes crippled by its own technology
interview alcove
"Redefine
What It Means to You": Talking with Margaret Cho — The "All American
Girl" on her new movie, her influences, and the joy of high colonics
palace of the perverts
The Revolution Starts with Glitter! The Cockettes — The legendary campsters of the counterculture take a bow in this diverting documentary
Diamonds in the Toilet: The Chelsea Girls — Warhol's timeless, trashy "girls" come a-callin'
recent film roundabout
At Last, a Cool British Film: 24-Hour Party People — Dogme meets the Manchester music scene in this well-wrought biopic
Spider-Man — There's No "There" There — Why Tobey McGuire has us by the testicles and why he isn't going to let go
film festival fruit cellar
San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival: The Docs! — As usual, reality trumps the alternatives
San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival: The Dicks! — Where have all the penises gone? This year, to England
temple of video
Larry Clark's Teenage Caveman on DVD — Girlflesh 'n boyflesh 'n apocalypse
1966 CBS Version of Death of a Salesman Now on DVD — Sure Miller's masterpiece is flawed, but so's your mother
Looking Back at the Fabulous Invalid — TV Broadcasts of June Moon, Awake and Sing!, The Human Voice, and The Journey of the Fifth Horse on DVD
DVD Sampler: Cuban Story, The Vanishing, The Joke, Salesman, and Strange Illusion — In DVD land, the world's your oyster — pearls included (sometimes)
"Fascinating. Horrible, but Fascinating: 20 Million Miles to Earth on DVD — In which Harryhausen's most poignant monster mixes it up
Rare Docs on French Filmmakers: Bresson and Akerman on VHS — Two of the most elusive tell all, or at least some
book reviews boudoir
Classic Hollywood, Classic Whiteness, ed. by Daniel J. Bernardi
Walking with the Wind, by Abbas Kiarostami
Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, by Simon Sheridan, and Hollywood's Film Wars with France, by Jens Ulff Møller
