Yes, we've finally gone ahead and embraced this dubious, mostly leisure-class movement of stripping away all the things that keep us separated from our elusive Self and that screaming, bitter inner child. In short, this issue of Bright Lights is a little smaller than the previous one, and thus more manageable. Apologies to those writers whose articles we've had to bump to next February. It was a clear choice: publish your article or maintain our shreds of sanity. It may not be entirely evident, but we did choose the latter.

Despite our slightly slimmer size, there's a "pleasing variety" to the selections (as Bride of Frankenstein's Dr. Praetorius once said, describing something quite different) that we think you readers will warm to. Alan Vanneman hits us with two pithy pieces: one on Broadway Melody of 1940, another a DVD review of Nothing Sacred. BL regular Bob Castle weighs in on Fritz Lang, work, globalization, and other horrors. Newbie David Begor passionately defends Lucas's latest entry in the creaking Star Wars series. Also new here is Tanfer Emin, who merrily leads us down the strange detours on the Road to Wellville. Another new writer, Constantine Verevis, cleverly spoofs that counterculture classic Candy. Yet another fresh face here is Ben Dickenson, who helps us make sense of Clinton, Hollywood, liberalism, and other distressing phenomena.

Andrew Grossman again challenges readers with a fascinating commentary and long interview on the legendary Otto Mühl, of the Austrian "Aktionist" group fame. A peek into the palace of the perverts yields several choice items: Melissa Sky's take on sleazy exploitation flick Chained Girls, Steve Stewart's welcome look-see at "drag kids"; and yours truly prattling to the heavens about cinematic girl gangs, Andy Milligan trashsploitation, and the always dicey subject of adult/youth relationships in the movies. On a more respectable note are enticing reviews of the Chicago Film Festival by Bob Keser and the New York Film Festival by Megan Ratner. Recent films get the nod from the redoubtable Scott Thill (Spirited Away) and Shammi Nanda, who explores the censorship mess in India.

Video reviews are slim this time — we're sick of looking at movies and it shows! Well, there's the aforementioned Vanneman piece on Nothing Sacred, and Matt Kennedy appreciating two Preston Sturges movies on disc. Matt also wrote two of the book reviews this time: the allegedly essential bio of Joan Crawford and David Thomson's New Dictionary of Film. Robert von Dassanowsky's review of Sabine Hake's German National Cinema book is also a leisurely mini-history of that period.

But enough of such things. Now it's back to the lab to check on the condition of that inner child, paddles ready!