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writers gone wild!
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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 44 | May 2004

Hola, soaks!

We hope you'll take a moment to look at the new Bright Lights. What better way to while away the hours in the bomb shelter? (And if you're not in one, we suggest you immediately begin construction. Your neighbors can help, and then, when the world gets so mad at us they decide to do to us what we do to them, you can have the pleasure of shutting the door on those screaming, SUV-driving, McDonald's-scarfing, gun-toting, got-it-all-but-want-more miscreants who called you "silly.")

Are we watching too much television? You bet. But now it's time to turn to the safety of more rareified realms. How about, for starters, Andrew Grossman's dizzying tour of the erotic, campy, tacky majesty of Herschell Gordon Lewis' two Blood Feasts? Or, if you prefer English junkies to American primitives, turn to BL newbie Karina Totah's heady take on the audio mysteries of Trainspotting. Wilkommen, Karina!

Moving from features to articles and reviews, another new writer, Canadian-Brit Daniel McNeil offers cogent words on the cultural construct of blackness, and a pithy review of the tasty doc AfroPunk. Way to go, Dan! Meanwhile recent arrival (see last issue) Alan Jacobson offers a trio of pleasures: reviews of Lubitsch's Marriage Circle, the 1971 animated feature The Point, and a soulful take on the much-maligned and -misunderstood Dylanfest Masked and Anonymous. BL vet Robert Castle plays tour guide to some very unsettling byways of "disturbing movies." Bring your anti-anxiety pills (we store ours next to the giant cans of beans in the shelter) for this one. Robert Keser continues his thrilling "Distribute This!" by demanding the release of the 1929 Dietrich vehicle The Woman Men Yearn For. To those in position to arrange such a thing, we suggest you listen, for your own sake.

BL associate editor Alan Vanneman took time off from dodging death threats for his Fight Club review to again engage with Fred Astaire, this time with Gene Kelly in the overstuffed turkey Ziegfeld Follies. AV, as he's affectionately known around here, also cuttingly surveys three Jekyll & Hyde movies on DVD, as always saving you the trouble of watching them yourselves. Meanwhile, BL regular Megan Ratner finds much to love in Gabriele Salvatore's I'm Not Scared, and says it with her usual panache, while Dorna Khazeni handily examines the fine Brazilian feature Sexual Dependency. Matt Kennedy, whose fine recent bio of waspish bisexual Hollywood director Edmund Goulding should be on every postmodern coffee table (we have ours in the center of the shelter, next to the shotguns), contributes three pithy reviews this time, taking on Peyton Place, Pickup on South Street, and the lamentable Star! Cleo Cacoulidis wisely fled the States to Greece's Thessaloniki Film Festival, whose tribute to underground icon and polymath Michael Snow she nicely limns. Peter Tonguette continues the auteur lovefest that is Bright Lights with a thoughtful interview with Curtis Harrington, mostly on the subject of Welles' unfinished Other Side of the Wind.

If you're still awake, or even alive, check out yours truly's five reviews this issue. With nothing else to do la bas, we managed to write up three outsider music documentaries, Craig Baldwin's oh-so-relevant Spectres of the Spectrum, the "little stabs of happiness (and horror)" that have appeared with alarming frequency in these pages (despite readers' demands to cease and desist), and a tribute to the great, increasingly obscure Gregory La Cava.

See you at the peephole on the big iron door! (We can talk, but don't expect to get in.)

Gary Morris, editor/publisher

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Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.

articles antechamber

AfroPunk: The Rock ‘n' Roll Nigger Experience — Making up reality: race, rock, and wrestling

Disturbing Movies, or the Flip Side of the Real — A disturbing movie shouldn't equivocate

The Masked and Anonymous Carnival of Disappointment, Exploitation, and Profound Ironies — "We're all trying to kill time, but time ends up killing us."

Forgotten Master: Gregory La Cava — Lubitsch wasn't the only one with a "touch"

"Follies" Is Right! Musical Madness at MGM — Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly barely survive Ziegfeld Follies

Dancing Across Borders — Blackness that isn't (African) American

Outside In: Documentaries on Gary Wilson, Jandek, and the Song-Poem — "We accept you, we accept you, gibble gobble, gibble gobble . . ."

features foyer

Blood Feast Revisited, or H. G. Lewis, Keeper of the Key to All Erotic Mystery — After forty years, now serving porn as intentional camp for erotic consideration

Trainspotting's Playlist: A Compilation of Subcultural Struggles — Choose a big fucking noise

festivals flying buttress

"Too Busy Making Work: Honoring Michael Snow at the 2004 Thessaloniki Film Festival — Painter, photographer, sculptor, composer, musician — and here, seminal experimental filmmaker

cornucopia corner

Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror): Random Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old-School Cinema — "Love tramps — seduced by creatures from the grave! Yesterday they were cold and dead — today they're hot and bothered!"

interrogation alcove

You Look Pretty Splendid Yourself, Orson: A Conversation with Curtis Harrington — On unfinished projects and friendship

distribution dormer

Distribute This! The Woman Men Yearn For (Germany, 1929) —Lust in translation

recent film roundabout

I'm Not Scared — Gabriele Salvatores' powerful feature plumbs the darkness of "sunny Italy" in the 1970s

Commodifying Desire: Sexual Dependency — Where is the love?

the vale of video

The Doctors Are In! — Jekyll and Hyde times three on DVD

The Great Marriage Debate of 1924: Lubitsch's Masterful Silent on DVD — In which Lubitsch pioneers the screwball comedy of manners

On Commies, Stoolies, and Assorted Lowlife — Pickup on South Street on DVD — Widmark and Peters sizzle, but Thelma Ritter steals the show

American Apocalypse: Craig Baldwin's Spectres of the Spectrum — "An infinite number of possible worlds ... and this is the worst one."

Love, Friendship, Remembrance — Peyton Place on DVD puts time in a bottle — drink up!

What's The Point? The Legendary 1971 Animated Feature on DVD — In a freethinking, whimsical world, relativism reigns and there is no point . . . or is there?

Wish Upon a Star! Robert Wise's Musical Mess on DVD — Or, a turkey returns

Camp Carnage: Takashi Miike's Full Metal Yakuza — And Frankenstein begat Robocop, which begat Ken