We take back everything we said last issue — you know, build the bomb shelter, hide from the zeitgeist (and the neighbors), polish your shotguns, etc.

How to explain our decision to strike a match in a sea of dark? It isn't as if anything's changed, not really; it's just that it seems to be different now. In a culture where surface is all, seems is surely sufficient. Even the possibility of booting out the boy-king, repairing our relationships with Europe (Old and New), dumping Florida's crooked election computers, nuking the neocons, etc. is cause enough for celebration.

So, giddy with glee, we offer Bright Lights' biggest, brightest issue yet, a veritable happy face of movie maunderings. Who says the cup's half-empty? (Ignore that if you have no cup.)

Visitors to the sparkling features foyer will find zeitgeist-chaser and occasional BL-er A. Jay Adler thoughtfully contemplating the war movie, the longing for home, and related riffs. BL vet and associate editor Alan Vanneman sweetly scopes out Chaplin's heady Essanay and Keystone period. Longtime pal and historian Mark Vieira kindly let us reprint a chapter from his wonderful book Hollywood Horror: From Gothic to Cosmic (Abrams, 2003). Here Mr. V. lays the lorgnette on the giant bugs, monstrous women, and burly beasts of ‘50s drive-in cinema. If that isn't creepy enough, how about the toilets of Tarantino as seen by BL virgin Robin Gleason? Cultural appropriation and subversion and, well, toilets are on scintillating view here.

A quick dash into the shower and it's off to the articles antechamber. Here Dogville gets the once-over twice. T. L. Putterman cannily examines the religious resonances, while BL newbie Justin Clark tackles the set design, of von Trier's curio. BL regular Bob Castle richly reflects on two Welles movies, Citizen Kane and F for Fake and takes a side trip to Full Metal Jacket via Joseph Campbell. Vanneman begs someone, anyone, to "take, please" Minnelli's overwrought Yolanda and the Thief. Do get in touch if you're interested. Meanwhile Scott Thill, master of the estimable Morphizm mag, gives a swift kick to Hidalgo and Disney. (Scott also reviews the Agatha Christie Megaset on DVD in the vale of video.) Also here, BL buddy Richard Armstrong shows where "all the lonely people" went — to Britain, apparently — in an insightful piece on bereavement in Brit cinema. Wrapping up is a fine article by two fresh faces at Casa BL: A. Zubatov and Yaniv Eyny offer a striking close reading of Bertolucci's much-misunderstood The Dreamers.

A fast scrubdown and we're on to the documentary dormer. BL stalwart Megan Ratner puts the pedal to two major docs wafting through the fest circuit: The Corporation and the Howard Zinn doc You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train. And Omar Odeh, another BL newbie, handily downsizes Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me. The recent cinema roundabout finds Vanneman stepping out of the wayback machine into 2004 with brief views of Harry Potter and Mean Girls. (Vanneman also confronts the TV show Freaks & Geeks in the vale of video.)

We've found two people eminently worth talking to for this issue. Tony Macklin gets the Goddess Known as Stella Stevens to speak her mind, while your editor spoke with the redoubtable Jenni Olson about her fabulous new book The Queer Movie Poster Book. Also by yours truly are the Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror) capsule reviews that have become a regular feature, despite the pleas of world leaders to stop; and reviews of DVDs of Kurosawa's Stray Dog, Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest, Aldrich's The Grissom Gang, and the Survival Research Laboratories collection Ten Years of Robotic Mayhem.

We know how loyal our readership is, and would like to reward that loyalty. So, the first 5,000 people to prove to us (via a long, complicated, impossible test) that they've read the entire issue get a colorful "I've Been to Bright Lights!" button. As always, it's all about you, reader!