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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 53 | August 2006

from the editor

"Good morning. This is your wake-up call."

Remember when you thought compassionate conservatism wasn't an oxymoron, Condoleeza Rice was "brilliant," and black was white? And who can forget We are all Israelis? We're talking, of course, about the last six years, when you were, you know, under. Well, thanks to recent events in Israel and Lebanon, you've had your wake-up call, and now you're awake. There's nothing like a round of phosphorus-laden mega-bombs (even thousands of miles away, hitting somebody else) to rouse a person. The question is, what do you do about it? What do you do when the ultimate unwelcome guest — Señor Armageddon — comes a callin'?

To address this pesky problem, your pals at Bright Lights have taken a leaf from R. Crumb's too-timely comic, Despair: "Why dwell on it? Let's have a party!" Or in this case, "Let's go to the movies!" The BL movie-party commences at our clean ‘n cozy new multiplex, on the fourth level below the triple-reinforced steel and concrete bunker where we spend so much time now. All 32 screens are lighting up the darkness as we speak, to keep readers as distracted and, well, under, as possible. Think of us as your tour guide to those cinematic otherworlds that make life in the Great Satan (and the rest of the planet) tol'able.

Associate editor Alan Vanneman leads the way with a tsunami of divertissements, taking readers down another tributary of the mighty river that is Charlie Chaplin, as well as on scintillating stopovers at such recent films as The Devil Wears Prada, Don Giovanni, Da Vinci Code, District B-13, Mission Impossible III, and Comedy Central's Pam Anderson Roast. Fabulous associate editor Megan Ratner weighs in on a quartet of important late works: Caché, The Child, Paradise Now, and 13 Tzameti. Other recent films getting BL's "every movie's special!" treatment include Woody Allen's Match Point by the infamous Jake Horsley; Altman's Prairie Home Companion done by both the celebrated Page Laws and the endearing Dan Callahan; Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence by the enchanting Ian Johnston; Al Gore's* An Inconvenient Truth by the forthright Jayson Harsin; and last, but unquestionably not least, an excursion into Mooladé, Together, and other globally minded works by the captivating D. J. M. Saunders. For those looking for more abstract destinations, there's plucky Michael Betancourt's survey of the hand-painted films (based on graffiti) of Rey Parla.

Looking backward, as we so often do now, desperately, takes us to Ian Johnston on Antonioni's anti-noir Cronaca di un amore; the lovely Victoria Large on Kelly & Donen's It's Always Fair Weather and Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark; two Fassbinders (Querelle by the upstanding Frank Episale and Fear of Fear by the provocative Justin Vicari); and a look-see at the cinematography doc Visions of Life by the charming Richard Armstrong. Here too are visits to Bad Lieutenant by the pithy Brian Grady; Hour of the Wolf by the redoubtable Gordon Thomas; the Rita Hayworth cult and the joys of Holiday and The Razor's Edge by the effervescent Lesley Chow; Jean-Pierre Melville's disturbingly relevant Army of Shadows by the thoughtful A. Jay Adler. The estimable Andrew Hedden takes our hand for a dumpster dive into a rediscovered "classic," The Garbage Pail Kids Movie.

Because communication is so important as we careen toward hell (without the useful handbasket that so often accompanies the trip), we offer three interviews: Scott "Superstar" Thill (of Morphizm fame) chatting with Michel Gondry; the rightly named Damien Love schmoozing with Burt Young; and the clever Damon Smith yakking with Korean cause celebre Park Chan-wook. Speaking of Korea, the knowledgeable Bo-Myung Seo explores the Korean film component of this year's New York Asian Film Festival.

The (bright) lights go dim with the return of yours truly's "Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror)." Good night, and good luck!

Gary Morris

*We know the director is David Guggenheim, but this is Al Gore's movie all the way, as Jayson Harsin's article shows.

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Watch for new issues of Bright Lights every three months: August, November, February, and May. To be automatically notified when the next issue is posted, join our mailing list.

Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.

features foyer

Looking at Charlie — First National, Shoulder Arms, and The Kid: An Occasional Series on the Art and Life of Charlie Chaplin — "LOST CHILD WANTED — Last seen with a little man with large flat feet and a small moustache"

articles antechamber

Floating Bridges: Caution: Children Crossing — Subtitles for the hard-of-believing

Crack Christ: The Excess and the Ecstasy of Bad Lieutenant — "Lord, my Lord! How true it is that whoever works for you is paid in troubles." — St. Teresa of Avila

In Love with Liv Who Loves Life: Surviving Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf — "If the demons leave, maybe the angels will too"

Market Forces: Desperation in Caché, The Child, Paradise Now, and 13 Tzameti — Location, location, location

Mish-Mash Planet: The Cult of Rita Hayworth in You Were Never Lovelier — "Speaking of impurity: what was Rita Hayworth's image supposed to be in the '40s?"

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Jean Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows — "Whether alone or with others, you live with yourself."

Taking a Break in Hollywood: The Dreamers of Holiday and The Razor's Edge — "In films these days, people are hardly ever ‘taken' by others — they don't strike up sudden affinities, or become voluptuously intrigued by enemies."

Taking the Word of a Talking Alligator: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie Reconsidered — Deleuze, Marcuse, Bahktin, Dodger, Juice, Valerie Vomit . . .

documentary dormer

Eco-Apocalypse and the PowerPoint Film: Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth — "The film is a kind of subtle argumentation by analogy, whose success rests on the viewer's desire to identify with Gore."

The Image-Makers, at Dusk: On the documentary Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography — Glassman uncovers networks of influence and inference, whole microhistories around the camera . . ."

avant-garde atelier

Abstract Film Palimpsests: On the Work of Rey Parla — pa·limp·sest: n., Writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased; something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface (Webster's)

film festival flying buttress

Success Breeds Confidence: Korean Film at the NYAFF — A quartet of recent Korean films shows a reassuringly robust national cinema

interrogation antechamber

Acts of Revenge: Director Park Chan-wook Discusses Lady Vengeance and More — Grand Guignol, Korean style

"How My Brain Works": An Interview with Michel Gondry — "I didn't want to live under the shadow of other films. I want to exist on my own."

A Frontline Guy: An Interview with Burt Young — "Get Burt!"

recent cinema roundabout

Jesus, Mary, and Sophie! Tom Hanks Faces Torture by Elevator in Ron Howard's Da Vinci Code — So middle of the road you can't see the fucking curb

The Muscles from Bois de Bologne: David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli Kick Gallic Butt in Pierre Morel's District B-13 — Do not be alarmed, monsieur. We come from France. We are here to eat your sausages.

The Devil Wears Product: Anne Hathaway Almost Loses Her Cherry to the Big Apple in The Devil Wears Prada — "You're making fashion history" — not!

School Daze: The Curious Young Girls of Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence — "Don't resist, my dear."

Woody Allen, Misanthropy, and Match Point: Or How Death Got the Last Laugh — Welcome to the "nihilistic message movie"

Forbidden Fruit? Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible III — Is it a sin to see this film?

Finding the Funny, One Dick Joke at a Time: Comedy Central's Pam Anderson Roast on DVD — Enough engorged vagina jokes to feed a family of four for an entire year!

The Don Goes Digital: Don Giovanni — Mozart's Dramma Giocosa for the Ages — Jürgen Flimm and Brian Large supply a stage production that lives on DVD

little sodhouse on the prairie

Carpe Keillor: Nashville Director Finds Longtime Companion — "Singing is the only thing that puts me right."

Death Becomes Him: Robert Altman's Prairie Home Companion — In which Altman doesn't go gentle into that good night

rainer's rafters

Genet Meets Fassbinder: Sexual Disorientation(s) in Querelle — "Why is Fassbinder allowed this aesthetic duplicity in the melodramas but not in Querelle?"

Better Living Through Chemistry? On Fassbinder's Forgotten Masterpiece, Fear of Fear — "Fassbinder's probing camera shows us what the doctors fail to see . . ."

revival room

Young Vampires in Love: Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark — Not the usual suspects

Clouds and Scattered Sun: Kelly and Donen's It's Always Fair Weather — "Shot in earthbound Eastman color, It's Always Fair Weather doesn't look or feel like the Technicolor froth that preceded it."

"We're Not Happy and We Never Will Be": On Cronaca di un amore — Antonioni's early masterpiece looks better than ever

cornucopia corner

Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old-School Cinema — "Turn towards me. I'll make do with your heart beating next to mine."