We admit it; we're certifiable. We must be, given the scope and size of this issue of Bright Lights. Why couldn't we just leave well enough alone? Just publish a short 'n sweet issue of crowd-pleasing critiques and amiable analysis, as usual? What strange force drove us to bloat this issue into grotesquerie, a 50-Foot Woman of movie magazines?

Perhaps it was those extra helpings of cake we had after watching Marie Antoinette. Or that experimental IV drip of caffeine that landed us in the emergency room. Or our visit — really just a peek in the door — to one of San Francisco's notorious all-night homosexual opium dens. Or it might have been too many visits to the political blogs (including our own) that unhinged us in this especial way.

Whatever the cause — and perhaps it's best if we simply admit our problem and try to live with it — this is indeed a hefty number, combining a bigger-than-usual regular issue with the film noir articles culled from an old Bright Lights print edition devoted to that subject.

Without further ado, let's go to the features foyer. Lesley Chow applies her subtle sensibility to recent black cinema and one of our favorite contemporary auteurs, Tsai Ming-liang. Dave Saunders takes a break from gazing at the Cardiff countryside to write on sex and spirituality in the cinema, while new contributor Dina Kassir turns her fearless gaze on Adorno, Dancer in the Dark, and other subjects.

In the articles antechamber, Robert Castle fondly fetes the Zatoichi movies and Jerry Kutner lovingly limns the Psycho cycle. Three new writers have taken up residence here. John Garry navigates the two Poseidons; Reagan Humber profiles Italian cult movies as seen through the sculpturesque Barbara Steele; and Norman Ball set aside his guitar to pen a brilliant piece on . . . well, you'll see.

More fun awaits in other spaces of La Casa de la Luz Bright, with Gordon Thomas lighting up the pleasures of Joe May's silent Asphalt; Dan Callahan expertly explicating the legend of Louise Brooks; and Tom Sutpen on a scintillating stroll through the Alan Lomax documentary.

Film festivals and interviews get three entries each this time: BL buddy Mark Adnum talked to Camille Paglia with the expected thrilling results. At Cannes, Karin Luisa Badt buttonholed Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz, then nailed the director, writer, and cast of Fast Food Nation. Merci, Karin! Festival coverage this time includes Megan Ratner's savvy survey of the increasingly dubious New York Film Festival, Robert Keser's tantalizing take on the Chicago International, and yours truly pontificating on San Francisco's estimable MadCat Festival. (The latter — well, I — also wax poetic this time on the subject of a 1990s trailer show in Sodom by the Sea.)

Despite its increasing (and seemingly upstoppable) dreariness, recent cinema gets its due in a number of reviews by Alan "Ace" Vanneman, this time hitting The Ant Bully, The Departed, Infamous, and Monster House. Newbie Deirdre Gilfredder gives a Gallic pie-in-the-face to Marie-Antoinette, while Boris Trbic autopsies the fine documentary Workingman's Death. Two other new contributors, Clare O'Farrell and Lowell Goodman, offer different takes on Superman Returns. The ever-more-horrific present makes it easy to turn our eyes backward. This issue features Ian Johnston's nuanced look at Renoir's La Bête Humaine; Tom Sutpen's broad appreciation of Two Lane Blacktop; and Victoria Large's sexy study of The Company of Wolves. Finishing up this issue are Vanneman on the timeless Charlie's Angels and newbie Adam Elkus examining what happens when videogames become movies.

More looking backward (and reader requests) prompted us to exhume BL's film noir issue from 1994. Noted cinematician John Belton drills deep into the tramp trope in the genre. The aforementioned Jerry Kutner exhaustively explores the nature of noir and the timelessness of neo-noir. Dan Barth discusses Faulkner's noir connections, while Anna Domino finds much to love in Naked. Joe McElhaney uses noir laser releases in a smart study of the genre. Yours truly re-inters the corpse with a screed on the country/city motif of noir and a love letter to John Dall's Red Rock West.

Enough said?