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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 65 | August 2009

from the editor

"Project Bright Lights!"

We're still smarting from our brief foray into reality TV. Perhaps by describing it, we can make it a "teachable moment." It started when somebody suggested we turn our "withering male gaze" on ourselves by installing cameras throughout Bright Lights' vast villa and broadcasting our every little move for, per Igor, "a public starving for stimulation!" Who wouldn't be riveted, the thinking went, by our lively, oft-times heated discussions of where to put the accent marks (if any) in "mise-en-scene" or whether Andrew Sarris' failure to put Edgar G. Ulmer in his pantheon constitutes a misdemeanor or a felony, culturally speaking. For viewers sick of watching people trade spouses or have their "filthiest house ever" (above) made pristine or compete for Top Anything, "Project Bright Lights!" could take the reality genre to a whole new level. Surely the spirited banter and raised voices (and sometimes eyebrows) at our editorial meetings would make for TV gold! But alas, it was not to be. Igor couldn't figure out how to rig up the cameras, the staff was busy downloading what they called European "art films," and network executives proved once again that Philistines are not found only in the Bible.

Well, you can't keep curdled critics and excitable reviewers down for long, and before we knew it, the staff bounced back with a new version of "Project Bright Lights!" This one involved a total revamp of the site. Besides jettisoning the long-running "architectural motifs" in favor of more streamlined category names (see right and below), we can only tell you to watch for the full-blown makeover to hit the cyber-stands sometime between August and November 1.

Now that our Phoenix-like rise from our flirtation with cultural prostitution has been aired, let's move on to the new issue. The loathsome "bromance" exercises a sick fascination on us, and on BL regular Joseph Aisenberg, who savages it here. New contributor John Carvill guides us out of the ghetto of pure filmcrit with a compelling riff on Thomas Pynchon's new "Hollywoody" book Inherent Vice. Wilkommen, John! Our pal Kevin Ferguson offers further enticing riffing, this time using the Al Jolson vehicle The Singing Fool as a springboard. BL stalwart Erich Kuersten waxes culturo-philosphical with a scintillating take on Lolita (and as always with this author, much more). Talented newbie Quimby Melton mixes it up by burrowing into "the illogical partnership between the novel and film," among other subjects. Bienvenidos, Quimby! Dave Saunders too "throws down" for us in a typically provocative piece that argues that variety is not just the spice of life but its lifeblood. Wrapping up the Articles section is Imogen Smith's exhaustive overview of noir where we don't always expect it but it surely has every right to be — in the grim small towns, open fields, countryside and deserts of postwar America.

Reviews of movies old and new make up much of this issue. David L. Pike surveys the mixed bag that is Atom Egoyan's Adoration. From Denmark, Jack Stevenson grabs hold of Lars von Trier's controversial Antichrist and doesn't let go. We've excavated another tribute to the humble program note, this time the late Roger McNiven's tribute to Vidor's Beyond the Forest and Oswald's Crime of Passion. First-time contributor Lee Weston Sabo takes on the documentary Food, Inc. and Pixar's Up with brio. Welcome, Lee! BL regular Ian Johnston shines his own "bright light" on Skolimowski's Four Nights with Anna. Another regular, Robert Ecksel, offers a sensitive take on HBO's fictionalized version of Grey Gardens. Bert Cardullo performs another of his miraculous Bazin resurrections with his translation of and introduction to the master's review of Claude L'Autant-Lara's uneven The Red Inn. Another exhumation occurs courtesy of our resident wag, Alan Vanneman, this time laying the lorgnette on the Astaire-Jane Powell vehicle A Royal Wedding. Frequent contributor Robert Castle authoritatively analyzes the 1974 Taking of Pelham and its soulless 2009 update. Concluding this section are cutting critiques of some Universal pre-Code movies on DVD by Erich Kuersten and Huston's Wise Blood by redoubtable regular Jon Lanthier.

Two actors get the once-over this time: Steve McQueen via Christopher Sandford's fine appreciation and John Barrymore courtesy of Dan Callahan's thoughtful take. Damien Love gave us a happy surprise with an in-depth interview with a director whose work looks better and better as the years go by, Arthur Penn.

Two columns give readers a chance at more bite-size reviews, though some of them are in fact bulked up to article length. Gordon Thomas blazes through some of the most engaging releases from legendary silents to classical European art films in Bright Sights. And yours truly weighs in on a wealth of recent and old-school queer cinema in Little Stabs of (Queer) Happiness and Horror. Meanwhile, Karin Badt went to Cannes so we didn't have to, and writes it up with her usual verve here. And this time we have three book reviews to remind us that these curious objects that have no electronic component continue to exist and, in some cases, enthrall: regular Matt Kennedy waxing witty on Victoria Sturtevant's study of Marie Dressler; new contributor Colin Fleming cleverly confronting the insanely ambitious two-volume set on Jean Gabin; and frequent contributor Damon Smith expertly examining the first English-language book on underrated auteur Michael Winterbottom.

As Scotty says in The Thing from Another World (and we can't help but think that, in an act of Nostradamus-like prescience, he was actually referring to the revamped Bright Lights), "Keep watching the skies!"

Gary Morris

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Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.

Articles

Here Come the Bromides: Living in the Era of the Bromantic Comedy
"Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity." — Vladimir Nabokov
By Joseph Aisenberg

The "Bong" Goodbye: On Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice
Will Thomas Pynchon's lightest, brightest novel put him in the Hollywood spotlight?
By John Carvill

On the Incomprehensibility of Timely Films Past Their Time: Or, A Signing Fool Watches The Singing Fool
"Not frustration of a desire of the subject, but frustration by an object in which his desire is alienated and which the more it is elaborated, the more profound the alienation from his jouissance becomes for the subject." — Lacan
By Kevin L. Ferguson

All Tomorrow's Playground Narratives: Stanley Kubrick's Lolita
"Kubrick's 1961 film is really the first 1970s movie."
By Erich Kuersten

Ghidorah Attacks! Modern Narrative's Three-Headed Monster
"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
By Quimby Melton

Art Thou Troubled? Musicals May Calm Thee
But don't forget DVD opera
By D. J. M. Saunders

In Lonely Places: Film Noir Outside the City
"Noir films with non-urban settings exploded the idea that escape into a safer or healthier world was possible, showing how temptation and violence can attack anyone, anywhere."
By Imogen Sara Smith

Actors

John Barrymore: Sweet Prince of Irony
"Isn't it extraordinary that the most popular character ever written should apparently be defeated by life instead of transcending it?" — John Barrymore on Hamlet
By Dan Callahan

Steve McQueen: Fifty Years of the King of Cool
"Steve understood real people, particularly misfits, like nobody else. It was just the Hollywood brass he loathed."
By Christopher Sandford

Directors

The Miracle Worker: An Interview with Arthur Penn
"If the system is inimical to you, then you do whatever you can to alter your relationship to the system."
By Damien Love

Columns

Bright Sights: Bardelys the Magnificent, Monte Cristo, Cleopatra, In the Realm of the Senses, Au Bonheur des Dames, Daisies, The Saragossa Manuscript
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
By Gordon Thomas

Little Stabs of Queer Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old School Cinema
"A seemingly average person continually surprises and unsettles us by doing something strange and following it up with something even more spectacularly strange."
By Gary Morris

Movies

Atom Egoyan's Adoration: A Return to Form(s)?
"In classic Egoyan style, the humor is always also terrifying . . ."
By David L. Pike

Jesus Fucking Christ: Lars von Trier's Antichrist
The scandal-plagued release of Lars von Trier's latest film inspired the author, American expat in Copenhagen, to take a deeper look at the film in a Danish context.
By Jack Stevenson

Women Larger Than Life: Program Notes 2: King Vidor's Beyond the Forest and Gerd Oswald's Crime of Passion
They're not fifty feet tall, but they might as well be
By Roger McNiven

Dark Harvest: Robert Kenner's Food, Inc.
"It's not a tomato, it's the idea of a tomato."
By Lee Weston Sabo

Sleep Stalking: Jerzy Skolimowski's Four Nights with Anna
"Just like you wanted, grandma. I'm seeing a woman."
By Ian Johnston

"True Glamour Never Fades": Michael Sucsy's Grey Gardens (HBO)
"We aren't ready . . . come on in."
By Robert Ecksel

Claude Autant-Lara's The Red Inn (L'Auberge Rouge), By André Bazin
Translated and with an introduction by Bert Cardullo

Astaire Reborn! Jane Powell Gives Fred a Lift in A Royal Wedding
"I hope he knew how much the world loved him."
By Alan Vanneman

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974): The Ultimate NYC Film
"What is this New York-ness?"
By Robert Castle

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009): Inflating Pelham
"To be a star, or thought of as a star, was not enough."
By Robert Castle

Loucheness Unchecked! Universal's Pre-Code Hollywood Collection
"I'm Through!"
By Erich Kuersten

Pixar's Up: The Japanese Connection
"It's just a little less Disney."
By Lee Weston Sabo

An Atheist's Guide to Wise Blood: The Doctrine of the Auto-Redemptionist
"It's almost as if The Misfit himself were behind the camera . . ."
By Jon Lanthier

Festivals

No Transcendence: Cannes Film Festival 2009
"It's becoming more and more rare that a fresh, original film gets into the Cannes competition." — Frederic Boyer
By Karin Luisa Badt

Books

A Great Big Girl Like Me: The Films of Marie Dressler, by Victoria Sturtevant
By Matthew Kennedy

World's Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (And Legend) of Jean Gabin, Volumes 1 and 2, by Charles Zigman
By Colin Fleming

Michael Winterbottom, by Brian McFarlane and Deane Williams
By Damon Smith