This summer we moved from Portland, Oregon, to San Francisco, dreaming of revisiting the pleasures of the Golden State (were there still discos? could I afford that Apple IIe I'd had my eye on?). Indeed, we got so lost in our dream that we forgot to publish the August issue of Bright Lights! At least that's our excuse — that and those fearsome sounds of a culture in collapse. (Though, to be honest, we're kind of used to that.) Fortunately, that small insistent nagging bitching voice demanding we get the issue out was finally heard. Ecce BL!

This time we lead off with associate editor Alan Vanneman's scorching paean to Sex and the City — the series, thank you. Vanneman also contributes another fine entry in his epic trek through the work of Fred Astaire, this one on Minnelli's The Bandwagon. Another BL regular, Andrew Grossman, takes on macho cinematic violence with his usual brilliance. On a related note, Matthew Brennan explores the "New Westerns" along with one old one, The Wild Bunch. Matthew also takes us into TV land with a thoughtful analysis of the AMC show Mad Men. BL stalwart Erich Kuersten compellingly blends the personal and the cultural in a piece on "cinema's rape disavowal fantasy." Gordon Thomas stylishly tours some of the worthier DVD releases of the past year. Lesley Chow finds fascinating perversity in the pianist motif in films like Preminger's Angel Face and of course Haneke's The Pianist. Jacob Mikanowski has three articles this time: an ambitious discussion of five experimental films and reviews of the Hitchcock curio Double Take and the woefully underrated King Vidor-Bette Davis masterpiece Beyond the Forest. A new writer, Ron Capshaw, presents a startling "what if?" (Groucho at HUAC), and reminds us of the pleasures of Ken Russell's The Devils and Errol Flynn, the latter via a review of the recent book on old Errol. Another newbie, Dan Bentley-Baker, amusingly experiments with the age-old question, "What is a cult movie?"

In our endless attempts to be "with it" and "in the moment," we showcase a number of recent films. David Pike gives a fair shake to Atom Egoyan's curious Chloe; Robert Ecksel reviews the too-well-titled Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector; Joseph Natoli persuasively warns us about certain lessons in Avatar; Ian Johnston Brian Grady discloses the problems of the quasi-verite French film The Class; Vlad Dima isolates some of the sensory elements of A Single Man; and our Morphizm buddy Scott Thill settles some of the controversies over The Last Airbender.

BL prides itself on looking backward, and this issue contains a host of revival pieces. Chief among these are Imogen Smith's bracing look at the oft-neglected subgenre of "domestic noir" and Alison McKee's meticulous analysis of Mervyn LeRoy's 1942 film Random Harvest. Our buddy Dave Saunders revisits Black Orpheus and much more to dazzling effect. New contributor Jonathan Simmons explains why Zizek's reading of The Birds is full of shit. Another newbie, Brian Libby, offers a sensitive reading of Kurosawa's Sanshiro Sugata. Andre Bazin makes another BL appearance courtesy of Bert Cardullo's translation of everybody's favorite critic's review of De Sica's Umberto D. Frank Tashlin, inexplicably underrepresented at BL, gets some of his due in a persuasive piece by new contributor Philip Leers. And Dorian Fox elegantly examines two Michael Chabon books/movies, Wonder Boys and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

Since obscurantism is our middle name (we had it legally changed), we always try to feature some undeservedly forgotten master. This time it's Frank Bren's authoritative investigation of Pierre Etaix, the French comic of whom Jerry Lewis wisely said "the man's a genius!" Several interviews feature somewhat less obscure personalities: Bill Warren, whose book Keep Watching the Skies!, was beloved by many a film freak back in the day; the glorious Pam Grier, who talks about an often surprising career; and the directors of the Fishbone documentary Everyday Sunshine. Warren and Grier were chatted up by new contributor Steve Ryfle, while the Fishboners were waylaid by Matt Sorrento.

Festivals are always fun, simply because if you hate one film, there's always another one scheduled next. BL veteran Cleo Cacoulidis focuses on four works from one of our favorite fests, Thessaloniki. New writer Kristen Anderson Wagner reports on the acclaimed Silent Film Festival in San Francisco. And yours truly claims there's much to love in Portland, Oregon's unusual QDoc (queer documentary) festival.

Finally, to the books. We know it's a dying art form, we know there's a paradigm shift in progress, but we don't care. We'll always love the feel of a book in our hands, and we prove it with three reviews in addition to the Flynn bio noted above. Matt Sorrento tells why purchasing the Film Noir Encyclopedia would be a wise decision. And your editor says Jack Stevenson's Scandinavian Blue: The Erotic Cinema of Sweden and Denmark in the 1960s and 1970s and the infamous Laura Wagner's Let Me Tell You How I Really Feel: . . . The Uncensored Book Reviews of Classic Images' Laura Wagner, 2001-2010 are well worth having.

Happy reading.