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writers gone wild!
Keep up with Bright Lights between issues by visiting our companion blog, Bright Lights After Dark.
Robert Castle
in issue 66
Of Perfect Plans and Acts of Creation: Stanley Kubrick's The Killing
"His plan mirrors Johnny's, that is, pieces of the plan are known to one person: Johnny and Stanley; and not until the end do we see most of their pieces come into place."
in issue 65
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974): The Ultimate NYC Film — "What is this New York-ness?"
The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009): Inflating Pelham — "To be a star, or thought of as a star, was not enough."
in issue 56
The Mothering of Evil in Several Hitchcock Films
"She is so enthralled by her boy, the loving product from her own body, that she remains blind to his true nature."
in issue 54
Following the Blind Swordsman: The Zatoichi Movies
"He is an itinerant hero, a lone samurai whose mask is his blindness,
a mask that hides his many strengths."
in issue 52
A Sequel Too Far: The Case of the Multiplying Movie
"A Hollywood Satan is a persistent devil"
Un-Movies — When is a movie not a movie?
in issue 51
Unadaptable: A Fatal Problem with The Human Stain
"Why not sock the audiences early
with the ‘fuck her in the ass' line?"
Proust Regained: On Raul Ruiz's Time Regained and Filming the Unfilmable
"In a single bold stroke, Ruiz films the novel according to the play
of images, feelings, scents, and tastes that Marcel experiences."
in issue 49
Performance World: The Truman Show's Sociology
The show must go on
in issue 46
The Interpretative Oddysey of 2001: Of Humanity and Hyperspace
More fun in the new (old) world
in issue 45
F for Fake: The Ultimate Mirror of Orson Welles
In which Welles deflates expectations of greatness — and transcends them
Animal Mother on Full Metal Jacket: "Don't follow leaders"
Kubrick's shaman/artist takes on "the leaders"
All the Citizen's Men
In which Welles deflates expectations of greatness — and transcends them
in issue 44
Disturbing Movies, or the Flip Side of the Real
A disturbing movie shouldn't equivocate
in issue 43
The Revolutionary James Bond Movie: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
In which Lazenby, like Lazarus, is resurrected, along with the movie
in issue 42
Tunes of Mutiny, or Making the Job Bearable
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." — The Who
Kubrick and the Coen Brothes Again
The Shining and Fargo share a view of society as "stupefied by its hypothetical aspirations"
in issue 40
Fellini's Society Rehearsal: Orchestra Rehearsal Revisited
In which "Fellini takes us beyond our frailties and chaos"
in issue 39
The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused "Talented" Mr. Ripley
Andy Kaufman, Tony Clifton, Mr. Ripley, and the elisions of identity
Daddy and Father in The Emerald Forest
Civilization and its discontents
in issue 38
Fritz Lang's Assumption Factory
Social agreements and schisms in Fury, Modern Times, and A Clockwork Orange
in issue 37
Recalling the Dream of Parenthood in Raising Arizona
Of babynappings and bodily fluids, Coens and Kubricks
in issue 36
The Clinton Syndrome, or the Survival Legacy
Revisiting Wag the Dog and other, more troubling failures
in issue 35
The Dharma Blues, or How I Brooded but Did Not Weep Over Kubrick's Bomb
Opening the Eyes Wide Shut censorship battles for a close look
in issue 34
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
There’s more trouble in Toontown than even the Toons imagined
in issue 32
Average Nobodies: The Dark Knights of Goodfellas
Scorsese’s wiseguy gangsters as modern-day knights errant
