actor profiles

animation

book reviews

director profiles

documentaries

experimental &
avant garde

exploitation

film festivals

film noir

film reviews

gay & lesbian

hong kong films

horror

interviews

japanese cinema

music & musicals

silent film

tranny cinema
 
- - - - - -
To be automatically notified when the next issue is posted, join our mailing list.

writers gone wild!
Keep up with Bright Lights between issues by visiting our companion blog, Bright Lights After Dark.

our space at MySpace
Visit us at MySpace.

donate, comrade!

support
Support Bright Lights and get something nice for yourself, too, by shopping at Amazon via this link.

in issue 64

Retro Virus: Did AIDS perform Nensha? — "Be aware: there are forces at work here of which we have no knowledge." — Queen Elizabeth 2

in issue 63

Oh Mary, Don't Ask: The Boys in the Band on DVD — "In the ensuing post-Stonewall civil rights struggles, The Boys in the Band became crazy Aunt Betty locked in the attic when guests came over."

Little Stabs of Homo Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent Queer TV and Cinema — "Heterosexual brides-to-be are one of the demographics that arrive by the busloads to partake of Darcelle's mad mix of risqué zingers, over-the-top musical routines, and mother-hen reassurances."

in issue 62

Queer Angles: The 2008 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival — Feisty orthodox Jewish dykes, globe-trotting ladyboys, fascistic Armani queens — you know, the gang

What's Up, QDoc? Portland's 2008 Queer Documentary Festival — Seeing queer lives from the U.S. and Canada to South Africa and Iran

in issue 61

Little Stabs of Homo Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent Queer TV and Cinema — "The gays — they make too much big crazy!"

in issue 57

Glancing, Staring, Cruising: Queer Ways of Looking — Ecce homo

Close to Home: The Films of Su Friedrich on DVD — Autobiography sometimes trumps art in these uneven works

Closing the Closet: QDoc: The 2007 Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival — "We couldn't figure out how to divide the cat . . ."

in issue 55

Janet Gaynor — If she was forced, like so many actors, to live a closeted life, she at least did it as much on her own terms as she could in those tricky times.

in issue 53

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

in issue 52

Camping out with James Bidgood: The Auteur of Pink Narcissus Tells All — "I don't live in a harem either, but well, God, I did for awhile . . ."

Speaking Out: Pioneering Doc Word Is Out Turns 29 — Assimilate this

in issue 51

Inside the Dreamboat Factory: The Fairy Godfather of Hollywood — "He won't be gay when I get through with him!"

Men in Love: On Brokeback Mountain — Ang Lee expertly limns the catastrophes of the closet

Toto, I Don't Think We're in the Grand Tetons Anymore: Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain — Queens in Jeans?

More Fun in the New (Queer) World: The 2005 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival — Out of the closets and onto the screens

in issue 49

The Kid Behind the Camera: Chatting up Darren Stein — Put the Camera on Me's queer wunderkind speaks

The Rage from Nowhere? Arthur Dong's Licensed to Kill Interviews Murderers of Gays — "I'm bad, but I'm locked up."

Private Rituals Made Public: The Lost Erotica of Fred Halsted — "The whole world wears a jockstrap!"

Bobby Abate — Naked rough trade, sleepy rimmers, a man licking a modem — these are some of the denizens of Abate's sensual, skewed world

in issue 48

Tears for Queers: Different from the Others, Michael, and Sex in Chains on DVD — Kino's unusual series spotlights German silent gay-themed cinema

in issue 46

Defending the Deviates: Evelyn Hooker Documentary Changing Our Minds on Video — "It had something to do with my sexual intercourse"

in issue 45

"I Changed My Socially Constructed Sexual Identity!" Jenni Olson on The Queer Movie Poster Book — "The butler did it . . . to everyone!"

in issue 44

Commodifying Desire: Sexual Dependency — Where is the love?

in issue 43

Twelve-Tone Cinema: A Scattershot Notebook on Sexual Atonality — Is queerness an angry chord or a beautiful harmony?

Capturing the Beauty of the Beast: Aileen Wuornos, Charlize Theron, and Monster — The "monster" Wuornos and why she won't go away

in issue 42

Keep on Truckin': An Interview with Joe Gage — A gay-porn pioneer speaks

Wheeler & Woolsey Queered — The downright peculiar pleasures of pre-Code Wheeler & Woolsey

O Captain! My Captain! — Master and Commander wants to raise your mast

in issue 40

Sex in Shangri-La: Wakefield Poole on DVD — "No top. No bottom. Just two men discoverin each other."

Unintentional Camp and the Image of Will Smith — Camp — and coded queerness — finds a surprisingly happy home in the films in Will Smith

Homo Varieties: Some Recent Queer and Near-Queer Movies — Hits and misses from the arthouse to the grindhouse

"Fabulous Gowns but No Pussy!" An Interview with Holly Woodlawn — A superstar talks Trash and papayas

in issue 38

Of Horny Hunchbacks and Stitch Bitches: Le Cinema Milligan — If you thought his films were bad, wait till you see his life

Boys on the Side: A Survey of Adult/Youth Relationships in Movies and TV — Surprise — it could be worse

Chained Girls — A Twilight Tale of the Third Sex — Who is that comely, vicious gal plotting mayhem from the shadows? Why, the dyke of 1960s pop culture, of course

in issue 37

Diamonds in the Toilet: The Chelsea Girls — Warhol's trashy, timeless "girls" come a-callin'

The Revolution Starts with Glitter! The Cockettes — The legendary campsters of the counterculture take a bow in this diverting documentary

in issue 36

All Is Fair in Love and War Videos: GLBT Men and Women in the Military — Don’t ask, don’t tell, but do watch

in issue 33

Hand Me That 14-Inch Willy! The Puppet Artistry of Barry Purves — This brilliant Brit’s artistry breathes life into wood and wire

in issue 32

George Cukor: The Valor of Discretion — An affectionate look at one of cinema’s still undervalued masters

Private Eye: Abigail Child in Brief — Child's compulsive visual collages are visual and aural legerdemain

in issue 30

Fall 2000’s Queer Films: Preview! — The tortured queens and killer dykes of yesteryear make way for more rareified queer types this season

Brief Candles: The Films of Warren Sonbert
The work of an avant-garde master now restored

in issue 29

Raging and Flaming: Jack Smith in Retrospect — New York’s pioneering campmeister

Home Movies from Hell: The Films of Luther Price — The master of Super-8 cinema takes us into the cave of the unknown, with extraordinary results

Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour — The 1960s brought back Hellman’s lesbian who vanished three decades earlier in These Three. But why is she dead?

in issue 28

The Lesbian Vanishes: These Three — Lillian Hellman's 1936 film adaptation of The Children's Hour erased the lesbianism from her play.

in issue 27

Laughing Pan: James Broughton — Ecstasy for all! says the pied piper of queer experimental film.

in issue 26

The Day the Bronx Invaded Earth: The Life and Cinema of the Brothers Kuchar — Major figures in the American Underground film movement of the 'sixties, George and Mike Kuchar are the acknowledged pioneers of the camp/pop aesthetic that would influence practically all who came after them, from Warhol and Waters to Vadim and Lynch.

in issue 25

David DeCoteau — The auteur of Petticoat Planet and Retro-Puppetmaster weighs in with his kinky leatherboy arthouse epic Leather Jacket Love Story.

in issue 24

Behind the Mask: Sadie Benning's Pixel Pleasures — Sadie Benning has been a cause celebre in the queer community for almost a decade. An iconoclast even as a teen, she employed the infamous "Pixelvision" camera in most of her early work and continues to use it.

in issue 23

Queer Horror: Decoding Universal's Monsters — The all-pervasive, barely disguised, downright queerness of classics like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and Dracula's Daughter.

The Sissy Gaze in American Cinema — The cinema sissy is now as rare as rain in the Gobi — but it wasn't always so.

in issue 21

Dark Angel: R. W. Fassbinder — The homely, jowly face, dictatorial blatherings, and ragged leather chaps masked one of the great makers of modern cinema.

in issue 20

Gregory Markopoulos: Seconds in Eternity — How does it happen that a filmmaker once lauded as "the American avant-garde cinema's supreme erotic poet" vanishes entirely from the cultural landscape?

Queer Kisses — What is it about the sight of two men kissing that drives Americans insane?

in issue 19

Sexual Subversion: James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein — No institution — society, religion, marriage, or heterosexuality — was safe from the penetrating queer eye of James Whale. Make way for the homosexual creator!

in issue 17

The Church of Camp — A brief history of San Francisco's Castro Theatre

films

film festivals

The 2007 Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival

The 2005 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

The 2003 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
— Documentaries

The 2002 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
— Documentaries
— Penisspotting 2002

The 2001 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
— Documentaries
— Penisspotting 2001

Qfilmistan: The First South Asia LGBT Film Festival (September 2001)

The 2000 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
— Documentaries
— Penisspotting 2000

The 1999 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
— Festival Overview
— Sons of Hercules
— Documentaries
— Penisspotting 1999

The 1998 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
— Festival Overview
— Queer Innovators
— Queer Cartoons
— Penisspotting 1998

San Francisco's Tranny Fest 1998

The 1997 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
— Festival Overview
— The Penis in the Festival

television

The DL Chronicles
In the Life
Laughing Matters: The Men
Little Britain
Metrosexuality
Strictly Confidential

books

My Son Divine, by Frances Milstead, with Kevin Heffernan and Steve Yeager

Out Takes: Essays on Queer Theory and Film, by Ellis Hanson

Sing Out! Gays and Lesbians in the Music World, by Boze Hadleigh