Stories from Bright Lights After Dark
-
It's a bourgeois town: the feel-good Oscar Nominees for 2011
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Jan 24, 2012
If we could do a chart of Oscar winners over the decades I wonder if it runs in cycles where, say, every five years a genuinely fresh and cutting edge film wins the award (like American Beauty,the Hurt Locker or The Departed) and then follows a period of… Full Story »
-
X Me Deadly: A Visual Essay
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Nov 22, 2011
The thumb isn't good enough for you. You have to use your whole body." Naked underneath her trenchcoat, frightened hitchhiker Christina Bailey (Cloris Leachman) gets private eye Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) to stop his car by standing in the middle… Full Story »
-
This week's TCM pre-code musts: BOMBSHELL, ONE WAY PASSAGE, CITY STREETS
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Nov 7, 2011
Get your tivo aligned, for there are pre-code essentials coming your way this week on TCM that are unavailable on DVD. If you don't record them, or at least see them. You'll be, well, out of luck. And we wouldn't want that, not in November when daylight savings makes the curtain of… Full Story »
-
Halloween Film Guide to: Kali Chthonian Feminine Subtext
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Oct 31, 2011
Halloween is a time to look back, into graves and open mouths of demons, surrendering of the soul, and of the white patriarchy to the avenging rainbow warrior feminine. Forget about the poseurs like HARD CANDY and TEETH. Go for the big guns! This is the slamming indictment of both feminism and the counterculture as reflected in the swinging free love hedonists of… Full Story »
-
FANTASIA (1940) - The Varieties of Religious Experience
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Oct 26, 2011
Walt Disney's masterpiece, Fantasia, may seem at first like a random collection of animated shorts whose only common factor is that each was inspired by a well-known piece of classical music. However, consciously or not, the film has a deeper unifying principle. Each of the film's episodes touches… Full Story »
-
Docurama Bizarra: MELLODRAMA; ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Oct 19, 2011
ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM (2010) A documentary on the weird world of Ohioans keeping dangerous wild animals as pets (it's legal thar), this film's drama boils down to a confrontation with burly, bearded lion owner Terry Brumfield and a mustached, well-meaning public officer named Tim Harrison. The… Full Story »
-
Wham! Bam! Islam!
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Oct 13, 2011
In July 2010, Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa presented a lecture as part of the nonprofit TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) "Ideas Worth Spreading" series, entitled "Superheroes Inspired by Islam." In April of that same year, President Obama singled out Al-Mutawa as a constructive force in spreading positive messages through… Full Story »
-
New York Film Festival 2011: First Highlights
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Oct 12, 2011
Surely it's a good sign that the Lincoln Center Film Society seems to be shaking things up a bit with this year's festival. In part because of the new venues at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center (just opened this summer), the 49th edition of the New… Full Story »
-
TCM Musts: 12:15 AM EST tonight - THE GLASS KEY (1942)
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Oct 12, 2011
It's not 'rare' by TCM standards, but its not easily available on DVD, so hey - you should maybe DV-R this if you haven't already and then keep it on there forever, to watch when you're home sick with a cold. Nothing beats the Veronica Lake Effect!… Full Story »
-
Tonight! TCM at 8 PM: THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE - The TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME of 1933!
Bright Lights After Dark &bull Sep 14, 2011
I wrote the description below back in 2009 (full review here) based on a rare screening years before at the Film Forum pre-code festival. It used to be so very rare, but tonight on TCM that all changes, so set your DVRs! Faulkner's dank Gothic ambiance suffuses DRAKE (it's based on his novella, "Sanctuary"), lending literary heft to its… Full Story »
