Bright Lights Film Journal #67

The inestimable Bright Lights Film Journal has received a swell make-over, so if you're having trouble finding it, just go here.

To give you some background on this amazing and long-running magazine, definitely check out Matthew Sorrento's interview with BL editor Gary Morris. Finding Bright Lights can be like coming home after years of wandering. If you like first-rate film writing mixed with freestyle cultural associations and psychosocial analytic theory, then Pounce! Gary Morris rocks!

 I've got a few things in their latest issue, #67:

Towards a New Cinema of Castration: I Spit on Your Grave and Only Angels Have Wings

By Erich Kuersten

"Peer pressure is either a boon or a bitch with the power to destroy the world, or save it." 

Femme Fatale: Cinema's Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies, by Dominique Manon and James Ursini.  Hammer Glamour, by Marcus Hearn.

Reviewed by Erich Kuersten

And on the blog, Bright Lights After Dark, from today:

Charge of the White Elephant:  

"When Lee Krasner describes Pollock’s creative art to potential buyers or critics it’s in a stilted, rushed way, as if she’s trying to earn a 20% commission before she gets cut out of the deal AND keep her thick long island accent in effect at the same time: “What Jacksin’s doin’ with line and cullah goes beyond abstrackshin.” It’s all overstuffed with pompous gravitas and we know that the lines coming out of Krasner’s mouth are meant as exposition so that we, the viewers,  can share in her drunk husband/infant’s brilliance, but instead the feeling is kind of like going to what you think is a cocktail party and it’s really a time share condo pitch."