Late but still quite bright.

The biggest and best news today for movie-lovers will be the new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal. It's dated May but, though I check the site fairly regularly, I hadn't noticed until today. And sure enough, editor Gary Morris comes this close to an apology: "We're late because the zeitgeist couldn't keep its hands off our string!"

Anyone who doesn't love Bright Lights doesn't love life, that much should be clear right off.

So things kick off with a longish piece (but not the longest [and that's only part two! Part one is here]) on Hollywood's perpetual desire to pump out product that's both "new and the same." Not a fresh topic A. Jay Adler's chosen, but he's deepened it by pointing out that this strategy is practically as old as cinema itself.

Then there's Richard Shaw's piece which starts off mighty: "Nowhere in the history of European art cinema, nor alternative cinema generally, is the fickleness of critical taste more marked than in Ingmar Bergman's fall from 1960s auteur preeminence to recent neglect." He then argues that'd it be a big, big mistake to write the man off. (By the way, you may have seen that he's just received a film preservation award.)

More: Morphism's Scott Thill on Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place, Robert Castle on Fellini's Orchestra Rehearsal, Seth Nesenholtz on the sheer campiness of Will Smith, Megan Ratner on Powell and Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going and Gary Morris himself on what recent arthouse flicks get right and wrong while tackling queer life and on the "undisputed leader" of the 70s-era "porno chic" movement, Wakefield Poole and his interview with Holly Woodlawn, and of course, that's just scratching the surface.

It may only appear four times a year, but not only is Bright Lights worth the wait, it can take three months to exhaust the resources of each issue anyway. Posted by dwhudson at June 5, 2003 9:40 AM