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Bright Wall/Dark Room

@brightwalldarkroom.com
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A reader-supported online film journal, offering a different lens on movies. issues/essays: brightwalldarkroom.com podcast: @bwdrpod.bsky.social all the things: linktr.ee/brightwalldarkroom

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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 28/09/2026
I'm Not Me: On doubles, haunted spaces, memory, and grief in TWIN PEAKS, POSSESSION, and VERTIGO
brightwalldarkroom.com
I'm Not Me: On Twin Peaks, Possession, and Vertigo
On doubles, haunted spaces, memory, and grief in Twin Peaks, Possession, and Vertigo.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 28/09/2026
"Like the absurdists, David Lynch brings us to the void to remind us it’s there—and to invite us to laugh into it."
brightwalldarkroom.com
On the Absurdity of David Lynch
Like the absurdists, David Lynch brings us to the void to remind us it’s there—and to invite us to laugh into it.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 27/09/2026
"The perfection of Jan de Bont’s SPEED owes not to its exemplification of “classical” Hollywood narrative, but to the intensity of its enthusiasm for those norms."
brightwalldarkroom.com
Becoming Bomb: Speed (1994) - Bright Wall/Dark Room
The perfection of Jan de Bont’s 'Speed' owes not to its exemplification of “classical” Hollywood narrative, but to the intensity of its enthusiasm for those norms.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 26/09/2026
"To be an existentialist is to commit to choosing, each moment you are alive, to persist as human—to insist on the terms by which you will pick a purposeful path through the absurdity of life on Earth." - @eccantwell.bsky.social
brightwalldarkroom.com
Stop Making Sense: One Must Imagine Talking Heads Happy
The Talking Heads are strange truth-tellers, joyfully angry people, persistently interested in the power of art. And collaborating with Jonathan Demme elevated their music to something truly transcend...
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 26/09/2026
"In CHUNGKING EXPRESS, everything is important—every can of pineapple, every dripping towel, every loop of “California Dreamin’”—mimicking that all-encompassing feeling of infatuation. These small items hold an entire story, the heartbreak and the hope and the waiting."
brightwalldarkroom.com
Love You for 10,000 Years | Chungking Express - Bright Wall/Dark Room
This, more than anything, informs the ethos of Chungking Express: loneliness and the hope that, maybe, someday, it won’t be quite as potent as it is now.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 26/09/2026
Beyond the Midnight Realm: Reorienting Horror Tropes and Trans Suffering in I SAW THE TV GLOW
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Reorienting Horror Tropes & Trans Suffering in I Saw the TV Glow
If you go into I Saw the TV Glow hoping for the straightforward catharsis of conventional horror movies, you will be disappointed. Schoenbrun moves too slow, too thick, too open. But this is what allo...
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 26/09/2026
Watching the Wheels: Finding Meaning and Purpose in PATERSON
brightwalldarkroom.com
Watching the Wheels: Finding Meaning and Purpose in 'Paterson'
In the world of Jarmusch’s film, the purpose of work lies not in external achievement, but in the personal satisfaction of doing.
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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
So excited this piece is up as part of @brightwalldarkroom.com ‘s Midlife Crisis issue! I was thrilled to write about a cult classic that really deserves to be just called a classic, period: Rock Hudson’s darkest, best performance, James Wong Howe’s experimental, brilliant camera work - a great film
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 25/09/2026
"L.A. STORY exists to remind us that delusion may be the only thing that belongs in the landscape, the very reason people have come this far.” - @natmissildine.bsky.social
brightwalldarkroom.com
Most Wonderful | L.A. Story (1991)
L.A. Story is romantic, hopelessly. Our four lovestruck main characters fall in and out of their spells. The freeway sign is embraced. The paradise could be believed.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 25/09/2026
Kiss Me or Kill Me: Sexual Desperation and Identity Erasure in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF - @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social
brightwalldarkroom.com
Kiss Me or Kill Me: Sexual Desperation & Identity Erasure in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a carnal energy roils and simmers in the air, like thunderstorms rolling in over the plantation, drenching everyone to the bone.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 25/09/2026
"In a lesser film, the dress is red." - @franhoepfner.bsky.social
brightwalldarkroom.com
Atonement (2007): In This Heat
The first act of Atonement takes place in the summer of 1935 in Shropshire, England, and this is the kind of heat that’ll drive you insane
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Felix Harcourt @felixh.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Great piece on a woefully underwatched film that rightfully ranks with the best of paranoid cinema
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Amy Woolsey @amywoolsey.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
No matter how many times I read it, Christopher Cantwell's essay about Dead Poets Society for @brightwalldarkroom.com is still capable of moving me to tears. www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2016/04/04/i...
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In Defense of Dead Poets Society | Bright Wall/Dark Room
Last night at 11:30, I turned on the TV and Dead Poets Society was just starting. I ended up watching it all the way through, until 2 a.m.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 22/09/2026
New today on the site: @ambersparks.bsky.social on John Frankenheimer’s SECONDS
brightwalldarkroom.com
Seconds on Seconds: Resurrection in Face and Film
If Seconds (1966) came out today, with its horror lens firmly trained on themes of extreme plastic surgery, dread of aging, and get-happy-quick schemes, it would likely have found a ready A24 audience...
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 22/09/2026
“Michael Mann’s cinema is that of love and longing on a life-and-death scale—all that matters are the compressed moments we have in which to share it.” - @aheartofgould.bsky.social on MIAMI VICE
brightwalldarkroom.com
Michael Mann's Miami Vice at 20: Death of the Cool
Mann’s cinema is that of love and longing on a life-and-death scale—all that matters are the compressed moments we have in which to share it.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 22/09/2026
The Story We Tell Ourselves: AMERICAN HONEY‘s American Myths
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The Story We Tell Ourselves: American Honey's American Myths | Bright Wall/Dark Room
Around the margins of their sales work, the mag crew in 'American Honey' lives a hedonistic existence, chasing impulses and urges, expressing themselves physically when their verbal powers fail them.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 19/09/2026
“For most of Spielberg’s career, science fiction has been the mechanism through which he learns and teaches empathy. But in Disclosure Day, empathy itself is the speculative leap. The genre function is inverted: science fiction stops speculating about aliens and starts speculating about us.“
brightwalldarkroom.com
The Speculative Empathy & Radical Hope of Disclosure Day
For most of Spielberg’s career, science fiction has been the mechanism through which he learns and teaches empathy. But in Disclosure Day, empathy itself is the speculative leap
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The BW/DR Podcast @bwdrpod.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
September pod is here! @eccantwell.bsky.social & @chadperman.bsky.social sit down with author @wolfandfox.bsky.social to work their way through midlife crisis and ANOTHER ROUND
static.klipy.com
Mads Mikkelsen Jumps and Dances in Another Round
ALT: Mads Mikkelsen Jumps and Dances in Another Round
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 19/09/2026
Moment, Expand: 40 Notes on Rob Reiner & Stand by Me
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40 Notes on Rob Reiner & Stand by Me
Stand by Me is about memory. It’s about the ways in which the people who matter do keep standing by us, even after they’ve fallen away.
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Ryan K Lindsay @ryanklindsay.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
One of my absolute favourite crime flicks. Pure style.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 19/09/2026
"Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s OUT OF SIGHT is a heist story, a sexy potboiler, a noir rom-com that resurrects and perfects the lost art of cinematic sexual tension." - @priscillapage.bsky.social
brightwalldarkroom.com
What If? The Sexy Noir of 'Out of Sight' - Bright Wall/Dark Room
Out of Sight is a heist story, a sexy potboiler, a noir rom-com that resurrects and perfects the lost art of cinematic sexual tension.
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Elizabeth Cantwell @eccantwell.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I enjoyed this conversation and loved rewatching this movie!
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 18/09/2026
New on the site: A brand new episode of the BW/DR Podcast! This month, we join author @wolfandfox.bsky.social to discuss midlife crisis and Thomas Vinterberg's 2020 film ANOTHER ROUND
brightwalldarkroom.com
Episode #73: Another Round (with Karina Wolf)
This month, Chad and Elizabeth sit down with author Karina Wolf to discuss midlife crisis and Thomas Vinterberg's 2020 film, Another Round.
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Elizabeth Cantwell @eccantwell.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
You should always read a @frankfalisi.bsky.social essay when there’s one to read!!
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Joe Dante @thejoedante.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
More BURBS mania! An interesting take from @brightwalldarkroom.com! www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2026/09/10/t...
brightwalldarkroom.com
The ‘Burbs (1989): I Hate Cul-de-Sacs
Why does Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) choose to spend his vacation at home? It’s the great secret at the heart of The ’Burbs. I’d wager it’s the riddle at the heart of the American suburbs, too.
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Roxana Hadadi @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
in 2024 for @brightwalldarkroom.com's spike lee issue I wrote ab 25TH HOUR as our definitive 9/11 movie, capturing all the grief and ugliness of that time, & how its natural companion piece is the underseen THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST. "fuck you!", etc. www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2024/09/28/s...
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frank falisi @frankfalisi.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 12/09/2026
New on the site! The Midlife Crisis issue kicks off with @frankfalisi.bsky.social on THE ‘BURBS www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2026/09/10/t...
brightwalldarkroom.com
The ‘Burbs (1989): I Hate Cul-de-Sacs
Why does Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) choose to spend his vacation at home? It’s the great secret at the heart of The ’Burbs. I’d wager it’s the riddle at the heart of the American suburbs, too.
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🎥 Kathy 📼 Fennessy 📽️ @kcfennessy.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The History of the Seattle Mariners, the tale of "a fantastically stupid and fancifully romantic baseball team that’s half Don Quixote and half windmill," screens at @nwfilmforum.bsky.social 9/13 as part of @seattlecritics.bsky.social's SFCS at 10 series. Host: @theendofcinema.bsky.social. Join us!
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 06/09/2026
"I sometimes feel fiction is the ideal preservation for real memories. Fiction is such a good place to keep things." —Wim Wenders
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Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
"That’s what the Buddhist practice is: You focus on the breath. You live in one breath at a time. With the sobriety, the mantra is one day at a time. But you really live in one breath at a time, one moment at a time. OK?"
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Travis Woods @aheartofgould.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
After watching some Abel Ferrara flicks on the Criterion Channel this weekend, check out my interview with the man for @brightwalldarkroom.com (no paywall). We get into it: The films, the drugs, the women, the guilt, the gods, the life. www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2025/11/03/a...
brightwalldarkroom.com
Always Trying to Get Beyond the Veil: An Interview with Abel Ferrara
Abel Ferrara recently spoke with Bright Wall/Dark Room from Rome about his new memoir, Scene, his films, and his life as an artist.
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Carolyn Petit @carolynmichelle.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Time is luck, baby. What a movie.
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Elizabeth Cantwell @eccantwell.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
A lovely little piece on the emotional core of MIAMI VICE … @aheartofgould.bsky.social never misses
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Travis Woods @aheartofgould.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I wrote for @brightwalldarkroom.com about MIAMI VICE, "a darkly sumptuous masterpiece of eroticism and romanticism, of action and abstraction, of fragmented flows of raw and overwhelming emotional information whose meanings only gain momentum with time." www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2026/09/03/d...
brightwalldarkroom.com
Michael Mann's Miami Vice at 20: Death of the Cool
Mann’s cinema is that of love and longing on a life-and-death scale—all that matters are the compressed moments we have in which to share it.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 03/09/2026
New today on the site! The Summer Blockbusters issue concludes with @aheartofgould.bsky.social on MIAMI VICE: "Michael Mann’s cinema is that of love & longing on a life-and-death scale—all that matters are the compressed moments we have in which to share it." (🎨 by @bturnerinfo.bsky.social)
brightwalldarkroom.com
Michael Mann's Miami Vice at 20: Death of the Cool
Mann’s cinema is that of love and longing on a life-and-death scale—all that matters are the compressed moments we have in which to share it.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 31/08/2026
New today on the site! The Summer Blockbusters issue continues, with Bryan Miller on SUPERMAN II
brightwalldarkroom.com
Me and Superman, Too: A Metropolis Memoir
What I’ve grown to appreciate is that Superman II is really a movie about the necessity of Superman as an American myth—about the very meaning of Superman.
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TCMFanatics @tcmfans.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Fred MacMurray, James Stewart and Gregory Peck at Chasen's in 1980.
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JaneLane @nyjanelane.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
It was when the gals were in the country & western themed fetish shop that I decided to find out who directed 9 to 5.
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Travis Woods @aheartofgould.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Remembering the amazing Ben Gazzara on his birthday. I wrote for @brightwalldarkroom.com about his role in THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE, and how its jazzy polyrhythms create a fusion of noir and drama that novas into a startling self-portrait. Artwork by Tony Stella.
brightwalldarkroom.com
I Can't Give You Anything But Love | The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a masterpiece—not in spite of its messiness but rather because of it.
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Joel Mayward @jmayward.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
My latest book, "Religious Cinema for Non-Believers: Film Criticism as Spiritual Practice" is now available! It's a collection of my longform film criticism essays written over the span of the past decade. wipfandstock.com/979838524740...
wipfandstock.com
Religious Cinema for Non-Believers- Wipf and Stock Publishers
Religious Cinema for Non-Believers is a collection of longform film criticism essays written over the span of a decade by theologian and film critic Joel May...
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Brianna Ashby @briannaduggan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
💔
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The Film Stage @thefilmstage.com · 26/08/2026
Tim Curry (1946—2026)
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Leah Carlson @themingtacular.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
This essay made me think of the time, as a teenager, I went to a midnight opening showing of Cowboys and Aliens Good read!
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 21/08/2026
New today on the site! "More often than not, the blockbuster bomb is true of heart, true of passion, & truly, deliriously confounding. [They] aren’t so much Hollywood’s nightmares as they are fever dreams: wild, half-coherent visions barely remembered but deeply felt." - Payton McCarty-Simas
brightwalldarkroom.com
Stale Popcorn: Reflections on the Failed Blockbuster
More often than not, the blockbuster bomb is true of heart, true of passion, and truly, deliriously confounding.
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Travis Woods @aheartofgould.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Several art pieces Tony Stella did for @brightwalldarkroom.com over the years will be on display at the Big Bad Film Fest in LA this weekend. See some killer action films, then bask in Tony’s work—his posters, his BW/DR art, and much more. Info can be found at www.bigbadfilm.com/bigbadfilmfest
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 19/08/2026
Blimps and Pimpernels: Powell and Pressburger and the Myth of Britishness
brightwalldarkroom.com
Powell and Pressburger and the Myth of Britishness
Over the two decades of their collaboration, the films of Powell and Pressburger emerged as the working out of a love affair with Britain and Britishness.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 19/08/2026
"WILD THINGS operates at such a baroque pitch that it becomes a satire of the erotic thriller while also reveling in the erotic thriller." - @aheartofgould.bsky.social
brightwalldarkroom.com
Florida Man: The Gatorskin Noir & Satirical Softcore of Wild Things
Wild Things operates at such a baroque pitch that it becomes a satire of the erotic thriller while also reveling in the erotic thriller.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 19/08/2026
"John Boorman's POINT BLANK is a deceptive bastard—strange, traditional, straightforward, surreal; it wears its crime genre like a fine, bespoke suit, but is imbued with an ethereal melancholy and pervaded by a funereal air.”
brightwalldarkroom.com
Point Blank (1967): That Night At Alcatraz
John Boorman's 'Point Blank' is cool and cryptic, a relentlessly modern film about a relentlessly brutal man with single-minded ambitions.
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Bright Wall/Dark Room @brightwalldarkroom.com · 17/08/2026
"THE THIN MAN created a truly equal romantic partnership that was neither stumbling toward matrimony nor frustrated by its restraints, a portrait of a thoroughly modern marriage so ahead of its time you can hardly believe it's nearing its centennial anniversary."
brightwalldarkroom.com
The Thin Man’s Thoroughly Modern Screwball Marriage
The Thin Man movies created a truly equal romantic partnership that was neither stumbling toward matrimony nor frustrated by its restraints.
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