Hitchcock’s Guide to Hilarity There’s a great deal of similarity between a howl of laughter and a scream of terror. Hitchcock tapped into the mechanism behind that duality with preternatural skill. Comedy, like horror, operates on...

New today on the site!

The Comedy Happy Place issue continues, with @emkantor.bsky.social on the humor of Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock’s Guide to Hilarity There’s a great deal of similarity between a howl of laughter and a scream of terror. Hitchcock tapped into the mechanism behind that duality with preternatural skill. Comedy, like horror, operates on...

New today on the site!

The Comedy Happy Place issue continues, with @emkantor.bsky.social on the humor of Alfred Hitchcock

And now, the FULL TRAILER for THE TERROR: DEVIL IN SILVER.

I’m going to say this trailer “rips.” It might even be “a banger.”

This show has taken four years of my life. You finally get to see it May 7th.

From @victorlavalle.bsky.social, Karyn Kusama, Ridley Scott & me.

LOOK AT THIS CAST!

grateful for anyone who reads this essay -- 25TH HOUR a defining movie of our time, imo

Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' (1979): The Winding Road to the Interior For all its discussions of morals and metaphysics, Stalker is ultimately a film about criticism—not in the sense of simply pronouncing something wasteful or worthwhile, but in the explicative sense, w...

There are a billion reasons to love Stalker, but here are some of mine, courtesy of @brightwalldarkroom.com.

an absolutely exceptional piece from @bilgeebiri.bsky.social about Riz Ahmed's Hamlet, the endurance of the play and its infinite malleability, and why Hamlet's whole deal has such broad relevance in these times. you should a. see the movie and b. read this

How Do You Make a Medieval Film on a Shoestring Budget?

Come for the insights into low-budget period filmmaking, stay for the occasional references to the New York Mets and Juul www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/s...

Nobody Told You To Suffer: On 'Bringing Out the Dead' (1999) From the opening frames of Martin Scorsese's 'Bringing Out the Dead,' Nicolas Cage’s eyes are front and center, his weary, haunted visage telling you most everything you need to know about his charact...

"While Martin Scorese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is ultimately about many things—suffering, guilt, compassion, redemption—it’s Cage's eyes, throughout the movie and long afterwards, that stay with you.

- @chadperman.bsky.social

best films of the 2020s so far?

A movie couple that would definitely have a podcast

A NIGHT HONORING DIRECTOR JAMES FOLEY

MAY 12: Vidiots is screening Foley's masterpiece, an adaptation of Jim Thompson's erotic noir AFTER DARK, MY SWEET.

Star Jason Patric is providing his personal 35mm print, & I'll be moderating a Q&A with him after.

TIX: vidiotsfoundation.org/movies/after...

Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999): Best Damn Tapper, Most Smartest To this day, whenever I meet someone else who loves Drop Dead Gorgeous, I know we’ll get along.

"To this day, whenever I meet someone else who loves DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, I know we’ll get along."

- @kellieherson.bsky.social

Hot Fuzz and the Comedy of Tactility Hot Fuzz leverages every perfect match-cut and hilariously blocked visual gag to create something lastingly comforting and deliriously entertaining.

"Edgar Wright's HOT FUZZ is like a Fabergé fidget cube, its many contraptions and bells and whistles held together by so much humor and whimsy and craft as to be almost deliriously entertaining." - @justinh94.bsky.social

Are We Okay to Go?: Contact (1997) and the Purpose of a Pause This is the moment of a woman alone, shuddering with the g-force and fear; repeating into a static void, a fierce whisper to convince them: “I’m okay to go. I’m okay to go.”

"This is the moment of a woman alone, shuddering with the g-force and fear; repeating into the static void a fierce whisper to convince them: “I’m okay to go. I’m okay to go.”

This will be a great night. Come on out to Vidiots if you're in town!

👇👇

Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.

Joel: I know.

Clementine: What do we do?

Joel: Enjoy it.

www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2016/04/04/e...

(art by @briannaduggan.bsky.social)

The capsule splashing down onto the water with the three red and white parachutes above it

Splashdown! Vehicle is stable and upright. “A perfect bulls-eye splash for Integrity and its four astronauts!” #Artemis

Geography as Identity | Moonlight (2016) | Bright Wall/Dark Room The first time I saw Moonlight, I stumbled from the theater in a haze until I broke down crying. Memories I had yet to reckon with burst through every barrier I had created for myself. “I saw myself up there,” I said, between sobs, to the friend who had accompanied me. It’s the only way I could put into words the emotions I had just experienced.

“Choosing to write about MOONLIGHT is akin to picking at a wound you thought had healed only to realize you’ve been leaving a trail of blood behind you for years. How can I put into words what it’s like to see your very soul—ragged and yearning—across the screen?“

When I've got my pop culture analyst hat on, my job is to be as open, curious and articulate about my subject as possible.

The two ways I get better at that are being open to new experiences and reading my peers.

I learn something, and find something new, from every single issue of BW/DR.

He could fund the site for the next century out of his own pocket.

I hate late stage capitalism. Failing upward and getting handsomely rewarded for it is not cool.

It's the world we live in, unfortunately. Just takes one person like this, but people like this are never that kind of person. All you can do is make what you love and want to exist in the world, and hope it finds its people and means something to them. And then find a way to keep that going :)

I subscribed. You should too.

Y'all, sign up!!! Fantastic magazine.

Happy 50th anniversary to “All the President’s Men” — a film that owes its existence to Redford, who bought the film rights, developed the script and cajoled a reluctant Woodward & Bernstein.

I thought it was “a great character study,” he said later. But, for months, “they didn’t return my calls.”

🙏 🖤

Or, if you'd like to make a one time donation to help keep the ship afloat, you can do so right here!

Every single dollar *directly* helps support all the writers, artists, and editors who help make each new issue possible 🖤

www.paypal.com/donate/?host...

Please consider subscribing to this site if you have any love of cinema in your heart or mind. I only recently discovered them but I enjoy their content immensely.

So... this takes a whole lot longer to climb out of than you might imagine. We've managed to keep things going for the time being—thanks to so many of you!—but we're definitely not out of the woods yet.

Every subscription helps! Less than $2.50/month!

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There’s a line in “Halt and Catch Fire” where Katie says to Gordon: "It's a motley crew of dude friends pulling capers w/ nothing more than nerdy technical skills & a dash of moxie" and that’s all I needed to know *exactly* what movie she meant

(Cc @ifyoucantwell.bsky.social)

The People We Used to Be: On 'Sneakers' and Being Young & Dumb The joy of 'Sneakers' is that it's an ensemble piece, yes, but also a glorious, easy-going star vehicle for an aging Robert Redford.

"SNEAKERS is a film about a lot of things: personal privacy in the earliest days of the digital age, still-frosty international relations of the post-Cold War era, guys being dudes, and the ways in which the American government—to put it broadly—sucks."

- @carriecourogen.bsky.social