Bright Wall/Dark Room

Bright Wall/Dark Room provides a fresh perspective on cinema: no sensational opinions, no buzz, no film industry updates, no misleading headlines, no "content," and no advertisements. Our online magazine focuses on the connection between films and the experience of being human. We serve as a community for writers and readers who share a deep love for cinema. Think of us as your favorite local video rental shop, where staff would happily engage in long discussions about familiar films and suggest hidden gems you might not know. We feature contributions from filmmakers, film enthusiasts, and students of film studies, as well as from comedians, novelists, painters, and poets.

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Articles

Laughing With the Pain

1 week ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Natalie Marlin

All my friends were jumping off the cliff, so I did too. The quarry ledge somewhere deep in suburban Pennsylvania dropped 30, maybe 40 feet straight down into a pool of water beneath. Our nerves were building, the precarious view staring us dead in the eyes any time our glance cast down. But as soon as one of us—my then-boyfriend—jumped without warning and landed without harm, it burst the dam of reservations the rest of us had.
In Heaven There Is No Beer?

2 weeks ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Dylan Fugel

Let me start by saying one thing as I begin this piece on Les Blank’s 1984 documentary, In Heaven There Is No Beer?: I do not like polka music. I find it actively off-putting. It’s chintzy, it’s retro, and it’s painful to listen to. I think its devotees want to restore a defunct, outdated form of Europeanism that should have been left in the 1800s. I start turning green when I think about polka music.
Episode #61: The Passenger (1975)

3 weeks ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Veronica Fitzpatrick |Chad Perman

https://anchor.fm/s/e854cc28/podcast/play/102454484/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-4-10%2Fc651785c-b882-a8f9-4233-611a801ac195.mp3This month’s micro-episode takes us inside the mysterious, sensual brilliance of Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger, a curated pick from director Ezra Edelman.
Cuff Link Stick Pin

1 month ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Frank Falisi

“Dear God, I hate myself / Dear God, I hate myself”The mirror has two faces but the only one I have lolls to the right a little. The left eye is a touch lazy—maybe the lid is just differently calibrated from the right. An aesthetic of balance eludes me. The eyeballs bug a little, like audio animatronics off-schedule. I never really figured out how to make my mis-blinking face behave, which is to say, look settled and symmetrical.
On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Notes on Mean Girls

1 month ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Carrie Courogen

I. Let’s start with a guided meditation: It’s 2004 and you’re going to the mall. It’s the end of the school day. Feel the locker combination spinning in your hand. Hear the jingling ringtone emanate from the pink Motorola Razr in your pocket, and the sound of your mom’s voice when you pick up. Her minivan is right out front, waiting to pick you and your BFF up. You’ve been waiting for this day, saving up your allowance for a new top to wear to the school dance on Friday.
Superbad: Looking Bad

1 month ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Katherine Connell

Three teenage boys sit on a public bus. They’re bored, dead-eyed, and awkward in stature. In a couple of weeks, high school graduation will unfurl the summer before college begins: liminal dog days spotted by dorm room shopping and parties they’re never invited to.
Bram Stoker's Dracula (with Angelica Jade Bastién)

1 month ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Veronica Fitzpatrick |Chad Perman

https://anchor.fm/s/e854cc28/podcast/play/101083745/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-3-9%2F8974930b-3cf3-9d85-e712-8f99eb14ed9b.mp3This month we sit down with Vulture critic Angelica Jade Bastién, author of the newsletter Madwomen & Muses, where she recently started writing about “Movies That Fuck.” In honor of “cinematic sensuality,” we chat about Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Francis Ford Coppola’s ode to ahistorical melodrama and doomed romance.
Fashion & Assimilation in Hester Street (1975)

2 months ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Emily Tamkin

Look on me. Give a look on me. Am I a Jew or a gentile?”Jake, formerly Yankel (Steven Keats), asks this while standing proudly in a park. He’s posing the question to his wife, Gitl (Carol Kane), and Mr. Bernstein (Mel Howard), who lodges with them in their New York City tenement. Jake asks his question—does he look like a Jew or a gentile—while the three are out for a day of picnicking and playing with Jake and Gitl’s son, whom Jake calls Joey and Gitl calls Yossele.
Episode #59: The Celebration (1998)

2 months ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Veronica Fitzpatrick |Chad Perman

https://anchor.fm/s/e854cc28/podcast/play/100203938/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-2-21%2Fc8e1eeeb-05ce-87ad-d946-ed0c0a5335b9.mp3On this month’s bite-sized episode, we zoom in on the spectral perspective of Thomas Vinterburg’s debut film, The Celebration (1998).
There’s No Humor Anymore & All the Glamour’s Dead

2 months ago | brightwalldarkroom.com | Lindsey Romain

The screen fades to a still image of a woman draped in butter-yellow fabric, accordion sleeves spread like wings, superimposed over black-and-white photographs of an audience. She’s on a stage that we don’t see; the impression is one of transmutability. Stage actors, real ones, shred the mirage of separate spaces. There is no stage and audience, just communion of story and spirit. Disappearance is an act of transcendence for the most admired and adroit performers.