Extras Archives - Bright Wall/Dark Room

Once I noticed the Kimberlys in Nora Ephron’s work, I couldn’t stop noticing them. If we’re accepting Ephron’s own assertion that real-life hurt and heartbreak can be put into fiction with impunity, what did she have against some woman named Kimberly?

‘You don’t get catharsis, you know?’: Lulu Wang on The Farewell

Zosha Millman·

Interviews

"Based on an actual lie.” That’s how Lulu Wang’s new film The Farewell starts out, before China-born, U.S.-raised Billi (Awkwafina) returns to Changchun as her family prepares to say goodbye to their matriarch Nai Nai, who’s been diagnosed with cancer. The one catch: Nai Nai doesn’t know she’s sick.

“Mad Men is smarter than the people who think they are smarter than Mad Men…”

Chad Perman·

Interviews Mad Men: The Final Season

An interview with Matt Zoller Seitz

“TV can be every bit as complex a medium as any novel…”

Chad Perman·

Interviews Mad Men: The Final Season

An interview with Alissa Wilkinson

“But At That Moment, I Felt Such Warmth”

Kate Blowers·

Extras

I’ve seen Drive My Car four times now, and with each viewing, smaller and smaller details have brought me to the verge of tears.

Annihilation and the Art of Self Destruction

Lindsey Romain·

New Releases

It's hard to watch Annihilation in a Chicago winter and not feel it on a molecular level.

Charm City Director Marilyn Ness on Avoiding Sensationalism and How Women Are Shaping Documentary Films

Eileen G'Sell·

Interviews

"It’s a super testosteroney movie—a bunch of men, a lot of violence, the cops are dudes, the guys in the neighborhoods are dudes. But no one was looking at this with empathy, like, “What does it mean to be a human being living in this space?” To me that was a very female gaze, though the movie wasn’t about women."

Hereditary and the Antipathy of Grief

Lindsey Romain·

New Releases

Here is what happens when you let the darkness win.

Director Susanna Nicchiarelli on the set of NICO, 1988

Nico, 1988 Director Susanna Nicchiarelli on Fame and the Final Days of the Cold War

Eileen G'Sell·

Interviews

"The fact is that these final years of Nico’s life were arguably the best years because she was much more in control, she was happy, and she had her band."

One Child Nation Directors Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang on Children, Choice, and the Chinese “Propaganda Machine”

Eileen G'Sell·

Interviews

"You know how, in therapy, you realize something was the cause of something else? This film was like natural therapy for me. I started thinking, 'What else do I remember about the one-child policy, and how did it affect me?'"

Station Eleven: The Healing Power of Art, and the Artful Power of Healing

Justin Hairston·

Extras

In Station Eleven, art brings people together, pushes them apart, makes them angry, and makes them whole.

Dune (2021): A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Sarah Welch-Larson·

New Releases

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is a self-fulfilling prophecy that undoes itself in the telling, an ouroboros regurgitating its own tail rather than eating it.