Issue 102: FUBAR Archives - Bright Wall/Dark Room

Other, more recent superhero films may claim to be grim—and certainly achieve a gritty, surface-level style—but in Batman Returns, we have something that seems to deliver an underbelly of actual darkness: upsettingly discolored bodily fluids, thrillingly unhealthy psychosexual games, raw fish, toxic sewage, and a semi-catatonic ‘hero’ who barely speaks.

Episode #7: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Bright Wall/Dark Room·

Issue 102: FUBAR Podcast

This month on the show, we're joined by poet, educator, and original BW/DR co-conspirator Elizabeth Cantwell to discuss Stanley Kubrick’s (now) beloved psychosexual Christmas thriller, Eyes Wide Shut.

Wild Mountain Thyme: The Bird and the Bee

Ethan Warren·

Issue 102: FUBAR

My unpopular opinion is that Wild Mountain Thyme is a transcendent work of art. Not from any objective standpoint, but rather from that of one particular head and heart: my own.

Othello (1951): The Whole World in Collapse

Katherine Bayford·

Issue 102: FUBAR

Orson Welles' Othello is a fever dream in both production and result—the former a nightmare, the latter bliss.

A Bloody Silly Way to Die

Merritt Mecham·

Issue 102: FUBAR

Don’t Look Now is a story about vision. The things we see, the things we don’t, the things we see without using our eyes.

Adam Curtis’ Bitter Lake and the Generational Quagmire of Afghanistan

Robert Gifford·

Issue 102: FUBAR

Part-essay, part-collage, part-apocalyptic tone poem, Bitter Lake captures better than any other film, both factually and aesthetically, the chaotic quagmire of the Afghanistan war, while situating it within a historical context that gives some clarity to the madness.

Fail Safe and When Safeguards Fail

David Lynch·

Issue 102: FUBAR

Was it always supposed to get this bad? Can it possibly get any worse? These questions are never spoken in Sidney Lumet’s masterfully taut Fail Safe, but endlessly they bounce around the margins.

I’ve Had a Rough Year, Dad

Matt Chambless·

Issue 102: FUBAR

On the unbearable, beautiful messiness of a single line from Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums.

Language, Desire, and the Places We Are From

Lainey Wood·

Issue 102: FUBAR

Nationality is the theme that bookends The English Patient, looping one timeline back into the other and overriding Almásy and Katharine’s affair as the ultimate question of the narrative.

Manhunting

Davey Davis·

Issue 102: FUBAR

Like most of the serial killer thrillers it’s said to vanguard, Manhunter smacks of gender. Our hardened hero is not just softened by his traumatic past, but broken by it, his manhood warped by the terror that now governs him.