Issue 110: 1987 Archives - Bright Wall/Dark Room

This is Withnail and I: Hilarious, tragic, less a cohesive narrative film and more a series of rowdy and ruddy vignettes—like stumbled stops along a pub crawl—designed to make one laugh until crying, and cry until laughing, in equal, sorrowful, comical measure.

Arizona in a Handbasket

Ethan Warren·

Issue 110: 1987

In their myriad crime stories, the Coens have tended to take a fatalistic perspective. And then there is the strange case of Raising Arizona's H.I. McDunnough.

Crafting Our Way Out of Loneliness

Danielle Purdy·

Issue 110: 1987

Whether because of repeat viewings of The Brave Little Toaster, or my own wild imagination, as a kid, I deeply believed (and feared) that my belongings were alive.

Elaine May's ISHTAR (1987) | original poster by Tony Stella

Episode #15: Ishtar (1987)

Bright Wall/Dark Room·

Issue 110: 1987 Podcast

This month, we're waxing ecstatic about the humor and humanism at the heart of Elaine May's Ishtar. We match May’s compassion for the brashly stupid Chuck and Lyle (Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, respectively) with special guest Frank Falisi, who lays out his theory that Ishtar is actually a high musical à la Vincente Minnelli.

Notes on Law of Desire (1987)

Ursula Muñoz S.·

Issue 110: 1987

Pedro Almodóvar’s Law of Desire repurposes the classic melodrama to tell a series of suppressed narratives with the visual and sentimental poetry they merit.

Nothing Like Wrestling With a Moral Dilemma, Is There?

Elizabeth Cantwell·

Issue 110: 1987

No one really changes. But, Broadcast News asks, isn’t that kind of beautiful?

The Zombification of Higher Academia

Spencer Williams·

Issue 110: 1987

While some would argue that Prince of Darkness fails thematically, narratively, and structurally when compared to other John Carpenter movies, I take pleasure in the film’s unruly appearances.

What Cannot Be Helped

Fran Hoepfner·

Issue 110: 1987

No book or film is perfect, far from it, but Maurice gets close. It grasps for an ideal, and often, that pursuit is just as worthy.

When I Look in Your Eye

Frank Falisi·

Issue 110: 1987

Innerspace is bodily—hyper-bodily, even—and in the way it upends expectations surrounding size, it suggests similar chutes and ladders for emotion, identity, for existence.

You’re Gonna Give Me Back My Spur

Sarah Welch-Larson·

Issue 110: 1987

Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark bites into the myth of American individualism and exceptionalism in Western movies by throwing vampires into the mix.