Issue 111: Time Travel Archives - Bright Wall/Dark Room

In its fragments, its gradations and flirtations with the experimental ambience it’s quote-unquote about, Todd Haynes' The Velvet Underground renders not a history of a band or even a moment but an alternative lens to re-collect (literally, re-touch) history.

Olivia Newton-John in Grease (1978) | Art by Dani Manning

Grease Is the Time, Is the Place, Is the Motion

Ursula Muñoz S.·

Issue 111: Time Travel

Could Grease actually be a whole lot smarter than we give it credit for? Long story short: yes. Allow me to make the case for the 1978 movie not as a dodgy product of its time, but as a countercultural artifact we could still learn a thing or two from.

A Celluloid Clock

Julia Gunnison·

Issue 111: Time Travel

The story of Sandi Tan's Shirkers is one of a search for lost time.

Back to the Suture: Transgressive Desire in Irma Vep

Mark Dzula·

Issue 111: Time Travel

Technically, Olivier Assayas' new Irma Vep is a remake about a remake of a film about a remake of Louis Feuillade’s epic 1915-16 silent serial, Les Vampires. Heartbreakingly, it’s about the consequences of trying to transcend reality by using filmmaking as a vehicle to touch the light.

Christine (John Carpenter, 1983) | Art by Dani Manning

Beast of Burden

Travis Woods·

Issue 111: Time Travel

In John Carpenter’s 1983 adaptation of Stephen King’s haunted-car novel Christine, the road to hell is paved not with good intentions, but with time.

Episode #16: Looper (2012)

Bright Wall/Dark Room·

Issue 111: Time Travel Podcast

This month on the show, we’re doing a little time traveling of our own. On the heels of the growing buzz for Rian Johnson’s new genre love letter Glass Onion, we’re discussing his 2012 sci-fi thriller, Looper.

Facets of the Jewel: On La Jetée

Alexander B. Joy·

Issue 111: Time Travel

Chris Marker's La Jetée is less tragic than instructive, exploring our incapacity to alter the past in order to urge us to come to terms with what has been.

I’ve Seen Things You Wouldn’t Believe

Jeffrey Overstreet·

Issue 111: Time Travel

On death-sentence testimonies in Blade Runner, Wings of Desire, and Nomadland.

Memories of the Future

Nathaniel Kim·

Issue 111: Time Travel

Taken as a body of work, the Before trilogy asks us to consider the tension between its fantasy and naturalism, and the extent of our own ability to exert similar control over a lonely world that ushers us through life without concern for whether we’ve found any meaning in it.

Donnie Darko (2001) | Art by Tom Ralston

Stupid Man Suit

Lindsey Romain·

Issue 111: Time Travel

Removed from the impossible tangle of time travel, Donnie Darko is really just a mood.