Issue 76: Second Acts Archives - Bright Wall/Dark Room

Kathleen Turner in A SIMPLE WISH | Universal Pictures

Contradicting the potential indignity of playing paper thin villains in swishy gowns and opalescent fabrics, there is possibly nothing more dignified in the mind of a young person than a fancy looking woman with a contemptuous laugh and a trim outfit.

New Year, New Work

Emma Koch·

Issue 76: Second Acts

George Cukor's Holiday understands that money itself isn’t some darkly moral force in the world—the relentless pressure to produce is.

Consider the Spy

Bruno Alves·

Issue 76: Second Acts

The truth is, no one knows what the truth is.

Wendy and Lucy (2008) | Oscilloscope Pictures

Hang On Girl

Frank Falisi·

Issue 76: Second Acts

Relocating care and running through the invisible world in Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy.

A New Spirit for ‘75!

Ethan Warren·

Issue 76: Second Acts

Martin Scorsese's Conjuring the Rolling Thunder Revue is the life story of the Bob Dylan who mysteriously reemerged onto the Greenwich Village scene of 1975. Or, at least, it’s a story of that Bob Dylan.

“Am I Attractive To You?”

Eric Langberg·

Issue 76: Second Acts

In 1972, with his film career dried up and few options available, Tab Hunter took a role in the Roger Corman-produced, Curtis Hanson-directed Sweet Kill—a shameless exploitation-flick ripoff of Psycho—and fashioned himself into a monstrous queer.

Sparking Joy

Arielle Bernstein·

Issue 76: Second Acts

How trying and failing at the KonMari method brought an immigrant mom and her daughter closer together.

Before Midnight | Sony Pictures Classics

It’s Like Time Travel

Deany Cheng·

Issue 76: Second Acts

Richard Linklater's Before Midnight is preoccupied with the ways in which both the past and future seem to manifest themselves in the present.

‘None of Us Will See Heaven’

Roxana Hadadi·

Issue 76: Second Acts

The weight of family and the sacrifice for a better life in Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition.

Joan Crawford in JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) | artwork by Tony Stella

The Elemental Pleasures of Johnny Guitar

Veronica Fitzpatrick·

Issue 76: Second Acts

Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar is so rigorously, comprehensively excessive, its excesses eclipse any baseline against which excess is typically judged.

The Histories and Alternate Histories of Death in Venice

Carmen Paddock·

Issue 76: Second Acts

Death in Venice remains a tantalizing, sobering piece of work, with hazy morals that have disturbed and fascinated throughout its 107 years.