This month we sit down with Vulture critic Angelica Jade Bastién, author of the newsletter Madwomen & Muses, where she recently started writing about “Movies That Fuck.” In honor of “cinematic sensuality,” we chat about Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Francis Ford Coppola’s ode to ahistorical melodrama and doomed romance. We get into: Roman Coppola’s practical effects, Keanu’s accent work, crossing oceans of time to find you, Michael Ballhaus (and whether this is the dark b-side of The Age of Innocence), Eiko Ishioka with the muscle armor and tiny glasses, do young people want to be turned on by the movies (or at all), and more.

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Further reading/viewing:

The Costumes are the Sets (a 15-minute doc on the film’s Oscar-winning costumes), and James Hart on the transformation of Dracula’s script.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is hosted by⁠⁠ Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠⁠ &⁠ Chad Perman⁠⁠, produced by⁠⁠ Eli Sands⁠⁠, and edited by ⁠⁠Buczar⁠⁠. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

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This episode is sponsored by ⁠Galerie⁠, a new kind of film club where you can chat directly with filmmakers, watch groundbreaking movies, and discover stories that bring you closer than ever to the craft and culture of cinema.

To enjoy one month of Galerie for free—and then receive 50% off the next three months—visit ⁠Galerie.com⁠ and enter the code “BWDR” when you sign up.

This month's bite-sized episode zooms in on the spectral perspective of Thomas Vinterburg's debut film, The Celebration (1998), one of Palestinian director/writer/producer Annemarie Jacir's curated picks.

We get into: Dogme 95, family gatherings as horror movies, the generative energy of stylistic constraints, dynamic chaos, ghostly POVs, and finding something in a film that's a little bit in excess of what the film seems to think it's doing.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is hosted by⁠ Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ & Chad Perman⁠, produced by⁠ Eli Sands⁠, and edited by ⁠Buczar⁠. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

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This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club where you can chat directly with filmmakers, watch groundbreaking movies, and discover stories that bring you closer than ever to the craft and culture of cinema.

To enjoy one month of Galerie for free, and then receive 50% off the next three months, visit Galerie.com and enter the code “BWDR” when you sign up.

In honor of guest Michael Koresky's new book announcement, we're revisiting this conversation with him from last summer about Steven Spielberg's A.I.

Michael's new book, Sick and Dirty: Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness, will be out from Bloomsbury in June.

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Reverse Shot⁠ co-founder and editor, and Editorial Director at Museum of the Moving Image Michael Koresky joins us to proselytize Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).

Michael takes us back to being an intern in 2001, watching A.I. six times in theaters, how both Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick do “sentimentality with a point,” Jude Law’s dialogue, parables of loss, and how this “unexpected sledgehammer” of 00s’ filmmaking sticks with him today.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by⁠ Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ and⁠ Chad Perman⁠ and produced and edited by⁠ Eli Sands⁠. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

You can find all 135+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room online at⁠ brightwalldarkroom.com⁠. We're on Bluesky at @bwdr and @bwdrpod, and welcome feedback and inquiries at ⁠podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com⁠.

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This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can now enjoy 3 months of free access to Galerie by signing up ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

We’re back with an episode analyzing writer-director Aaron Schimburg’s Kafkaesque body swap, A Different Man.

Joining us is critic, actor, and BWDR darling Frank Falisi, co-founder of Garden State Lantern. We get into Adam Pearson’s Oscar snub and Sebastian Stan’s win, The Substance for boys, shooting in NYC, if you want to dance the mask, the humanism of karaoke, doing your life wrong, self-image as self-esteem, and what it means to never change a bit.

Further reading: Le Cinema Club’s interview with Aaron Schimburg, RogerEbert.com’s interview with Schimburg, Adam Pearson, and Sebastian Stan, and Screen Slate Podcast’s episode with Schimburg (and a few cameos from the film).

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie: a new kind of film club. Listeners can sign up for access to essays, curated film lists, live screenings, and more at join.galerie.com.
Find every issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room at brightwalldarkroom.com. Holy trinity: please give us a follow, rate the pod, give a review. We welcome feedback and inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com. Happy new year.

Our first mini-episode of 2025 looks to one of director Andrew Haigh’s curated picks: Billy Wilder’s subversive farce Some Like It Hot.

We get into the unlikely modernity of Hot’s sexual politics, Orry-Kelly’s naked dresses, Wilder’s collaboration with I. A. L. Diamond, is this the greatest comedy of all time, and more.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

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This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can now sign up for three months of free access to Galerie's streaming library, curated film lists, essays, live screenings and more at join.galerie.com.

Be thankful we did your Gladiator II homework, rewatching Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 1 (2000) with amateur Russell Crowe historian Blake Howard.

This is a Gladiator II-spoiler-free conversation: listen as we get into Crowe kissing disembodied feet, Scott’s world-building, the technology of acting, Oliver Reed’s digitized face (RIP), is anything better than practical effects, expressionism vs. historical accuracy, and more. Gladiator: a good movie.

Further reading: here’s Gladiator cinematographer John Mathieson on returning to the sequel after 24 years.

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie: a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for 3 months of free access to essays, curated film lists, live screenings, and more at join.galerie.com.

You can find every issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room here. Holy trinity: please give us a follow, rate the pod, give a review. We’re on Bluesky at @BWDR and @BWDRPod, and welcome feedback & inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.

This month’s mini-episode takes us into the rich opening sequence of a pick curated by director Andrew Haigh: Nicolas Roeg’s Venetian nightmare, Don’t Look Now .

We get into Graeme Clifford’s expressionist editing, celebrating movies for grownups, the color red, non-chronology, grief, and what lies “beyond the fragile geometry of space.”

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for 3 months of free access to Galerie's curated film lists, essays, live screenings & more at join.galerie.com.

This holiday season, we're revisiting last year's holiday special: an audio essay of one of the most popular articles we've every published on the site: Ethan Warren's ⁠A Grand Yuletide Theory: The Muppet Christmas Carol is the Best Adaptation of A Christmas Carol⁠.

Written and read by ⁠Ethan⁠ himself, with holiday music from ⁠Ryan Pollie⁠.

(Originally aired December 17, 2023)

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We'll be back later this month with two brand new pods, but in the meantime:

Happy Holidays from ⁠Bright Wall/Dark Room⁠!

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This episode is sponsored by ⁠Galerie⁠, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for three months of free access to Galerie by using this special link.