Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 110
February 17, 2017
Weekend Reading: February 17, 2017
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Which cops are most likely to fire their weapons? White male veterans. So exactly how few of Trump’s foreign policy promises has he kept? Well, Rome wasn’t destroyed in 3 weeks. Wall Street Journal: Anybody who says we’re pro-Trump is pushing “fake news.” Ikea goes Africa. Well, that took awhile: the first black Bachelorette. (And yes, that show is still on.) The black bloc and antifas protesters who are starting to fight back. When neo-Nazis argue that they are SO TOTALLY NOT neo-Nazis. Sa...
February 14, 2017
Screening Room: ‘Fifty Shades Darker’
The first great unintentional comedy of the year, Fifty Shades Darker is the second movie installment in E.J. James’s we-should-all-be-embarrassed bestselling trilogy of erotic novels. It opened last week, Lord help us.
My review is at Film Journal International:
In Fifty Shades of Grey, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson)—these people have monikers that sound like superheroes’ secret civilian names—was a mousy, brown-haired wallflower who fell into a BDSM relationship with Grey. A controlling...
February 12, 2017
Writer’s Desk: Writing During Wartime
In this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, Tim Parks reflects on the sense of “heroism” that can come with readers and writers identifying with a greater cause in dark times. We’re seeing that now with the ways in which the literary community has been galvanized against the harbingers of reactionary authoritarianism and potential censorship in America.
But, he also cautions that this moral agency shouldn’t be indulged in for the wrong reasons:
Let us by all means defend our freedom of speec...
February 11, 2017
Reader’s Corner: What the Bigots Had to Read
[image error]A few months ago, some teenagers spraypainted swastikas and various other offensive things onto a historic black schoolhouse in Virginia. When they were sentenced, the judge said they were going to have to read a book each month for the next 12 months and write a report on each one.
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker Native Son, by Richard Wright Exodus, by Leon Uris Mila 18, by Leon Uris Trinity, by Leon Uris My Name Is Asher Lev, by Chaim Pot...February 10, 2017
Screening Room: ‘The Lego Batman Movie’
[image error]So, now that Christopher Nolan has left Batman in the Affleck’s hands, we’re left with no new movies about the Caped Crusader. Oh wait, they would never let a franchise like that lie moribund for more than a year.
So, The Lego Batman Movie is finally upon us. My review is at PopMatters:
A sugar high of self-conscious product placement and satirical mock-epic, The LEGO Batman Movie strip mines Batman’s mythology for all its comic potential. Voiced by Will Arnett (reprising his role in The LEGO...
Weekend Reading: February 10, 2017
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Where Breitbart meets “church militant” conservative Catholics. Also, what Bannon and ISIL have in common. A Congressman actually just said that terrorism isn’t a problem, as long as the terrorists are white. The (hate-monger) Milo Yiannopoulos book deal tarnishes the whole publishing industry. So exactly how far is the GOP willing to go? Turns out, presidenting is hard! Wait, which one was the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty? “The women,” said the Congressman, “are in my grill.” 100 (more...February 9, 2017
Screening Room: ‘David Brent: Life on the Road’
The great thing about BBC shows is that they now when to stop: six or eight episodes and then they’re out. Maybe a season two. That’s how the British original of The Office was. But then there was the Christmas special. And now Ricky Gervais returns us to the further adventures of his signature character, who’s now decided that he’s going to be a rock and roll star.
David Brent: Life on the Road is opening in limited release tomorrow and will also be available on Netflix. My review is at Fil...
Screening Room: ‘I Am Jane Doe’
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The documentary I Am Jane Doe opens this week in limited release.
My review is at Film Journal International:
Nobody would argue that Mary Mazzio’s I Am Jane Doe is not squarely situated in the advocacy documentary genre. It doesn’t pretend not to have a little interest in debating the issue at hand. Normally, that would be a negative. But when the issue is a website that appears to be making millions off prostitution, including the trafficking of underage girls, it can be difficult to find...
February 6, 2017
Reader’s Corner: ‘Dark Money’
[image error]Last year, the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer published Dark Money, a detailed expose of the massive, decades-long program run by billionaire conservatives like the Koch brothers to re-engineer American politics in a more libertarian, low-tax, and small government direction.
The paperback edition was just released, with a new preface that highlights how the agenda of the Kochs, who theoretically didn’t support Donald Trump, will nevertheless likely be supercharged under the new administration. My re...
February 5, 2017
Writer’s Desk: Know Your Facts
[image error]Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness) is one of our greatest writers of science fiction and fantasy. She’s one of only two living writers to have their work included in the Library of America; Philip Roth is the other.
Even though she’s renowned as a fabulist, though, Le Guin’s hackles went up when the troubling new political term of art “alternative facts” was compared to science fiction. Le Guin responded forcefully to the smearing of literature:
The comparison won’t work. We fictio...
