Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 127

Weekend Reading: May 20, 2016

Time to end the weird war between the bike and the car? Would you care for a plum-flavored Kit Kat? How about wasabi? Who’s going to be shot in Chicago? The algorithm knows. No, GMO crops won’t hurt you, not even a little. What does self-pitying aggression look (and sound) like, anyway in these Jacksonian times? Coming soon: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai , the TV series. Strangely, thatNancy Drew series might have been passed on by a network for skewing “too female.” Huh. Print and read:...

Screening Room: ‘Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising’

People with lesser imaginations might have imagined that after the bong-huffing and keg-emptying rager that wasNeighbors, there was nothing else to be done with the concept. But it appears that Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are still irked to be living next door to a party house, only now it’s a rogue sorority instead of fraternity. Because: equality.

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising opens this Friday everywhere. My review is atFilm Journal International:

Neighbors 2: Sorority Risingstarts with Kell...

Writer’s Desk: The Point of Fiction?

Defining the difference between fiction and nonfiction gets overly reductive fast. The former as entertainment and the latter as information.

Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series of novels about a former military policeman who wanders from town to town dispensing rough justice, breaks it down in terms of early human history:

Fiction evolved for a purpose. Warnings and cautionary tales could be sourced from the grim nonfiction world. A sabre-toothed tiger will kill you. O.K., got it. F...

Weekend Reading: March 13, 2016

Bad portents: Drop in Silicon Valley ping-pong table sales. Whatever happened to Reagan Democrats? Punks on film; a brief guide. When dudes start book clubs (with food). All the many, many pundits who were wrong this black-swan year. Even the Economist agrees: The Avengers need U.N. supervision. Citizen Khan not interested in Donald’s proposed exception to the Muslim ban. What’s the answer? Google’s knowledge panels know. Print and read: Barry’s mind meld guy; plus: Jeffrey Goldberg’s...

Screening Room: ‘A Bigger Splash’

Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson in A Bigger Splash.Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

A rock star on vacation in the Mediterranean with her boyfriend get up to mischief with her old flame and his blonde young tart of a daughter in the newest film fromLuca Guadagnino (I Am Love).

A Bigger Splash is playing now in limited release and will probably expand throughout the summer. My review is atPopMatters:

Ralph Fiennes takes A Bigger Splash hostage in much the same way that the late Phi...

Writer’s Desk: Don’t Be Afraid of the Block

Every writer gets blocked. The words don’t flow. Or they do, and you simply can’t stand them. Nothing works out.

But you have to work through it. There is no other option. Except, well, giving up writing. And since no writer ever wants to become a civilian, when the block sits in your head like a slug of granite, there’s nothing for it but to chisel your way around it.

Douglas Adams had one of the more infamous (and consistent) cases of writer’s block ever witnessed. It became one of his runn...

Weekend Reading: May 6, 2016

One (rich) taxpayer moves to Florida and the entire state’s budget goes to hell. After those protesters broke into the Green Zone, it’s becoming more clear that Iraq is hanging by a thread…and that’s without ISIS. A quarter-century on, does The Artist’s Way say anything of value? Superbad was awesome, yes, but also maybe homophobic? Going to be in Cognac in the year 2115? That’s where (and when) John Malkovich and Robert Rodriguez’s movie 100 Years will be premiering. Helpful hints for stop...

Screening Room: ‘Captain America: Civil War’

Roaringinto theaters in the wake ofBatman vs. Superman and before the summer movie seasonreallygets going, the latest Marvel launching pad for yet more movies and series,Captain America: Civil War opens everywhere this week.

My review is atPopMatters:

When Shakespeare wrote about the quality of mercy in The Merchant of Venice, chances are he wasn’t thinking about perpetually quipping guys in shiny suits slamming each other into walls…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘High-Rise’

Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novelHigh-Rise is opening this week in limited release and is already available on VOD. My review is atPopMatters:

Setting High-Rise in 1975, Ben Wheatley takes full advantage of what we remember from that time, the macramé, matted hairdos, condo living, and marital infidelity. But more important, the movie—based on J.G. Ballard’s bloody skewer of a 1975 novel and now available on VOD in the US—underlines the era’s capacity for antisocial mischief....

Writer’s Desk: Don’t Be Fussy

Terry Southern, who was born this day in 1924, was a writer familiar with the movies. He adapted other people’s work—freely satirizingPeter George’s thriller novelRed Alert into Dr. Strangelove—and had his own work put on screen—Buck Henry adapted Southern’s sexual fantasiaCandy for filmin 1968.

So, when Southern has advice about writers whose work is so (un?)lucky to be optioned by Hollywood, it’s best to listen:

If a writer is sensitive about his work being treated like Moe, Larry and Curly...