Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 131

Screening Room: ‘Knight of Cups’

In the newest Terrence Malick indie, Christian Bale is a screenwriter undergoing a romantically attractiveexistential crisis amidst the Hollywood demimonde.

Knight of Cupsis playing now. My review is atPopMatters:

Like the deck of tarot cards that provides its narrative spine, Knight of Cups is shuffled up and dealt out with a witchy randomness. Making a mockery of Syd Field’s rules of screenwriting (where’s the inciting incident?), the film offers stories of sprawling entropy. Whether that’...

Screening Room: ‘Boom Bust Boom’

Terry Jones: What are we missing?

Ever wonder why every time there’s a bubble in the economy, nearly allmarket-watchers and economists seem to say, “Don’t worry about it, because This Time It’s Different”? Monty Python’s Terry Jones’s nifty new comedic documentaryBoom Bust Boom tries to find out why.

My review ofBoom Bust Boom, opening this weekin quite limited release, is atFilm Journal International:

Wearing the dashingly ironic grin of a BBC host who just can’t wait to let you in on a real...

Quote of the Day: Explaining Things to Nazis

From a party scene in Woody Allen’sManhattan,where Allen plays a writer named Isaac who, like many of us these days, seems confused that some matters are believed to still be up for discussion:

Isaac: Has anybody read that Nazis are going to march in New Jersey, you know? We should go there, getsome guys together, you know, get some bricks andbaseball bats and really explain things to them.

Man:There was this devastating satirical piece on that on the op-edpage of the Times. It is devastatin...

Rewind: ‘Winter Soldier’

In early 1971, a group of Vietnam veterans (future senator and Secretary of State John Kerry among them) gave several days of public testimony about the atrocities they had witnessed or, in some cases, participated in during the war. The results were filmed by a collective that included future Oscar winner Barbara Koppleand released as the stunning, grueling documentary Winter Soldier.

My essay on Winter Soldieris atEyes Wide Open:

…the film is essentially a parade of grainy, black-and-white...

Writer’s Corner: Dreaming on Paper

Last November, Salman Rushdie gave a talk at Dartmouth about magic realism, among other things. As part of the talk, he provided an important caveat to the well-worn “write what you know” dictum: “…if what you know is interesting.”

Rushdie elaborated:

Write what you don’t know. One way to do this is to leave home and go find a good story somewhere else. The other solution is to remember that fiction is fictionable and try to make things up. We’re all dreaming creatures. Dream on paper…

Weekend Reading: March 4, 2016

Michael Cunningham: War and Peace needs to be as long as it is; not so much many other books. Scalia, not so much a man of the people. It was bound to happen: artisanal gasoline. Surrealism and this year’s Oscars. The guy best described as America’s back mole. Too white to win? Maybe your time as governor is over, sir. Home flipping rates in some cities now higher than before the crash. How to become an American dictator. Print and read: When blacks had to leave Ferguson before sundown, how...

Quote of the Day: Clinton on Hemingway

In Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight in Florida after winning most of the primaries that mattered on Super Tuesday, she aimed for a tone of righteous struggle:

We have to make strong the broken places, restitch the bonds of trust and respect across our country.

That echo you’re hearing, intentional or not, is Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms:

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

It’s usually quoted these days to signify struggling through adversity and dar...

Writer’s Desk: Get It Down

This series has been visited by the great Nail Gaiman more than once. There’s a reason for that. In between all his other work, the guy manages to keep up a regular torrent of thoughts and advice on the witchy craft of writing that are rarely short of inspirational.

Recently, he’s been doing this on Tumblr. Here’shisresponse to a question from a fan who’s been having a hard time getting their “amazing ideas” down on paper:

Write the ideas down. If they are going to be stories, try and tell t...

Oscar Guide: ‘Eyes Wide Open: 2015’

Questions:

So which film is going to sweep the Oscars on Sunday? Will Chris Rock remind us of why he used to be America’s greatest and most biting comedian? Is everyone watching going to wish that they served booze in the theater so that by the end of the evening, everyone getting awards can be nice and sloshed? Is there any reason to think any of it will matter? Is there a book in which I can read about (nearly) all of the films nominated?

Right now, there is only a definite answer...

Screening Room: ‘Triple 9’

In the latest star-packed teeth-gritter from John Hillcoat (Lawless,The Road), a gang of crooks and bad cops plot a heist that involves murdering a copy. Things go badly.

Triple 9opens today. My review is atPopMatters:

Gruesomely violent and often idiotic, Triple 9demonstrates the latest stage of decline for once promising director John Hillcoat. His previous films display a potent gothic sensibility: The Proposition andThe Road, both explore the dark limits of human behavior, but even in sh...