Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 168
July 26, 2014
New in Theaters: ‘A Most Wanted Man’
Philip Seymour Hoffman in ‘A Most Wanted Man’ (Roadside Attractions)
The latest John Le Carre adaptation is also one of the final film performances of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and just about nearly worth seeing just for him alone.
A Most Wanted Manis playing now in limited release. My review is atFilm Racket:
This elegant, sparse, and scrupulously acted but dramatically stunted adaptation is like Anton Corbijn’s last film,The American: tasteful in a Europhilic way and not quite human. Alt...
July 25, 2014
Department of Weekend Reading: July 25, 2014
“Welcome to Missouri — America’s Drugstore.”
“We believe in science” and 10 other key progressive beliefs.
Luxury residence, now with its own “poor door.”
The home town’s own Dumbest Man on the Internet returns for more.
“That’s it?” Royal baby’s first year a massive let-down.
Reason nobody likes Congress, #1,904.
Star Wars ethnobiology: Astudy of the megafauna on Tatooine.
Dallas, 1978: Fan punches Sid Vicious in the nose.
A photographic history of the decline of Kodak.
Print and read: The neo-Nazi h...
July 24, 2014
New in Theaters: ‘Lucy’ Will Require Only About One Percent of Your Brain
Scarlett Johansson achieves hyper-intelligence in the not-so-smart ‘Lucy’ (Universal Pictures)
Luc Besson hasn’t written and directed a major action film since 1997′s gonzo sci-fi flickThe Fifth Element. His newest,Lucy, is a curious amalgam ofThe Matrix,Flowers for Algernon, and a whole bag fullof bunkabout humans only using 10percent of their brains that shows Besson may have been away from the game for too long.
Lucy opens everywhere on Friday. My review is atShort Ends & Leader:
Lucy[shows B...
July 23, 2014
Readers’ Corner: Man Booker Prize Longlist
The Man Booker Prize just announced their longlist of titles being considered for their 2014 fiction prize.This is literary news of a sort—prizes like this being a boon for time-challenged readers looking for help in figuring out what to read next—but nothing that extraordinary in itself. After all, this happens every year.
But here’s something different: For the first time in the prize’s 46 years, the list includes writers from beyond the UK and Commonwealth. In short, that means a couple ofA...
July 22, 2014
Writer’s Corner: Selling Your Book
(Library of Congress)
Ted Thompson’s first novel,The Land of Steady Habits, will hit stores in January.In his funny, honest essay for Salon,“I Sold My Book for $25,000,”he talks (a little) about the process and (a lot) about what he learned. It should be required reading foranybody new to the publishing game who’s got a novel in their head or hard drive and wants to knowwhat awaits them.
Firstly, Thompson brings a well-needed slap of reality to new writers’often starry-eyed wishes, particularly...
July 20, 2014
Writer’s Corner: James M. Cain
Although famousfor skillful thrillers likeDouble Indemnity andThe Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain was at heart a higher-toned sort of writer than his output might have suggested. A onetime managing editor of the New Yorker, he left for California and a different style of writing.Although his novels were full-on potboilers about cynical but ultimately foolish men and the women who dragged them into murder, Cain had the heart of a true literati. Unlike his contemporary Raymond Chandle...
July 18, 2014
Department of Weekend Reading: July 18, 2014
Miley to Elvis: Is it even possible to steal culture, and if so, is it a problem?
Reasons we might be doomed, #514.
Facebook pays cop’s salary.
By 2030, New York won’t even be among the world’s 10 biggest cities.
Maybe Hamas should have been taking lessons from the Kurds.
This Congressman thinks undocumented immigrants from Central America could carry Ebola.
Archie takes a bullet (literally) for gay rights and gun control.
NPR decides it doesn’treally want their ombudsman being … an ombudsman.
Spoils...
New in Theaters: ‘The Purge: Anarchy’ Takes Aim at the One Percent
In ‘The Purge: Anarchy’ all crime is legal for one annual twelve-hour free-for-all (Universal Pictures)
Just last year, a little sci-fi/horror film calledThe Purge lit up theaters with its canny blend of exploitationthriller joltsand subversive agitprop. Now comes the inevitable sequel, which ramps up the class-conscious revolutionary rhetoric in an expanded story about a near-future America where one night a year all crime is legal for 12 hours.
The Purge: Anarchyopens this Friday everywhere....
July 16, 2014
New in Theaters: ‘Begin Again’ Sings
Keira Knightley (left), Mark Ruffalo (right), and a passel of ready-for-anything musicians in ‘Begin Again’ (Weinstein Company)
When John Carney made the incomparable Dublin street-musicalOnce, he ginned upmagic fromthe mundane. With the glitzier and slightly more stockBegin Again, he uses the same starry-eyed formula for almost equallywonderful results.
Begin Again is playing now around the country. My review is at Film Racket:
Nothing inBegin Again, a grin-machine Roman candle of a film, shoul...
July 15, 2014
New in Theaters: ‘I Origins’
Michael Pitt and Astrid Berges-Frisbey in ‘I Origins’ (Fox Searchlight)
A few years back, Mike Cahill made one of the more ghostly sci-fi movies of recent years withAnother Earth. Now he’s back with that film’s enigmatic Brit Marling andBoardwalk Empire‘s Michael Pitt for a globe-spanning story about, well, eyes.
I Originsopens this Friday in limited release. My review is atFilm Journal International:
A haunted-looking Michael Pitt is the main attraction in Mike Cahill’s curious fandango of a sc...
