Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 184

Department of Weekend Reading: January 3, 2014

The incredible trials of the .
What do the youth of the UK feel they have to live for?
So you’ve got to go to the emergency room—this will show you how long it’ll take.
British pub life.
From ignoring12 Years a Slaveto the supposed knockout game: the year in racial amnesia.
The Brazil World Cup and how it’s the ultimate in mega-inequality.
Just 6 in 10 Americans believe in evolution; that number is dropping steadily among these groups.
Print and read: Machine-gunning the staff...

Quote of the Day: Feeding the Poor

From James Carroll’s thoughtfulprofile of Pope Francis in the end-of-yearNew Yorker, discussing his coming of age politically in Argentina during the “Dirty War” of the 1970s and ’80s:

The anti-Soviet paranoia of the era made it easy to see [liberation theology] as influenced more by Karl Marx than by Jesus Christ. Archbishop Hélder Câmara, of Brazil, famously captured the tension, saying, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a...

Readers’ Corner: Every Book, Ever

You always hear people complaining about there being just not enough time to read all the books out there. Just too much on the shelves to get to in this lifetime. Not the worst thing to have to complain about, of course, but still, frustrating—even if you’re not Burgess Meredith after the apocalypse.

So here’s the question: Has that always been the case? Was there a time at which one could have actually read every single book that had been written? (For the sake of this exercise, we’re limiti...

New in Theaters: ‘Lone Survivor’

With a resume that includes everything from BattleshiptoFriday Night Lights, Peter Berg isn’t the first guy you would think of to have made one of the modern era’s great combat films. But nevertheless, there he is with a directing and writing credit onLone Survivor, a tough and emotionally draining film about a doomed Navy SEAL mission in Afghanistan in 2005.

Lone Survivor opens in limited release this week, rolling out more broadly in January. My review is atFilm Journal International:

If not...

Department of Post-Holiday Reading: December 27, 2013

‘If you really hate music, you’ll love the show.’

The holiday that never ends.
The legend of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas‘.
From Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic newsletter to the John Birch Society’s anti-UN screeds: a thumbnail history of the (fake, fake, fakey fake) “War on Christmas.”
Should we still pretend Santa’s coming?
David Mamet: A very special thanks from Chinese restaurateurs everywhere.
From 1651 to 1681, the city of Boston banned Christmas.
Too many Santas.
A Christmas Eve message from Apollo 8 ....

New in Theaters: ‘August: Osage County’

Julianne Nicholson, Meryl Streep, and Julia Roberts in ‘August: Osage County’

Tracey Letts’ playAugust: Osage County was a sprawling, Eugene O’Neill-esque slab of all-American dysfunctionality that played like gangbusters on the stage. It’s just about the last thing that you would want to see Harvey Weinstein and a pack of Oscar-festooned actors get their hands on; but somehow the truncated film adaptation plays pretty smartly. It opens up the material without lessening too much of the story’s...

Department of Holiday Cheer: Edition 2013

It’s been an eventful year, not necessarily in a bad way. But nevertheless the start of 2014 is welcome. Any day now.

In the meantime, a bit of holiday doggerel from Calvin Trillin:

I’d like to spend next Christmas in Qatar,

Or someplace else that Santa won’t find handy.

Qatar will do, although, Lord knows, it’s sandy.

Also, one shouldn’t get through the holiday season entirely without anything from David Sedaris‘s memories of working as a store elf:

The woman grabbed my arm and said: You there, el...

New in Theaters: ‘The Invisible Woman’

Ralph Fiennes and Felicity Jones gaze across the abyss of longing in ‘The Invisible Woman’

When Charles Dickens was alive and writing, there was hardly a more famous person in the Western world. Ralph Fiennes’ second film as a director stars himself as the frequently mobbed and phenomenally insecure author who spent his private time chasing the affections of a much, much younger woman.

The Invisible Woman opens on Christmas Day and should be playing at an arthouse near you. My review is atFilm...

Readers’ Corner: Peter O’Toole (1932-2013)

Although he will go down in cultural history as the incarnation of Lawrence of Arabia (not so much the real-life one, but the fascinatingly cinematic variation thereof), Peter O’Toole had his literary side as well. When he passed away last week, most obituaries mentioned one of the hellraising actor’s more memorable lines of poetry:

I will not be a common man.

I will stir the smooth sands of monotony.

For more O’Toole greatness, check out Gay Talese’s rattlingly good profile on the man fromEsqui...

New in Theaters: ‘The Past’

Berenice Bejo and Ali Mosaffa in ‘The Past’

Like the writer said, The past is never dead, it isn’t even past. In Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi’s newest drama, a French woman (Berenice Bejo, fromThe Artist) invites her ex-husband back from Iran supposedly to finalize their divorce only to ensnare him in her tangled new relationship.

The Past opened this week in limited release but should roll out around the country over the next couple months. My review is atFilm Racket:

Asghar Farhadi’s powerful b...