Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 186

New in Theaters: ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’

Finally, the Lonely Mountain

For anybody who had just about given up on Peter Jackson’s ever-longer-seeming series of J.R.R. Tolkien films, there comes the improbably namedThe Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Who knows how next year’s final installment will come off, but the secondHobbitfilm mostly chucks aside everything that was wrong withAn Unexpected Journey and relocates the joy of storytelling. Plus: Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens everywhere this...

Department of Awards: ’12 Years a Slave’ Best Film of 2013

Benedict Cumberbatch and Chiwetel Ejiofor in ’12 Years a Slave’

On a snowy afternoon in Manhattan, New York Film Critics Online—a group that very kindly counts yours truly in its membership—met to determine which films that hit theaters in 2013 were great, terrible, meh, or (more commonly) just not great enough.

The headline is that Steve McQueen’s harrowing real-life epic12 Years a Slave took awards for best picture, actor, and supporting actress, while the incomparable lost-in-space thrillerG...

Readers’ Corner: The President’s Book List

Peter Baker, one of theTimes‘ more prolific and thoughtful chroniclers of goings-on in the nation’s capital, published an interesting piece earlier this week on Obama’s reading list. He keeps the psychology to a minimum, fortunately, but does find a few things to parse out here about the president’s personality and how it’s reflected in his choice of reading material:

Unlike many of his predecessors, who devoured American history and biographies, Mr. Obama’s tastes lean toward the literary, in...

Department of Weekend Reading: December 6, 2013

From the vaults: “The barefoot contessa wore rubber thongs.”
New pope: Worst bouncer ever.
North Korea still open for tourism.
Billionaires with Star Trek dreams.
The new isolationism.
Reasons not to steal cobalt-60.
Less than one-third of silent films still exist.
When VHS was all there was.
The crushing disappointment of travel writing.
Print and read: P.L. Travers and Walt Disney.

New in Theaters: ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’

Oscar Isaac and his not-so-faithful cat in ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’

A not-so-faithful take on the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early-1960s, the Coens brothers’Inside Llewyn Davis is part sourBarton Finksatire on creative arrogance and partO Brother, Where Art Thou?roots-music extravaganza. It’s either a haunting odyssey of failure or who-cares? kind of thing, depending on one’s mood. Either way, stupendous music.

Inside Llewyn Davis opens this week. My full review is atPopMatters:

There’s li...

New in Theaters: ‘The Last Days on Mars’

‘The Last Days on Mars’: Anybody out there?

Ruairi Robinson pitched his sci-fi horrorshowThe Last Days on Mars as “United 93in space.” That’s a pretty gutsy presentation, not to mention almost entirely miscalculated.

The Last Days on Mars is opening this week in (highly) limited release. My full review is atFilm Journal International:

Outer space is the new haunted house. There was a time when films about first contact involved actual contact—sure, everybody might end up running in terror from t...

New in Theaters: ‘Out of the Furnace’

Christian Bale and Zoe Saldana in ‘Out of the Furnace’

Now that December’s here, the Oscar race can begin in earnest. One of the first out of the barrel is Out of the Furnace, which was a Ridley Scott / Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle sometime back but was later (probably fortunately) retooled by Scott Cooper (2009′s Jeff Bridges crusty heartwarmerCrazy Heart) into a self-consciously gritty blue-collar revenge tale with a whole roster of boldface names.

Out of the Furnace is opening this week in limi...