Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 26
January 19, 2023
Screening Room: ‘The Adventures of Baron Munchausen’
Have you ever seen The Adventures of Baron Munchausen? Whatever the answer, the new Criterion edition provides ample reason to watch it now, whether for the first or fifth time. My article about the film, and its place in Terry Gilliam’s career, is at PopMatters: It is not surprising that Terry Gilliam’s film career went up …
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January 15, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Keep Making Things Up
Though some people seem to forget this, much of the art of writing is the art of invention. Even journalism and history involve coming up with a story that pulls everything together, the only thing being that you then need to ensure you have the research to back up your story. Nobel winner Isaac Bashevis …
January 8, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Show Your Work
Writing is something we all have to do on our own. But eventually somebody else has to see it. Better that the first person you show it to is not your editor. Zakiya Dalila Harris (The Other Black Girl) suggested showing your work: Share your writing early with other people. Having other eyes on your …
January 7, 2023
Screening Room: ‘Rio Bravo’
Is Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo pretty much a perfect Western? I wrote about it at Eyes Wide Open: In 1958, after decades of directing hits like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and To Have and Have Not, Howard Hawks was in bad shape. Nursing the wounds incurred by his ill-judged directing of the epic flop Land of the Pharaohs (1955), he had …
January 1, 2023
Writer’s Desk: Write For Yourself First
New Year’s Day is usually the time we start making promises to ourselves about what the coming year will bring. Writers are the same. We measure so much of ourselves by what we have produced. This makes us very susceptible to ideas of self-improvement, measurement, holding ourselves accountable, and feelings of letting ourselves down. But …
December 31, 2022
Screening Room: Best Movies of 2022
Now that 2023 is almost upon us, it is time to start catching up on all the great movies of 2022. It’s always a good way to spend a cold January. My year-end roundup is at Eyes Wide Open: Assuming the future still contains books, when one is written about what moviegoing was like in …
December 24, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Use the Holiday
Nobody wants to write over the holidays. Much better to watch the snow, open a book, make some kind of warming cocktail involving rum. Still, we all have our schedules to stick to. So make the holiday work for you. Think about this line from Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory: One by one the household …
December 23, 2022
Screening Room: ‘Living’
What would you do if you discovered you had six months to live? That’s the premise of Oliver Hermanus’ Living, respectfully adapted by Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day) from Akira Kurosawa’s great Ikiru (1953). Living opens today in limited release and expands around the country in January. My review is at PopMatters: Living keeps …
December 22, 2022
Reader’s Corner: Best Books of 2022
Up above you can see some of the best books that I came across this year. I contributed writeups on each of these to PopMatters annual Best Book feature, which just published this week. You can read the whole piece here.
December 21, 2022
Reader’s Corner: Best Graphic Novels of 2022
Every year, Publishers Weekly solicits the dogged scriveners like myself who cover graphic novels for them with a simple question, “What was good? What was best?” Fortunately, a large enough number of us agreed about the best graphic novel of the year: Kate Beaton’s masterful Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. The full poll …
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