Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 32
June 13, 2022
Screening Room: ‘Cha Cha Real Smooth’
In the romantic comedy, Cha Cha Real Smooth, a charismatic-ish slacker (played by writer/director Cooper Raiff) falls for an older woman (Dakota Johnson) while sort of trying to get his post-graduate life together. Cha Cha Real Smooth has been playing some festivals and will be available on Apple TV this Friday. My review from the …
June 12, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Work Backward
Screenwriter and playwright Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, Steve Jobs, The Trial of the Chicago 7) has a trick for getting past a writing block which many of us use, or at least know that we are supposed to use: Get outside and take a walk. But he does this not just to clear …
June 6, 2022
Screening Room: ‘The Janes’
The new documentary The Janes, which has been playing festivals and will start on HBO this Wednesday, is about the underground cadre of activists who helped women have safe abortions in pre-Roe v. Wade Chicago. My review is at Eyes Wide Open: A transmission from a foreign-feeling past that could yet also auger what is …
June 5, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Be Flexible
Writers have habits. Or they don’t, and then feel that if they did stick to a schedule, then the words would come. In the interest of enforcing discipline, routines are probably going to be helpful. That is why so many writers follow them. But hewing to very strict habits every day of one’s life can …
June 2, 2022
Screening Room: ‘My Imaginary Country’
My review of Patricio Guzmán’s newest documentary, My Imaginary Country (which screened at the Cannes Film Festival), ran at Slant: Since the 1973 coup d’état that overthrew Chile’s elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, the legacy of that event has obsessed Patricio Guzmán. From the three-part The Battle of Chile to The Cordillera of Dreams, Guzmán has examined the …
May 29, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Go Where the Action is
In the early 1970s, Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzman was preparing to document the most exciting (to that point) events of his life: the rise of popular leftist leader Salvador Allende. Still early in his career, Guzman was lucky to receive some advice from the great French director Chris Marker (La Jetée): When you want to …
May 27, 2022
Reader’s Corner: Marvel Comics vs. Penguin Classics
Next month, Penguin Classics is doing the seemingly unthinkable: collaborating with Marvel Comics for their first line of comics anthologies. It’s kind of a big deal and is likely cause discussions of the “whither Penguin?” variety. I wrote about this unlikely collection for The Millions: Largely devoid of the ironies, ruminations, and absurdities of less …
Continue reading Reader’s Corner: Marvel Comics vs. Penguin Classics
May 22, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Know When to Walk Away
Alexander Grothendieck (1928-2014) was one of the most important mathematicians of the twentieth century. When Fermat’s Last Theorem was finally solved in 1994, it was only because of what Grothendieck had discovered about algebraic geometry. But he was not just a numbers guy. Like many mathematicians, he was primarily a problem-solver. He loved it. Not …
May 17, 2022
Screening Room: ‘Hold Your Fire’
Prior to 1973, there was not a lot of nuance in how the police handled hostage situations. At some point they would lose patience and storm in. As Attica and other tragedies showed, hostages frequently did not survive. The new documentary Hold Your Fire describes a little-remembered siege in Brooklyn from 1973 where the art …
May 15, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Choose the Right Words
In 1988, Nobel Prize-winning poet and onetime Soviet dissident Joseph Brodsky gave the commencement speech to the University of Michigan. In the wide-ranging address, he dispensed an array of life’s wisdom, including be nice to your parents and avoid putting too much trust in politicians. More to the point, he reminded his audience to choose …
