Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 35
March 8, 2022
Screening Room: ‘After Yang’
In After Yang, the new film from Kogonada (Columbus), a couple living in the near future has to confront a host of unexpected issues ranging from grief to questioning what it means to be human when their android Yang, purchased as a companion for their daughter, malfunctions. My review of After Yang is at PopMatters: …
March 6, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Characters Need to Change
When Dan Harmon was first attracting notice as the creator of the cult sitcom Community, he also frequently expounded on his ideas about story creation. In large part, the narrative framework he crafted drew in self-acknowledged fashion from Joseph Campbell, but dealt more with writerly needs (establishing audience interest, etc.). The gist of his story …
February 27, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Don’t Give Up
You are writing a story. Things are coming together. You can see the ending. Not only that, you can feel the ending. And it’s going to be great. But. There’s that one section that just is not working out. It feels awkward. Forced. Fake. You start to worry the whole endeavor is doomed. Not so …
February 20, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Teach What You Practice
W.H. Auden might be lionized today, but like most writers he never made a great living. Verse tends not to pay the bills. But teaching about verse can. Or giving talks. Even writing about writing. This Auden knew: It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing …
February 15, 2022
Reader’s Corner: ‘The Nineties’
Is it everything you ever wanted to remember about Pavement, O.J., or Saved by the Bell? Not quite, but that is okay. Chuck Klosterman is after larger game. My review of The Nineties ran in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Klosterman tries to look past the “grunge cartoon” take on the decade. This is welcome, given how …
February 13, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Skip the Complexity Trap
Some of the best writing tips are the easy ones. Derek Thompson, who hosts the podcast Plain English, has a few simple rules drawn from practicing journalism on a regular basis: Simple is smart: “Smart people respect simple language not because simple words are easy, but because expressing interesting ideas in small words takes a …
February 9, 2022
Reader’s Corner: ‘How Civil Wars Start’
In political scientist Barbara F. Walter’s new book How Civil Wars Start, she builds on her decades spent researching such conflicts around the world to show how many of the same instigating factors are now present in the United States. My review is at PopMatters: From Syria to Ukraine, Afghanistan to Yemen, today’s rebels usually …
February 6, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Every Story is Haunted
Barry Hannah, one of the great novelists of the American South whom depressingly few people have ever heard of, let alone read, didn’t sell a lot of books. (Read Airships or the great whooping holler that is Yonder Lies Your Orphan and you will see what people have missed.) So to make a living, Hannah …
January 30, 2022
Writer’s Desk: Amuse Yourself First
A writer without an audience is an unhappy writer. But a writer who writes just for that audience will not always be any more satisfied. The great satirist Kingsley Amis (Lucky Jim) explained why to The Paris Review: I read somewhere recently somebody saying, “When I want to read a book, I write one.” I …
January 24, 2022
Awards Central: Online Film Critics’ Best Films of 2021
The Online Film Critics Society, a group I have been a member of for some years now, has just announced their 25th annual film awards. You can see the full list here (The Power of the Dog was the big winner, and deservedly so, with West Side Story and Licorice Pizza racking up a lot …
Continue reading Awards Central: Online Film Critics’ Best Films of 2021
