Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 45

May 22, 2021

Screening Room: ‘The Dry’

My review of the perfectly okay new Eric Bana mystery The Dry is at Slant: It would be difficult to find a worse candidate for solving the murder-suicide that lies at the heart of Robert Connolly’s The Dry than its hero, federal police officer Aaron Falk (Eric Bana). Not only is he prejudiced about the case because …

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Published on May 22, 2021 09:30

May 21, 2021

Screening Room: ‘Final Account’

Shot in 2008 in an attempt to capture the voices of the last living Germans who grew up under the Nazis, Final Account is a documentary about what happens you find out that, yes, normal-looking senior citizens who took part in a shattering atrocity are perfectly willing to avoid any culpability. It’s harrowing but worth …

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Published on May 21, 2021 21:29

May 19, 2021

Literary Birthday: Nora Ephron

Like many writers, Nora Ephron (born today in 1941) started out as a journalist. She was a researcher at Newsweek and a cub reporter at a pre-Rupert Murdoch New York Post, where on her first day she was sent to the Coney Island Aquarium to write about a pair of seals who were supposed to …

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Published on May 19, 2021 05:00

May 16, 2021

Writer’s Desk: Leave Some Room

Anthony Doerr writes large books with an epic sweep. They feature dramatic action but also layered descriptions with particularly sparkling language. Per The Writer, Doerr knows this can be a lot for some readers. In a 530-page novel like All the Light We Cannot See, he keeps many of the chapters to just a page …

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Published on May 16, 2021 09:57

May 13, 2021

Literary Birthday: Francine Pascal

Francine Pascal (born today in 1938) grew up showbiz-adjacent in Queens (her brother Michael Stewart wrote the book for Hello, Dolly!). But after a stint writing for soap operas, Pascal made her mark in a different format. In 1983, she had an idea for a teen soap opera about 16-year-old twin sisters (good Elizabeth and …

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Published on May 13, 2021 05:00

May 9, 2021

Reader’s Corner: Spring Graphic Novels

For this spring graphic novel roundup, I covered some great new works, including an adaptation of The Great Gatsby, a piercing debut about the Plains Wars from artist Gary Kelley, and the latest works from Alison Bechdel (Fun Home) and Nate Powell (the John Lewis March series). It was published in this Sunday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
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Published on May 09, 2021 08:00

Writer’s Desk: Find Other Writers

Sometimes the best advice about writing has nothing to do with the actual act. Take this quote from the great Olivia Laing, whose The Trip to Echo Springs and The Lonely City should be considered guidebooks for any aspiring (or even veteran) artist. When asked about the best advice she ever received, she told TLS: …

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Published on May 09, 2021 05:00

May 4, 2021

TV Room: ‘The Underground Railroad’

In Barry Jenkins’ 10-part adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad, the famed abolitionist rescue network is made into an actual railroad that spirits enslaved people out of the South. The Underground Railroad will be streaming on Amazon Prime starting May 14. My review is at PopMatters: Jenkins is generally more experiential than …

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Published on May 04, 2021 18:21

May 3, 2021

Reader’s Corner: Niall Ferguson’s ‘Doom’

In his newest book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, historian Niall Ferguson tries to produce a sweeping history of how miserably humans tend to respond to catastrophes. The results are not entirely successful. My review is at PopMatters: Readers will find two Fergusons on display. Besides the conservative columnist who picks fights in periodicals in …

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Published on May 03, 2021 09:45

May 2, 2021

Screening Room: ‘Things Heard & Seen’

Based on Elizabeth Brundage’s 2016 novel All Things Cease to Appear, Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman’s Things Heard & Seen (playing now on Netflix) is an atmospheric entry in the category of stories about bad things befalling urban elites who move to isolated communities… My full review is at Slant. Here’s the trailer:
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Published on May 02, 2021 17:09