Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 53
December 9, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Midnight Sky’
George Clooneys adaptation of the Lily Brooks-Dalton novel Good Morning, Midnight is a beautiful but bleak look at the end of the world. The Midnight Sky lands on Netflix December 23. My review is at The Playlist: Knowing that what we imagine is more terrifying than what we see, The Midnight Sky plays the end
December 6, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Use Your Memories
In his essay So What Shall I Write About? Haruki Murakami talks about his memories as a capacious warehouse filled with odds and ends which he can draw upon for his fiction: We are─or at least I am─equipped with this expansive mental chest of drawers. Each drawer is packed with memories, or information. There are
December 5, 2020
Screening Room: ‘Mayor’
In David Osits new documentary Mayor, the titular official in the Palestinian city of Ramallah must find a way to navigate the challenges of running a city under occupation. Mayor is playing now in virtual cinemas. My review is at The Playlist: As a purposeful push-back against the cliches of Israel-Palestinian conflict coverage, Mayor succeeds
December 4, 2020
Screening Room: ‘Mank’
In David Finchers Mank, Gary Oldman rips up the screen as Citizen Kane screenwriter and generally drunken roustabout Herman Mankiewicz. Its a grand piece of filmmaking, all things told. Mank is playing now on Netflix. My review is at PopMatters: Mank, a rattling conveyance stuffed with gags, asides, and anecdotes, is less concerned with how
December 3, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Prom’
Now that the only way to see Broadway is on TV, it’s a good thing that Netflix is getting in on the theater game. Next week sees the release of the star-heavy adaptation of the 2018 musical The Prom. My review is at PopMatters: Turning a high school dance into a crucible for a showdown …
November 29, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Start Small
Nobody would ever accuse Mark Helprin of avoiding the big topics. His better novels (Winter’s Tale, Refiner’s Fire) rope in war time, global adventure, and magic realism, all of it written in grand leaping prose. But when he talks about his inspiration for writing, he talks instead about going smaller: We create nothing new — …
November 25, 2020
Screning Room: ‘Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan’
Julien Temple’s Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan catches the Pogues’ frontman late in life, looking back over decades of carousing and poetizing from the stage. It opens next week. My review is at Slant: MacGowan acknowledges the problematic aspects of being the drunken Irishmen who hated British stereotypes of drunken Irishmen. …
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November 24, 2020
Listening Booth: ‘What Would Keanu Do?’ Podcast
I talked with Andrew Gormley, host of the all-Keanu Reeves podcast Cool Breeze Over the Mountains, about my last book, What Would Keanu Do? We talk favorite Keanu moments and I suggested the Keanu sequel I’d like to see but will likely never happen. Check out the episode here.
Screening Room: ‘Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai’
Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai finally gets its overdue Criterion DVD release, just in time for holiday gift-giving. My review is at PopMatters: An out-of-time transmission from the late 1990s, when auteurs were fully embracing genre and pre-millennium jitters was tossing old artistic certainties out the window, Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way …
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November 23, 2020
Screening Room: ‘Zappa’
The new documentary from Alex Winter (Showbiz Kids) uses a deep dive into Frank Zappa’s voluminous to present a richly three-dimensional portrait of an artist who is lionized or dismissed in almost equal amounts. Zappa opens virtually this Friday. My review is at Slant: As a rock star who most people have heard of but …
