Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 56
October 5, 2020
Screening Room: ‘Charm City Kings’
Back in 2013, the documentary 12 O’Clock Boys looked at Baltimore’s subculture of daredevil dirt-bike riders. It was surprising, unpredictable, and utterly fresh. Now comes Charm City Kings, a nice-looking but somewhat muddled dramatic interpretation of the same landscape. It hits HBO this Thursday. My review ran at Slant: One segment where the bikers and …
October 4, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Get Out There and Live
When Walt Whitman first published his genre-redefining verse collection Leaves of Grass, he was not going after small game, acknowledging in the preface: The land and sea, the animals, fishes, and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests, mountains, and rivers, are not small themes… Not everybody can match Whitman’s cranked-up barbaric …
October 2, 2020
Screening Room: ‘Kingdom of Silence’
In Rick Rowley’s documentary Kingdom of Silence, a bevy of diplomats, security experts, and fellow writers come forward to tell the story of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist murdered by the Saud royal family after his critical columns in the Washington Post. My review of Kingdom of Silence, which starts on Showtime tonight, ran at …
September 27, 2020
Writer’s Desk: RBG and Professor Nabakov
Since Supreme Court justices communicate primarily through words on a page, not surprisingly writing is almost as important to them as making legal arguments. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg was frequently cited for the clarity and strength of her writing. She often credited her teachers for instilling in her the proper discipline. In an interview …
September 24, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’
Getting a limited theatrical opening (whatever that means in pandemic times) before coming to Netflix in October, Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 dramatizes the story of the biggest, oddest political show trial of modern American history. Also: Sacha Baron Cohen plays Abbie Hoffman. My review is at Slant: Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of …
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September 20, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Take Your Time
In 1991, comedic legend and sometime albatross vendor John Cleese gave a lecture on creativity, a topic he’s been somewhat obsessed with over the years (and in fact just published a short book about it). In that lecture, he gave examples of how to create what he called the “open mood” that allows ideas to …
September 19, 2020
Screening Room: Toronto International Film Festival
Pandemic or no, awards season must go on. So it was that this year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival launched another clutch of buzzy movies, only this time via streaming and some outdoor screenings (much like how the New York Film Festival is incorporating drive-ins to their pandemic screening efforts). Even though nobody …
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September 13, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Don’t Give Up
From novelist Yu Hua (To Live, Brothers), one of the great chroniclers of modern China, some advice about perseverance: I’ve never considered giving up. Before becoming a writer, I was a dentist, spending all my days staring into people’s open mouths. Unhealthy mouths, too – healthy mouths wouldn’t come to the dentist. Maybe there’s a …
September 6, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Don’t Limit Yourself
Best known for his titanic five-novels-in-one omnibus 2666, Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño was prolific enough that even after his death in 2003, his bibliography continues to grow. In “Advice on the Art of Writing Short Stories,” he suggested one reason for that prodigious output. Never stick to just one piece at a time: Never approach …
September 3, 2020
Poster of the Day: New York Film Festival
Courtesy of the inimitable John Waters, here is the poster for the upcoming New York Film Festival: The fest starts on September 17. Here’s the full schedule. Of course, with virtual screenings and some drive-in shows, it is not precisely a “festival.” But hey, better than adding another series to your Hulu queue that you …
