Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 58
August 8, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Con’
In the five-part miniseries The Con, the filmmakers lay out a convincing case that the causes behind the Great Recession were far simpler, easily avoidable, further reaching, and more likely to repeat themselves than most stories of the crisis have previously said. The Con is available for streaming now. My review is at The Playlist: …
August 2, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Don’t Write Your Pandemic Book … Yet
Writers are already a solitary lot. Even when there is not a pandemic. Those of us who pay the bills through teaching or other gigs that require contact with people have been even more isolated than usual. We also tend to respond to what is around us. So it’s more than likely than many of …
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July 31, 2020
Screening Room: ‘She Dies Tomorrow’
My review of the new atmospheric viral paranoia thriller She Dies Tomorrow ran at PopMatters: It is possible that ten years from now, when COVID-19 cases have hopefully gone the way of the bubonic plague, people will say that films like Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow are emblematic of a certain strain of late-stage Trump Pandemic-era anxiety… …
Reader’s Corner: ‘Caste’ and the Other American Exceptionalism
In the newest book from Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns), she brings a sweeping narrative scope and pointillist detail to her argument that three societies in modern human history have established strict caste systems: Nazi Germany, India, and the United States. It’s a bracing stance and one that is likely to cause some …
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July 28, 2020
Nota Bene: Patricia Highsmith and Stan Lee
During World War II, Marvel Comics impresario Stan Lee was working as an in-house writer for the U.S. Army (training movies about organizing your footlocker or field-stripping your rifle). He was still moonlighting for Marvel (then called Timely Comics), where the editor who replaced him, Vince Fago, was intrigued by another of their writers: Patricia …
July 27, 2020
Screening Room: ‘Kiss Me Deadly’
My article on Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955) was published at Eyes Wide Open: For sheer brazen strange, it’s hard to top Robert Aldrich’s 1955 noir adaptation of the skull-busting Mickey Spillane novel. It’s a mystery that never gets solved and a thriller that creeps more than excites. The closest that it gets to …
July 26, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Story Over Style
The late graphic designer Milton Glaser was respected not just for his iconic creations (everything from DC Comics’ “bullet” logo to “I Heart New York”) but for what he had to say about creativity. One of his best-known advice essays was a talk he gave called “10 Things I Have Learned.” While some are likely …
July 25, 2020
Reader’s Corner: Add Your Favorite Book
James Mustich’s 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die is one of those books that some readers eye with interest but trepidation. On the one hand, is there anything better really than poring over a compilation about the greatest books ever written? On the other hand, doesn’t this just end up adding to the already …
July 22, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Rental’
In The Rental, the debut movie from Dave Franco (James Franco’s far less prolific brother), four hipsters, including a particularly oily Dan Stevens (a long way from Downton Abbey) head up to a secluded cabin for a vacation that turns, well, dicey. The Rental is available for streaming and can be seen at some drive-ins …
July 21, 2020
Screening Room: ‘Radioactive’
Rosamund Pike plays Marie Curie in Radioactive, a visually inventive though somewhat dramatically challenged biopic from graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi. Radioactive is available for streaming this week. My review is at Slant: The way the film tells it, fame came easy for the Curies. In one initially comic yet foreboding scene, Pierre shows Marie a …
