Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 68
December 29, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Rebel Against Yourself
While all writers have to get out into the world to study it, feel it, live it, and understand something beyond what lies inside their own cranium in order to make an impact, they should not overlook the value that can come from determining what would shock themselves. Per the great provocateur J.G. Ballard (Crash), …
December 24, 2019
Reader’s Desk: Best Books of 2019
If you are looking for something to get for yourself when you are at the bookstore grabbing a last-minute gift for somebody, there were a lot of amazing books that came out this year. I contributed to a couple best-of lists with a lot to choose from, see here: PopMatters: Best Non-Fiction of 2019 PopMatters: …
December 23, 2019
Screening Room: Best Movies of 2019
Now that the holidays are upon us, it is time to do the truly important things, such as catching up on all the movies of the last year. No, it is not crucial to run out and see the latest Star Wars (you can already figure out pretty much everything that’s going to happen). And …
December 22, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Listen to Your Characters
There are a lot of writing books that tell you how to craft an exciting plot. They provide exercises, quizzes, little tricks to spur your creativity and come up with new and interesting wrinkles. Helpful tricks, of course. But no matter how thrilling or curiosity-spurring your plot, nobody will care if they do not care …
December 15, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Love Words More Than Your Voice
According to legend, or at least a book with the lilting titleHow Does a Poem Mean?, W. H. Auden was once asked what advice he would give to a young poet. Auden responded that if he asked the young poet why they wanted to write and the answer came back that they thought they had …
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December 13, 2019
Screening Room: ‘Uncut Gems’
In the Safdie brothers’ newest movieUncut Gems, Adam Sandler plays a wheeler-dealer whose world is always on the brink of greatness or collapse. Uncut Gems is playing now in limited release and should expand wider later in the month. My review is atPopMatters: He has a good line of gab, Howard, but what he does …
December 8, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Rely on Your Instincts
In Letters to a Young Poet (1929), Rilke corresponded with Franz Xaver Kappus, a young poet who was not sure whether or not to go ahead with a career in the arts or to stick with the Austrian military. It seems clear that anybody seriously considering those two paths in life would not be well-suited …
December 6, 2019
Screening Room: ‘Cunningham’
The new documentaryCunningham does double duty, first telling how pioneering modern-dance choreographer Merce Cunningham built his thrilling body of work in the 1940s and ’50s, and second recreating those dances in colorful 3D. Cunningham is playing in limited release. My review is at Slant: Focusing on Cunningham’s works dating from 1942 to 1972, and his …
December 1, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Don’t Worry About What Sells
Sometimes you can have all the talent in the world and not enough people will notice. Take the much-beloved writer John M. Ford, who published a bewildering array of fantasy and science fiction that earned him plaudits from a devoted core of fans but little popular success. From Isaac Butler in Slate, about one of …
November 27, 2019
Screening Room: ‘The Irishman’
In Martin Scorsese’sThe Irishman, Robert De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, a reputed hitman who charts a course through a baroque landscape of postwar American intrigue, crime, and paranoia. The Irishmanis playing in a few theaters now, as well as on Netflix. My article about it is at Eyes Wide Open: Based on Charles Brandt’s bookI …
