Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 81
December 5, 2018
Screening Room: ‘The American Meme’
The new documentary The American Meme isn’t really about memes, it’s about people who either make their living on social media or just spend far too much time there (Paris Hilton, DJ Khaled, etc.). It’s available on Netflix this Friday. My review is at Eyes Wide Open: [Marcus] mixes big sprays of social media content, from jabbing comedy …
December 2, 2018
Writer’s Desk: Start with a Severed Toe
The Coen brothers’ ‘The Big Lebowski’ The filmmakers and brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are productive as hell, but make a good game out of seeming lazy. In this interview from the book on the making of their 1998 faux-noir classic The Big Lebowski, they toss out a few notes about their collective writing process: Trish …
November 30, 2018
Screening Room: ‘Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes’
The scarifying new documentary Divide and Conquer tells the ugly and all-too-true story of the rapacious and predatory instinct that drove Roger Ailes from small-time TV producer to history-changing right-wing propagandist and serial predator. My review is at Slant Magazine: By the time Alexis Bloom’s Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes opens at the end of 2018, its …
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November 25, 2018
Writer’s Desk: Stuff Your Ears with Money
In 1965, Saul Bellow was rich. After the publication of his novel Herzog the previous year, the ornery and erudite Chicago-born writer was lavished with attention, praise, and (strangely, for a writer, even during those more literate times) money. According to Zachary Leader, Bellow wasn’t crazy about all the hurly-burly that his suddenly discovered was raising …
November 21, 2018
Screening Room: ‘The Front Runner’
In Jason Reitman’s new political satire, Hugh Jackman plays Gary Hart on the verge of destroying his meteoric political ascent. My review is at PopMatters: Based on Matt Bai’s 2014 book All the Truth is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid, The Front Runner starts off as a zippy election comedy about the undoing of Senator Gary Hart’s presidential ambitions, …
November 18, 2018
Writer’s Desk: Something Every Day
The poet William Stafford (1914–1993) had a fairly disciplined four-part approach to his daily writing task. But the key element to his process is the last, where he advises this: For this day, again, you give yourself a chance to discover worthy things. Nothing stupendous may occur… but if you do not bring yourself to …
November 15, 2018
Screening Room: ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’
The second entry in J.K. Rowling’s post-Harry Potter Wizarding World movies, the Newt Scamander series, is opening everywhere tomorrow. My review is at Slant Magazine: The fun but more predictable Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald moves the new series forward, but only incrementally—all the better to maximize the potential for six or seven more sequels to be …
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November 13, 2018
Screening Room: ‘Widows’
In Widows, the new Chicago-set thriller from Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) adapted from the series by British crime novelist Lynda La Plante, Viola Davis has to pay $2 million back to some gangsters her husband ripped off before being inconveniently shot dead. Widows already toured the festival circuit and now …
November 11, 2018
Writer’s Desk: Ask the Questions
Unless you’re Karl Ove Knausgard, writing entails getting in touch with life outside of yourself. That can present problems in fiction. Why? Most writers’ lives just are not that exciting. Lynda La Plante, the crime novelist responsible for the series Widows and Prime Suspect, has a simple solution for finding out what you need to know: …
November 9, 2018
Screening Room: ‘Boy Erased’
Joel Edgerton’s adaptation of Garrard Conley’s 2016 memoir Boy Erased is likely going to bring the tragedy of Christian forced-conversion “therapy” of young gay women and men into the mainstream. My review is at PopMatters: It wouldn’t be fair to call Boy Erased an Afterschool Special. There’s a lot in here that ABC wouldn’t have touched in its run from 1972 …
