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Chris BarsantiAbout Chris BarsantiChris Barsanti is a habitual scrivener on books and film for the lucky readers of PopMatters, as well as Film Journal International, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. A senior writer at Film Critic.com, he is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and New York Film Critics Online. If he has anything else left to say, it gets blogged at Vast Wasteland. Features BooksIn Memoriam: Thomas M. Disch[9.Jul.08] :. It's often said of uncommonly talented writers that they defied description; in Disch's case, that actually managed to be true. Featured Article BooksBrave New World[28.Nov.07] :. Naomi Klein convincingly argues in her crushingly pessimistic but magisterial work The Shock Doctrine that the future could well be a "cruel and ruthlessly divided" place where "money and race buy survival". Featured Article BooksA Lost Cause: Tim Weiner's History of the C.I.A.[24.Jul.07] :. Deep down, most of us probably know that the Central Intelligence Agency can't be nearly as cool as our popular media would have us believe. Columns The ScreenerAre We Not Funny? Laugh, Damn You![5.Sep.08] :. The problem with the (inexplicably popular) Tropic Thunder may be that Ben Stiller is just not a funny filmmaker. Not even remotely. Reviews BooksThe Dark Side by Jane Mayer[21.Aug.08] :. As Mayer recounts in her history of what followed 9/11, Cheney was ready for this scenario because he'd been "secretly practicing for doomsday." PopMatters Pick DVDsThe Wire: The Complete Fifth Season[15.Aug.08] :. The dense mythology, painstakingly created over five novelistic seasons, has enough drama packed inside to be easily spun out for the next five, ten, 15 years.  BooksMore Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss[28.Jul.08] :. Strauss turns a sociological eye on his cast of characters and seems at times on the verge of creating a Bonfire of the Vanities for the new millennium.  ComicsWillie & Joe: The WWII Years[15.Jul.08] :. Mauldin was a chronicler of the everyday grime and misery that was the life of the average G.I., "These strange, mud-caked creatures who fight the war."  DVDsThe Thief of Bagdad - Criterion Collection[27.Jun.08] :. Let's hope that one day such wonder at Baghdad will be possible, again. DVDs John Adams (HBO Miniseries)DVDs Square Pegs: The Complete SeriesBooks The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 by Laura Furman (Editor)Film Sex and the City: The MovieDVDs Indiana Jones: The Adventure CollectionBooks The Complex by Nick TurseDVDs Bonnie and ClydePopMatters Pick BooksCorporate Warriors by P. W. Singer[25.Apr.08] :. By refusing to cast himself as a finger-wagging scold on the subject of military contractors, Singer’s concerns have all that much more power. Books The Resurrectionist by Jack O'ConnellBooks The Girl on the Fridge by Etgar KeretBooks The Delighted States by Adam ThirlwellPopMatters Pick BooksOur Daily Meds by Melody Petersen[11.Mar.08] :. It's hard to read Our Daily Meds without thinking of Americans as shaven-head underground dwellers of THX-1138, shuffling through their twilight days in a prescription-drug-haze. Books Against the Machine by Lee SiegelBooks American Creation by Joseph J. EllisBooks Baltimore by Mike Mignola, Christopher GoldenBooks The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas LlosaPopMatters Pick DVDsI Am Cuba (Soy Cuba)[10.Dec.07] :. The high-flying poem of a plot, the daredevil cinematography that nearly dances, the pulse-quickening humanism: all mark I Am Cuba as a rare emblem of a more idealistic past. Books Tree of Smoke by Denis JohnsonBooks The Assault on Reason by Al GoreBooks Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II by The United States ArmyBooks Daydream Nation by Matthew StearnsBooks On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwanBooks The Yiddish Policemens Union by Michael ChabonBooks God is Not Great by Christopher HitchensBooks The Changing Face of War by Martin Van CreveldBooks The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael GruberPopMatters Pick BooksThe Road by Cormac McCarthy / Oprah's Book Club selection[28.Mar.07] :. Oprah loves the father-son journey of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel and has made it the newest pick in the influential Oprah's Book Club. Books Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Michael B. OrenBooks You Dont Love Me Yet by Jonathan LethemBooks Nemesis by Chalmers JohnsonBooks Murder City by Michael LesyBooks The Mathematics of Love by Emma DarwinBooks Alternadad by Neal PollackBooks Dangerous Nation by Robert KaganBooks State of Denial by Bob WoodwardBooks Conservatize Me by John MoeBooks Liseys Story by Stephen KingBooks Homicide by David SimonBooks The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Boullier, translated by Lorin SteinBooks The Road by Cormac McCarthyFeatured Article DVDsKicking and Screaming (2006)[25.Aug.06] :. Behind all the banter and postgraduate trauma, Kicking and Screaming is a love story, only it's a fairly sour one that unfolds in reverse. Books The One Percent Doctrine by Ron SuskindBooks BOFFO! by Peter BartFeatured Article DVDsDazed and Confused: Criterion Collection (1993)[20.Jul.06] :. Criterion's DVD appreciates the film itself, without trying too hard to analyze or understand it, thank god. Featured Article FilmA Scanner Darkly (2006)[6.Jul.06] :. The suits make for images so fascinating they feel nearly "addictive," appropriate given that the film is about (among other things), viewing, reality, and addiction. Books The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas BrinkleyFilm Three Times (Zui hao de shi guang) (2006)TV The Henry Rollins ShowBlog postsRe:PrintThe Graphic Report: Summer Edition[11.Aug.08] :. And so, on to looking at what's worth reading, graphic novel-speaking, before fall comes calling. Re:PrintThe Graphic Report: Bottomless Belly Button[8.Jul.08] :. It looks bigger than it actually is, if that's physically possible. A 720-page tome that lands with an imposing, Tolstey-esque thud on any surface it might happen to be dropped upon, Dash Shaw's...  Short Ends and LeaderConsumer Apocalypse: WALL-E[30.Jun.08] :. As part of a double dose of Disney Monday, Chris Barsanti looks at the recent release from CG savants Pixar.  Short Ends and LeaderLate Delivery: Take Out (2004)[28.Jun.08] :. Filmed back in 2004 but for some reason only trickling out into indie release now, Take Out is a video verite snapshot of a day in the life of a hapless Chinese delivery man trying to come up... Short Ends and LeaderHBO: The Movie[29.May.08] :. Michael Patrick King takes about two or three season finales' worth of tears and OMG jawdroppers and whacks them together into a big, sloppy, gooey sundae of a film that is, for better or for worse, just like the show … only longer. Short Ends and Leader Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal SkullRe:Print The Graphic Report: The Killing JokeRe:Print The Graphic Edition: Paul Goes FishingRe:Print The Will Eisner EditionRe:Print Mexican RadioRe:Print The Graphic EditionConsuming Consumables The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein [$28.00]Consuming Consumables The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon [$26.95]Consuming Consumables On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan [$13.95]Consuming Consumables The Road by Cormac McCarthy [$14.95]Re:Print National Book AwardsRe:Print Truth in Comics: After the DelugeRe:Print Bookmarks: The Book of VicesRe:Print We Are (Somewhat) AmusedRe:Print Winning the Right WarRe:Print The World Without UsRe:Print Getting BiblicalRe:Print Soon-Forgotten HarryRe:Print Vampire Love TriangleRe:Print The next Potter? |
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