Tag: John Cusack

Screening Room: ‘Boom Bust Boom’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-DocumentaryLeave a comment
Terry Jones: What are we missing?
Terry Jones: What are we missing?

Ever wonder why every time there’s a bubble in the economy, nearly all market-watchers and economists seem to say, “Don’t worry about it, because This Time It’s Different”? Monty Python’s Terry Jones’s nifty new comedic documentary Boom Bust Boom tries to find out why.

My review of Boom Bust Boom, opening this week in quite limited release, is at Film Journal International:

Wearing the dashingly ironic grin of a BBC host who just can’t wait to let you in on a real cracker of a story, Terry Jones starts off his musical-theatre economics lecture by pointing to what he calls “the Achilles’ heel of the economy.” What he’s referring to is the fact that most economies are irregularly plagued by seemingly random and unpredictable crises. This is despite the fact that universities pump out a steady stream of newly minted economists who one would imagine would be able to focus their well-trained brains on preventing the next such crisis…

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘Maps to the Stars’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment
Robert Pattinson looks properly mystified in 'Maps to the Stars' (Focus World)
Robert Pattinson looks properly mystified in ‘Maps to the Stars’ (Focus World)

It was probably only a matter of time before director David Cronenberg and novelist Bruce Wagner found some way to work together. Cronenberg’s love of festering wounds (both physical and psychological) and Wagner’s bleak and blackened comedies of Hollywood soul-deadness would seem somehow made for each other. That’s how we, unfortunately, ended up with Maps to the Stars.

After a short, awards-qualifying run late last year, Maps to the Stars is playing now in limited release. My review is at Film Racket:

There is a moment when satire turns into pure spleen. That moment comes pretty early in David Cronenberg’s disjointed Maps to the Stars. Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird), a child star with the dead but predatory eyes of a middle-aged addict, lashes out at his manager. Benjie lets loose a stream of insults notable for being not just petty but anti-Semitic and homophobic to boot. It’s a terribly clumsy moment (see how awful actors can be), the satirical equivalent of a punch to the nose. Much of the film that follows is played in much the same key of bilious hate, the only variant being the talent of those spitting out the lines…

Here’s the trailer:

Quote of the Day: Cash by Johnny Cash

On By chrisbarsantiIn Books, OmniculturalLeave a comment
They're here to make you feel bad about your choices: the record-store clerks of 'High Fidelity'.
They’re here to make you feel bad about your choices: the record-store clerks of ‘High Fidelity’.

high_fidelity-posterIn the eternal classic High Fidelity, John Cusack plays Rob, a happily embittered record-store owner who spends a lot of time talking to the camera, when he’s not grousing about women, his employees, life. While his particular angle is music and the collecting rare examples thereof, many of his ruminations about that habit (“fetish properties are not unlike porn”) could apply equally to most any other art form. For instance:

What really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films — these things matter. Call me shallow but it’s the fuckin’ truth.

Anybody out there who doesn’t believe deep down that there isn’t some truth to what he’s saying? Shallow or not, doesn’t bonding over the shared love of a particular cultural object (book, film, whatever) stand as its own unique and valid type of connection?

cashbook1Here’s Rob on books:

I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I’m certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I’ve read books like The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera, and I think I’ve understood them. They’re about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash’s autobiography Cash by Johnny Cash.

Note the obsessive’s need to add the wholly unnecessary “Cash by Johnny Cash” there, just in case you didn’t get what he meant with “Johnny Cash’s autobiography.”

And here, just for kicks, the Top 5 Records scene from High Fidelity: