Reader’s Corner: Run this Bookstore

On September 21, 2014September 19, 2014 By chrisbarsantiIn BooksLeave a comment

Wigtown (Shaun Bythell) — Wigtown, book town (Shaun Bythell)

Hey, wanna run a bookstore? If you can get yourself over to Wigtown in beautiful, not-independent Scotland, they’re giving away the chance to learn all the ins and outs of the trade. According to The Bookseller:

The Open Book project will invite interested parties to apply to live in and run a local bookshop, renamed The Open Book, for a period of up to six weeks. Anyone is invited to apply, with preference given to artists, writers, thinkers, and “bibliophiles”. Participants will be given a crash course in bookselling and will be asked to contribute to a blog outlining their experiences, as well as keeping the shop open for a set number of hours a week.

Check it out. Wigtown (it’s Scotland’s National Book Town, don’t you know) is on the western shore, looks remote and positively gorgeous. You’ll get a lot of reading done and perhaps learn why booksellers are both frequently grumpy and at the same time highly content with their lives.

New in Theaters: ‘Under the Skin’

On April 3, 2014April 9, 2014 By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

For his last two films, Sexy Beast and Birth, Jonathan Glazer dealt with the aliens that walk amongst us, whether it was divorced-from-reality gangsters or creepy children. In Under the Skin, though, he finally gets around to telling a story about an honest-to-God alien—in the form of Scarlett Johansson.

Under the Skin opens in limited release on Friday. My review is at Film Journal International:

There is a searching, watching passivity in Scarlett Johansson’s work that’s enlivened her greatest roles, particularly Lost in Translation. That quality isn’t just an added benefit of Jonathan Glazer’s newest and certainly oddest film, it’s the very sinew that strains (not always successfully) to hold this spacious, spiky concoction together. As the nameless alien who spends the film roaming the streets of Glasgow in a white van looking for men to take home, Johansson is a thing apart. She drives with a floating precision, as though somebody else were actually handling the car. Her conversations might trail off in a cloud of nebulousness, but her eyes remain pinned on the man right in front of her. She is a hunter, after all…

You can see the trailer here:

New in Theaters: ‘How I Live Now’

On November 7, 2013November 7, 2013 By chrisbarsantiIn Books, Film - NewLeave a comment

Saorise Ronan lost in the war zone in 'How I Live Now' — Saorise Ronan lost in the war zone in ‘How I Live Now’

Meg Rosoff’s phenomenally successful young-adult novel How I Live Now follows a spoiled punkette American teen who is sent off to her British relatives’ farm for the summer just as, unbeknownst to her, war is breaking out. Saorise Ronan stars in this punchy adaptation by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) that doesn’t quite hold together but is more than able to hold one’s attention.

How I Live Now is playing in limited release. My review is at Film Racket; here’s part:

In most stories about groups fighting for survival, Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) would be among the first to die. When the eye-rolling New York teen shows up at her step-cousins’ house in the English countryside for an undesired summer holiday, she works overtime at alienating everyone. She’s a germophobe who doesn’t consume wheat or dairy and is annoyed at being asked to do anything but put her headphones on and curl into a self-excoriating ball of black neurosis. In other words, the worst person to be stuck with in a ramshackle bohemian house where the dishes don’t get done often. Also, not somebody you would want to have to try and survive World War III with…

You can watch the trailer here: