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Chris Barsanti

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

A freelance writer for over two decades, Chris Barsanti has covered movies for websites and magazines the world over. He's even written a few books, like 'Filmology,' 'The Sci-Fi Movie Guide,' and the 'Eyes Wide Open' annual film guide series.

Official Website:

http://chrisbarsanti.net/

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Ballad of a Small Player (2025) 49% 2/4 EDIT “The film’s ambivalent perspective on the greed and glitz of its protagonist’s world makes it difficult to invest much care in what happens to him.” – Slant Magazine Oct 28, 2025 Full Review The Fence (2025) 65% EDIT “Scorching, powerfully mythic.” – PopMatters Oct 19, 2025 Full Review Father Mother Sister Brother (2025) 82% 6/10 EDIT “Jim Jarmusch’s low-key comedy of awkwardness explores the things we can never know about our families.” – PopMatters Oct 15, 2025 Full Review Is This Thing On? (2025) 93% 3/4 EDIT “This is a finely observed and good-natured piece of work that carries some of the creative angst of Bradley Cooper’s other films but without the need to convince us of its main character’s genius.” – Slant Magazine Oct 11, 2025 Full Review The Woman in Cabin 10 (2025) 26% 2/4 EDIT “The Woman in Cabin 10 doesn’t waste time but also jumps to its climax too rapidly.” – Slant Magazine Oct 9, 2025 Full Review Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 (2025) 84% B EDIT “A brave effort bound to exasperate people across the spectrum. Even so, Raoul Peck’s usage of the author’s words to buttress his own hazily presented view of current events makes this a less rigorous work than anything about Orwell should be.” – The Playlist Sep 11, 2025 Full Review DEVO (2024) 85% B+ EDIT “There is a lack of sentimentality or resume-burning here, which feels of a piece with the band’s spiky posture and protest mentality...” – The Playlist Aug 15, 2025 Full Review It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley (2025) 98% 2.5/4 EDIT “The film is a resonant depiction of the gaping holes left by Jeff Buckley’s untimely death.” – Slant Magazine Aug 2, 2025 Full Review Eddington (2025) 68% 8/10 EDIT “No major film since Cord Jefferson’s 'American Fiction' has tackled the culture war fray with the force, specificity, and humor of Ari Aster’s 'Eddington.'” – PopMatters Jul 23, 2025 Full Review Meeting with Pol Pot (2024) 89% 2.5/4 EDIT “Rithy Panh’s film is hard-hitting yet illusive, much like the story its characters are hunting.” – Slant Magazine Jun 8, 2025 Full Review Echo Valley (2025) 52% 1.5/4 EDIT “A story that might have been benefited by being allowed to breathe over a six-episode arc instead feels rushed and schematic rather than lived-in.” – Slant Magazine Jun 8, 2025 Full Review Mountainhead (2025) 74% 3/4 EDIT “By following Succession with another acid-singed comedy about a slightly different subset of 0.01 percenters, Armstrong is sticking to a kind of satire he knows well.” – Slant Magazine May 23, 2025 Full Review Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025) 80% 5/10 EDIT “There is too much passion and too little cynicism here to dismiss it entirely.” – PopMatters May 16, 2025 Full Review Drop Dead City (2024) 91% EDIT “Yet Drop Dead City succeeds superbly by embracing the abstruse density of its economic subject, yoking those numbers to real-world impacts, and using that connection to present a sincere paean to the ideal of what a modern progressive city can be. ” – PopMatters Apr 29, 2025 Full Review Warfare (2025) 92% 8/10 EDIT “Tells a brutally universal story through a narrow lens.” – PopMatters Apr 17, 2025 Full Review Death of a Unicorn (2025) 53% 5/10 EDIT “One thing this fitfully fun but often pandering splatter of a film keeps its focus tightly pinned on is the importance of comeuppance for the baddies.” – PopMatters Apr 8, 2025 Full Review Gazer (2024) 81% 2.5/4 EDIT “The main character’s condition feels like a dramatically dubious attempt to shroud the somewhat spindly nature of the film’s plot.” – Slant Magazine Mar 30, 2025 Full Review A Complete Unknown (2024) 82% EDIT “Mangold threads the needle by delivering a compact and finely etched origin story rather than a broadly sketched greatest hits biopic. ” – PopMatters Feb 5, 2025 Full Review SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) (2025) 93% 3/4 EDIT “Sly Lives! doesn’t judge Stone, but it also gives him the credit of not making excuses.” – Slant Magazine Feb 2, 2025 Full Review Peter Hujar's Day (2025) 90% 3/4 EDIT “The film attests not only to the breadth of Sachs’s artistry but also to Hujar’s devotion to exploring the relationship between high and low culture.” – Slant Magazine Feb 1, 2025 Full Review Last Days (2025) 31% 1.5/4 EDIT “Instead of delving into what lay behind John Allen Chau’s recklessness, the film scatters itself across multiple plot angles that confuse more than clarify.” – Slant Magazine Feb 1, 2025 Full Review Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025) 77% 2/4 EDIT “The musical is lesser Kander and Ebb, to be sure, but it still contains a critique—of the use of art as a form of escapism—that’s barely visible in this adaptation.” – Slant Magazine Jan 31, 2025 Full Review Bubble & Squeak (2025) 32% 2.5/4 EDIT “Evan Twohy’s attempt to smuggle some sincerity into this largely absurdist tale shows that he isn’t especially committed to coherence.” – Slant Magazine Jan 30, 2025 Full Review The Birds (1963) 94% EDIT “A frustratingly slow build that could provide grist for a 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' episode. However, once Hitchcock shows his hand, 'The Birds' turns into maybe the most terrifying entry in his filmography.” – PopMatters Jan 8, 2025 Full Review North by Northwest (1959) 97% EDIT “The last time Alfred Hitchcock delivered a big success of a film with stars on the marquee and an A-lister behind the typewriter.” – PopMatters Jan 8, 2025 Full Review
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