Snatching Defeat from the "Jaws" of Victory: A Chronicle of Sequels Unremembered

Can’t believe I forgot to mention that Jaws 3D heel Simon MacCorkindale starred in a short-lived NBC series about a shapeshifting crimefighter called Manimal that premiered two months after the shark three-quel hit cinemas.

Can’t believe I forgot to mention that the boat The Widow Brody uses to impale Jaws the Fourth in Jaws: The Revenge was named Neptune’s Folly.

I did remember to mention that J:TR cast member Mario Van Peebles directed a film 40 years after Jaws called U.S.S. Indianapolis: Men of Courage that dramatized the events Robert Shaw related in his immortal monologue from Jaws, but that was cut for space. Anyway, my contribution to the Paper of Record’s Jaws anniversary package — The Sequels, and a unified theory of sequelology — is here.

"We Are Gathered" to witness a real, legal marriage at Arena Stage

Kyle Beltran and Nic Ashe in We Are Gathered, a play that accompanies their characters’ fictional marriage with real ones. (T Charles Erickson)

I spent a beautifuly day with Jean Yoder and Rhys Price, who got married on stage in the finale of a performance of Arena Stage’s We Are Gathered. My Washington Post feature about their wedding day is here.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "The Phoenician Scheme"

A new Wes Anderson joint is a cause for celebration if you’re me. I join pal-for-life Glen Weldon and Code Switch host B.A. Parker to scheme, Phoenician-style. My jokes about how Anderson never phoens it in have all been cut.

Dance Macabre: "Ballerina," reviewed

The right to bear de Armas: A girl gets a flamethrower in a flick From the World of John Wick. (Murray Close)

My Washington City Paper review of Ballerina, from the non-wizarding World of John Wick, is here.

Prattle & Hum: "Bono: Stories of Surrender," reviewed.

Unos, dos, tres, catorce! My review of Andrew Dominik’s film of the stage play of this book is one of the three pieces I have in yer Washington Post today.

"Mission: Impossible" and the Deep State

Washington Post Opinions asked me for a piece about my favorite blockbuster franchise’s relationship to Washington. So I wrote about that, but also about my dad.

Balcony Scene: "John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only!"

Ben Ahlers as John Wilkes Booth in Baltimore. (J. Fannon Photography)

My Washington Post review of Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner’s world-premiere play John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only! is here. Read it if you dare, you sockdologizing old man-trap!

"Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning," reviewed.

Tom Cruise has yet another plane to catch in The Final Reckoning. (Paramount)

Any new Mission flick is the start of a long relationship for me, and as with 2023’s Dead Reckoning, my estimation of the new one went up on a second viewing. It’s still a goddamn mess, though.

My Washington City Paper review of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, the eighth and perhaps-but-also-perhaps-not climactic MIssion is here.