Pop Culture Happy Hour: "The Odyssey"

Matt Damon is Odysseus and Zendaya is Athena. (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal)

I fully expected my PCHH brethren Glen Weldon and (especially) Stephen Thompson to complain that Christopher Nolan’s all-star, shot-on-location-in-IMAX, no-expense-spared adaptation of a 2,800ish-year-old epic poem was too long with too few jokes. To my surprise and delight, they did not. Wailin Wong, who I had the pleasure of being on a panel with to dissect the probably-final Mission: Impossible last summer, shares my love of Tenet. It’s a fun episode.

My Washington City Paper review, meanwhile, is here.

District Fringe 2: District Fringer

Clockwise from left: Highly expressive District Fringe folk Tracey Erbacher, Marshall Bradshaw, Aubri O’Connor, Sophia Menconi, Hope Gundlah, Karen Lange, Marley Kabin. (Alan Kayanan/District Fringe)

I was on the Capital Fringe beat for so many years that I had to step away for a while. But when the summertime #DCtheatre institution announced in Jan. 2025 that it it would end, and a trio of Fringe veterans stepped into the breach to create the successor festival District Fringe, I was elated. As District Fringe enters its second year, I sweated it out for CityCast DC.

No Scrubs, No Skips: "CrazySexyCool," reviewed for CityCast DC

Holli’ Gabrielle Conway, Jade Milan and Stoney B. Woods as T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli in CrazySexyCool. (Julieta Cervantes)

My review of CrazySexyCool is my first for CityCast DC, where I’ll be contributing regularly, I’m glad to say. The TL:DR on the new TLC show is that music and dancing are great, while director / book writer Kwame Kwei-Armah deploys his artistic license to compress and dramatize the pioneering Atlanta girl-group’s saga in some confounding ways. Considering that all of this history has been told not just in documentaries like 2024’s TLC Forever, but in name-naming dramatizations like the 2013 TV movie CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story, I didn’t get why so many easily identified figures get pseudonyms here — including longtime TLC manager Bill Diggins, who produced the musical!

As the end of the opening-night performance June 26, Diggins joined TLC’s two surviving members, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, on-stage to congratulate the cast and crew. In show, Diggins is called “Danny.” He’s played by DC actor Aaron Bliden, whose castmates turned to salute him after the real Chilli quipped to Diggins during their post-show remarks, “I didn’t know you could sing.”

Weird! But those two-dozen TLC bangers still bang.

Movie Death Match: "Inception" v. "Interstellar"

With just a week until the release of The Odyssey, two time-dilating Christopher Nolan joints go cowl-to-cowl in an IMAX melee so epic Homer could’ve written it. New York magazine / Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri rides for 2010’s Inception while Pop Culture Scientist (and University of Oxford scientist) Abigail James reps 2014’s Interstellar in an all-new, mostly-different Movie Death Match!

Welcome to the Planet(s): "Supergirl," reviewed.

Supergirl is unique in that it’s a largely faithful adaptation of one specific comic book story, and a recent one at that. But it never reaches the heights of inspiration ascended by its source material, Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. It doesn’t even come close. My Washington City Paper review is here.

You've Got a Friend in These: "Toy Story 5," reviewed.

It’s the best fifth chapter of a film franchise since Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation! My Washington City Paper review is here.

Movie Death Match: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" v. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial"

New pod! We took the critical insight of Filmspotting and added the primal thrill of bloodsport to create Movie Death Match!

In our Disclosure Day themed debut episode, two "passionate and highly credentialed advocates" argue the relative merits of Steven Spielberg's two friendly-visitor classics. Representing 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind is Margaret Weitekamp, curator nonpareil! Pounding the table for 1982's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is Jen Chaney, critic extraordinaire!

I'm grateful to them both for their game participation and to Filmspotter-in-Chief Adam Kempenaar for the opportunity to administer firm-but-fair cinematic jurisprudence.

I Love "I Love Boosters!"

I Am Curious (Yellow): Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, and Kiki Palmer are The Velvet Gang. (Jennifer Nguyen/NEON)

Walking out of Boots Riley’s sophomore feature I Love Boosters! a month ago, I wrote that the movie “features a device called a Situational Accelerator, and you’ll need one to keep up with this hilariously unhinged but incisive mashup of Brazil, Set It Off, and Norma Rae. (If you asked me again in five minutes I’d probably name three different movies). It’s a big step forward in ambition & execution from Sorry to Bother You, and the best stuff in it isn’t in the trailers. I can’t wait to spend the rest of the year arguing with you about it.”

I don’t think I improved upon that much in my Washington City Paper review, but it’s here.