"Mutiny" asks, What If "Plane," but on a Boat?

Take my word for it: his stubble is as perfect here as in every other scene. (Dan Smith / Lionsgate)

No camera subject has ever had a more magnificent stubble than competitive diver-turned-model-turned-action star Jason Statham. His lithe and lethal physicality, even at the silverback age of 59, remains impressive, but his shadow not-quite-beard is perfect. It’s always five o’clock somewhere, and that somewhere is wherever Jason Goddamn Statham happens to be scowling. 

My Washington City Paper review of Mutiny, from the director of Plane and the producer/star of The Transporter, The Bank Job, A Working Man, and too many others to contemplate, is here.

Party Like It's 1982: "The End of Oak Street," reviewed.

Anne Hathaway can’t believe what’s happened to the roads in her neighborhood. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

The End of Oak Street is a fun, late-summer Spielberg pastiche from It Follows and Under the Silver Lake writer-director David Robert Mitchell. You could do worse!

"Reacher" Recaps Return!

Alan RItchson steps back in the line of fire. (Amazon)

Whether or not to watch Reacher is, like the decision whether or not to read my jokes about Reacher, a deeply personal choice. This is one of very few matters in which I shall encourage you to do your own research. Those who wish to follow along as I annotate Reacher’s Philly-set, Toronto-shot fourth season may do so here.

Movie Death Match: "Spider-Man 2" v. "Into the Spider-Verse"

With Spider-Man: Brand New Day a bigger hit than anyone predicted, Movie Death Match executive producer Sam Van Hallgren’s impulse to pivot away from our planned Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma-themed contest to a battle of the most beloved Spidey-flicks proved to be more than sound.

My frequent Pop Culture Happy Hour co-panelist Daisy Rosario reps the 2018 Oscar-winning animated flick Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse while Screencrush editor and lifelong Spidey fan Matt Singer argues on behalf of Sam Raimi’s 2004 Spider-Man 2. It’s our most amazing / spectacular / ultmate / web-of / 2099 death match yet! Listen below, True Believers!

Great Power, Great Responsibility 4eva: Spidey's Got a "Brand New Day"

It seems I’m a little higher on this Thunderball / Ghost Protocol (read: fourth) installment of the Tom Holland-era Spidey series than many of my esteemed colleagues. My Washington City Paper review is here.

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.

Equine Intervention: "The Odyssey," reviewed.

Never leave Pattinson alone to brood. (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal)

My Washington City Paper review of The Odyssey 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.