On the FringeCasting Couch with Live Action Theatre

And this episode of The FringeCasting Couch was recorded lst Tuesday afternoon, during a brief interval between a depressing visit to my doctor's office and the two fitness classes I had to teach that evening; one boxing and one boot camp. This were necessarily verbal-instruction-only editions of said classes for me; doctor's orders. Nothing feels worse.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Live Action Theatre. Their show in the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival, The Continuing Adventures of John Blade, Super Spy, was my favorite last year. I liked their new one, The Tournament, so much that I'm leaving to see it for a second time right now. Here's the original Fringeworthy post.

I had them on the podcast last year, too.

On the FringeCasting Couch with Twanna A. Hines.

For the fifth consecutive year, I'm running the Washington City Paper's coverage of the Capital Fringe Festival here in DC, manifest mainly through a blog previously known as Fringe & Purge that we decided this year to rename Fringeworthy. In 2012, I started The Fringe & PurgeCast to accompany that blog; its rebranding this summer forced me to rethink the podcast's name, too. The Fringe & PurgeCast is dead; long live The FringeCasiting Couch.

I'm not cross-posting most of the stuff I'm doing for Fringeworthy, but I'm going to put up a couple of recent episodes of the podcast that I thought were particularly fun. This one, which I recorded last night with Twanna A. Hines, whose show is called I Füçkèð Your Country, is one of those. The original post is here.

Sex Tape Is the Funniest Move About Sex Under the Corrupting Influence of Marriage Since Eyes Wide Shut

Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel set fire to The Cloud (Claire Folger/Sony).

Here's my Village Voice review of Sex Tape, a defiantly R-rated farce starring Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel that's almost good enough.

Quizzed on Pop Culture Happy Hour's 200th episode, live!

Audie Cornish and Linda Holmes compete in the Wonder Woman quiz administered by Glen Weldon, June 24, 2014.

This was my enviable view for most of Pop Culture Happy Hour's special 200th episode live show at NPR headquarters last month. But I did have the honor of briefly ascending the stage to join All Things Considered film critic (and my Washington City Paper colleague) Bob Mondello in absolutely crushing NPR's Tanya Ballard Brown and Petra Mayer in the blockbuster movie IMDB plot keyword quiz conceived by PCHH host Linda Holmes. That's about halfway through the quiz segment of the show, posted today.

The highlight of the show is the Wonder Woman crucible designed by my Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon, against which both Audie Cornish and Linda were tested. Playing from the audience, I actually did relatively well, because I remembered a 13-year-old Hank Stuever story from the Washington Post about when the monthly Wonder Woman comic got its first openly gay writer & artist, Phil Jimenez. I can't find a link to its original WashPo version, but it's reprinted in Hank's book Off Ramp, which I recommend, for whatever that's worth.

Thanks as always to Linda, Glen, and Stephen Thompson for having me on the show.

NPR PCHH #200, part 2 - Quizzes and Q & A

The Battle of Los Angeles: Rodney King, reviewed.

Roger Guenveur Smith performs his haunting and perceptive 65-minute monologue Rodney King.

My review of Rodney King, Roger Guenveur Smith's one-man play about the man he calls "the first reality TV star," is in this week's Washington City Paper.

That Equine Object of Desire: A Brony Tale, reviewed.

As has been the story of my life for the whole of July after Independence Day every year since 2010, I am hip deep in Capital Fringe Festival coverage for Fringeworthy, the Washington City Paper's CapFringe blog. But I took some time out to review A Brony Tale,  a documentary about the organized, adult fandom of the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, for The Dissolve.

Anyway, We Delivered the Bomb: On Choosing the 50 Greatest Summer Blockbusters

In honor of the historic 25th anniversary of the release of Lethal Weapon 2, give or take a couple of days  -- no, that's not actually why I did this -- I elucidated the agonizing process of logrolling and negotiating required for me to determine my votes in The Dissolve's list of the 50 greatest summer blockbusters in this essay for NPR Monkey See.

Sometimes you need the Socratic Method and math to discover you're dead inside.

The Unbearable (B)lightness of Being... Rich! Affluenza, reviewed.

Valentina de Angelis and Nicola Peltz in Affluenza. I could barely tell them apart.

I reviewed the unenlightening spiritual-poverty-among-one-percenters melodrama Affluenza for The Dissolve. The movie is set just prior to the 2008 financial crisis, which is uses as a backdrop for its lame love triangle plot. You could read a couple or three chapters of Michael Lewis' The Big Short with your 85 minutes instead. Or just watch some soaps.