The Feminine Critique: Rapture, Blister, Burn, reviewed.

Maggie Erwin & Michelle Six represent two different generations (Danisha Crosby/Round House).

When I saw Round House Theatre's production of Becky Shaw two years ago, I found in Gina Gionfriddo a playwright whose humor and unpredictability made me want to read everything she'd written. I got the scripts for After Ashley and U.S. Drag, and I read them both during the same flight. My review of Round House's new production of her latest – 2012's Rapture, Blister, Burn – is in today's Washington City Paper.

American-Chinese-Canadian Bacon: Outcast, reviewed.

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“You’re not the man you once were,” says the star of Star Wars II and III, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

“None of us are,” growls the Oscar winner for Leaving Las Vegas.

My review of Outcast is up at The Dissolve.

Gas Giant: Jupiter Ascending, reviewed.

The rocket-boots (and the wolf DNA) make the man. Channing Tatum & Mila Kunis (Warner Bros.)

Sorry, you guys: Jupiter Ascending, the Wachowskis' latest sci-fi epic, is neither the trainwreck you want nor the home run you need. My review, for The Dissolve.

There're Two Things About Mary: The Widow Lincoln and Mary Stuart, reviewed.

Mary Bacon & Caroline Clay as Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley in The Widow Lincoln.

My reviews of The Widow Lincoln, a world premiere play from writer James Still at Ford's Theatre, and of the Folger Theatre's new production of Mary Stuart, are in tomorrow's Washington City Paper, and also right here.

FURTHER READING: My review of Still's prior Lincoln play for Ford's, The Heavens Are Hung in Black, from 2009. And my 2010 review of WSC Avant Bard's Mary Stuart.

The Best Movies of the Half-Decade, 2010-4: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori as Gustave and Moustafa.

And here're Nos. 25-1 on the poll of the best films of 2010-4, as chosen by The Dissolve's staff and contributors. I wrote the entry for The Grand Budapest Hotel. As with every Wes Anderson movie save for The Darjeeling Limited, I've loved it more each time I've seen it. 

The Best Movies of the Half-Decade, 2010-2014: Inherent Vice

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The Dissolve invited a bunch of its contributors to join its staff in selected the 50 best films made so far this decade. I ran out of time to submit my ballot, but I still did writeups for a couple of the winning films that I agreed belonged in the half-decade's top 50. The first half of the list – or the bottom half – was posted today. The one I wrote up for this part, Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, came in at No. 48.