Waves of Regret: Dawn Patrol, reviewed.

I reviewed a movie called Dawn Patrol for The Dissolve. Not the Howard Hawks one from 1930. Or its Errol Flynn-Basil Rathbone-David Niven-starring remake from 1938 (pictured). This one is a grimy little indie revenge drama that was shot two years ago in Ventura and Oxnard, Calif., the beautiful seaside region where I lived for four-and-a-half years in the very early aughts. It was directed by the writer of Beverly Hills Cop and stars Clint Eastwoodson, better known to the world as Scott Eastwood. Here's the review.

The Fault Not in Our Stars: San Andreas, reviewed.

The Rock and Carla Gugino do a decent job of reacting to things that aren't there. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

I went with my friend and colleague Heather to see San Andreas, and we felt saw the Earth move. That the film really seems not to notice that its fireman chopper-pilot hero is a deserter and a thief is part of the fun. My NPR review, which opens with a discussion of the 1974 Universal Pictures release Earthquake — written by Mario Puzo the same year as The Godfather, Part II! — is here.

Richard Roundtree played a "daredevil motorcyclist."

For The Village Voice, L.A. Weekly, and affiliates, Ten Summer Movies I Hope Don't Suck

Pixar's Inside Out gives physical form to one girl's Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). The first trailer was sexist and lame, but trailers ain't movies.

It's Memorial Day weekend, which a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away used to signal the start of the summer movie season. Sometime around the turn of the century, the summer movies began arriving the first weekend in May. In recent years the first weekend in April has become a perennial launchpad for Marvel movies and Fast & Furious flicks. 

But I'm the sentimental type, so I (and The Village Voice and L.A. Weekly) waited until this week to post my look at ten releases coming up in roughly the next 10 weeks for which I've got grand or at least moderate hopes. Plus Magic Mike XXL, which I was asked to add so the list wouldn't be "too straight." I am aware that Channing Tatum is what the former John "Cougar" Mellencamp would call "a real good dancer," but Steven Soderbergh is not un-retiring from theatrical filmmaking to direct this sequel, so I'd probably rather see Jurassic World or Ant-Man, neither of which made the cut.

Have a great summer, movie lovers.

The Play's the Thing, the Thing, and the Other Thing: The Blood Quilt, Jumpers for Goalposts, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, reviewed.

Adam Wesley Brown, Ian Merrill Peakes, and Romell Witherspoon in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. (Teresa Wood)

Liam Forde, Kimberly Gilbert, Zdenko Martin, and Michael Glenn in Jumpers for Goalposts. (Igor Dmitry)

Meeya Davis, Nikiya Mathis, Caroline Clay, Afi Bijou. and Tonye Patano in The Blood Quilt. (C. Stanley Photography)

My reviews of — in alphabetical order — the new play The Blood Quilt, the debuting-in-the-U.S. play Jumpers for Goalposts, and the postmodern chestnut Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, are all in this week's Washington City Paper. Except for the latter two of the three, which are online-only. Find them via the links above.

Pop Culture Happy Hour, Small-Batch Edition: Mad Max: Fury Road

Hugh Keays-Byrne (chalk white, center) as Immortan Joe in Fury Road (Jasin Bolland).

I was under the mojo-sapping influence of a stomach bug when I joined Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon in the studio for a Small Batch dissection of Mad Max: Fury Road, a film I love.

Readers of my Twitter feed know that matters of hydration are foremost in my mind during DC's April-to-November summers, what with 2015 being my 24th consecutive year as a runner and all. So while I accepted most of Fury Road's fantastical elements without question, the matter of how everyone in the movie didn't pass out from heat exhaustion after 30 seconds of combat was one I would be disposed to fixate upon even if I hadn't spent the night prior to the taping on my couch, curled up in the fetal position around a bottle of Gatorade.

And yet it never comes up in our discussion.

How? Professionalism.

I hope I did an okay job of explaining that while Fury Road is essentially one long chase involving dozens of what look to be astonishingly gas-guzzling (but also astonishing, full-stop) vehicles, the film is a marvel of narrative efficiency.

Hear us prattle on here.

(Dis)honesty: The Truth About Lies, reviewed.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely has tested the honesty of some 40,000 subjects.

My reivew of (Dis)honesty: The Truth About Lies, a new documentary based on the research of "behavioral ecnomomist" Dan Airely, is up at The Dissolve today.

What Fresh Hell! Mad Max: Fury Road, reviewed.

Tom Hardy & Charlize Theron play the dual protagonists of the fourth, and best, Max Max.

Melting clocks would not look out of place in the surreal and vibrant post-apocalyptic world George Miller has created in Mad Max: Fury Road, the long-delayed fourth installment in the series that launched his eclectic career 36 years ago. (Four Max Maxes now, but also two Babes and two Happy Feet.) Among its other substantial achievements, the film elevates Charlize Theron into the Sigourney Weaver-Linda Hamilton-Carrie Anne Moss Action Heroine Hall of Fame. Last year was an unusually strong one for blockbusters, but Fury Road is still the baddest to burn rubber and spit fire in many nuclear winters. My NPR review is here.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: The Avengers: Age of Ultron and Pop-Culture Pariahs

Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth are 40 percent of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. (Marvel)

On this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour, I join host Linda Holmes and regular panelists Stephen Thompson and Glen Weldon to dissect Joss Whedon's super-packed super-sequel The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Then we talk about what makes a pop culture pariah, or Why I Will Always Stick Up for James Cameron and U2 no matter what you or, more to the point, they say. This wasn't the place for me to go into about how U2 brilliantly satirized their own inflated post-The Joshua Tree celebrity while promoting their best album, 1991's Achtung Baby, and in the subsequent 1992-3 ZOO TV Tour, the stadium-rock spectacle so dazzlingly smart and subversive that no one has yet surpassed it – not even U2, though they have tried.

You can get a little taste of all that in the 1992 video below, if you dare.

And here they are 23 years later, having some fun with the Central Park bike accident last fall that landed Bono in the hospital for months and forced their planned weeklong, Songs of Innocence-promoting Tonight Show residency to be scrubbed. Also check out their performance of "Angel of Harlem" with The Roots, holy cow.