When You're a Jet Something Something: West Side Story, reviewed.

(Signature Theatre/Christopher Mueller)

I brought my folks to Signature Theatre's reverent, rapturous production of the Broadway classic West Side Story the week before Christmas, but due to vagaries related to two issues falling on holidays between then and now, my Washington City Paper review is only now surfacing. I filed on time, dammit. At least I think I did. Who can remember anything from before Christmas now? Holiday-time usually brings a conventional but deeply satisfying revival of a proven crowd favorite, and this winter, West Side Story is the one to beat.

For what it's worth, the first time I heard "America" was when Bono was singing a snippet of it during "Bullet the Blue Sky" on U2's PopMart Tour in 1997.

Pop Culture Happy Hour No. 274: Star Wars — The Force Awakens and Merch, Merch, Merch

I was delighted to join Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson — and to share my first Pop Culture Happy Hour panel with the estimable Gene Demby — to process our reactions to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We recorded this episode just a few hours after seeing the movie; the review I wrote to accompany the release of the podcast came from a day or so later. I know my opinion had not entirely settled yet, but we had a fun, lively discussion. 

When I sat down to watch the film again two nights later, with Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon seated beside me, he asked if I missed the 20th Century Fox fanfare before the glowing green Lucasfilm logo appeared onscreen. We've spoken before about how that fanfare always gives us a ripple of excitement no matter what we're about to watch, because of the sense-memory of Star Wars. Strangely, I hadn't noticed its absence until Glen pointed it out. (There was a lot of other stuff to notice, c'mon.)

I don't think I mentioned during the toy-talk portion of the podcast that I divested myself of my entire collection of Star Wars figures — in their bust-of-Darth Vader carrying case — at yard sale sometime in the late 1980s for less than $20. My mom, I recall, was not pleased. It's not that she thought I could hold onto them and maybe pay for grad school one day; it's just that I had put my parents through a lot demanding that they track down particular figures for me. (I also demanded a talking toy car from Knight Rider, as you'll hear.) I'm sorry for that, Mom and Dad.

$149.99 at a Bed, Bath, and Beyond near you. (Disney/Lucasfilm)

Stuff I found out for this episode that you won't learn from it: Star Wars action figures each retailed for $1.49 in 1977, $1.99 in 1980, and $2.49 in 1983. There is no small sum of irony in the fact that while many of us, including me, have decried Return of the Jedi as an extended toy ad, it was only the revenue from the sales of Star Wars toys that kept that film's precursor, consensus favorite The Empire Strikes Back, afloat during its troubled production. (Chris Taylor covers all this in his fine book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe.)

Finally, I was happy to be able to pimp my tenth Christmas mixtape, which is posted for your hall-decking streaming pleasure right here.

Faking and Baking: Stage Kiss and Holiday Memories, reviewed.

They can't all be winners, not even shows from playwrights, directors, and actors whose work you often love. Round House Theatre's new production of Sarah Ruhl's Stage Kiss was a bigger disappointment to me given its pedigree than was WSC Avant Bard's Holiday Memories, but I can't say either one blew my Christmas stockings off. As ever, your mileage may vary.

No More: Oliver!, reviewed.

Jake Heston Miller is Oliver! (Margot Schulman)

It's already been three weeks since I saw Arena Stage's new production of Oliver! — Lionel Bart's beloved 1960 musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist — but for various page-cutting reasons, my review did not run in the Washington City Paper until this week's issue. Somehow I got through it without mentioning that Jeff McCarthy, who plays Fagan, was in RoboCop 2.

Gonna Fly Again: Creed, reviewed.

Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan. (Barry Wetcher)

In my NPR review of writer-director Ryan Coogler's stirring new Rocky sequel Creed, I avoid mentioning that I sorta-cried four times during this movie but only once during Inside Out. Read it here, and Happy Thanksgiving.

James-Bonding with Kempenaar & Larsen on Filmspotting No. 563

1963's From Russia with Love is still my favorite 007 flick on most days.

It's been a few years since I sat in on an episode of Filmspotting, the great Chicago-based radio show and podcast devoted to dissection of movies new and old, famous and obscure, foreign and domestic. But now I can reveal that earlier in the week, founding host Adam Kempenaar sent me a highly classified diplomatic cable inviting me to join him an regular co-host Josh Larsen for the Top Five segment of this week's SPECTRE-themed show, devoted to Favorite Bond Things. I regret only that I did not refer to Diana Rigg's character from On Her Majesty's Secret Service by her full name, Contessa Teresa Di Vincenzo.

I supposed I might also have expounded more insightfully on how the big parkour chase at the top of Casino Royale (v. 2006) isn't just one of the most fluidly choreographed, masterfully shot-and-edited action set pieces of the 21st century; it shows us plenty about the brutal, clumsy nature of this film's younger, less seasoned 007, too. Or how my favorite "Bond girl," from that same film — Eva Green's British Treasury official Vesper Lynd — is Bond's equal not only in resolve and intelligence, but ultimately in cunning. She's playing him, the same way Bond uses sexuality to manipulate women in just about every Bond adventure to follow. (And they all follow this one.) Had I mentioned the marvelous cold-open car chase from Quantum of Solace, that would've been another chance to stick up for that oft-maligned sequel. But I already did that in my S.P.E.C.T.R.E. essay in The Atlantic last week.

Listen to the episode here.