Gay for Play: La Cage Aux Folles, reviewed.

Brent Barrett surrounded by Les Cagelles (Signature).

My review of Signature Theatre's robust revival of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein's beloved Reagan-era musical farce La Cage Aux Folles is in this week's Washington City Paper. I like the show, but I don't like my review as much as the one I wrote of the Goodspeed Opera House's production about a year ago, as part of my coursework for the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center's National Critics Institute. Which is odd, because I remember thinking I was producing mostly unpublishable copy while I was there. I've never been a fast writer. Most days we had copy due at 8:30 or 9 a.m. about the show we'd seen the night before. Anyway, the Critic Class of 2016 starts their two-week term on Saturday. Good luck, you guys. I envy you, sort of — just not your early-a.m. deadlines or your accommodations or your on-campus meals. 

Actually, the coffee was pretty decent. I drank a lot of it, at any rate.

ID4ever: Independence Day: Resurgence, reviewed.

Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman showed up for the 20-years-later sequel to Independence Day.

The barely-screened-for critics Independence Day: Resurgence is not by any stretch a good movie, but neither was Independence Day, a film I saw at least twice and possibly three times during the grim summer of 1996. I'd even go so far as to say I enjoyed this barely-coherent follow-up a little more. Here's my alien autopsy, for the Village Voice.

You might also enjoy the War of 1996 website, a neato but apparently unsuccessful marketing tool for the movie. It offers a fictional timeline of the last two decades in the Independence Day-iverse, a couple of primitive but weirdly addictive games, an invitation to volunteer for the Earth Defense Force, and of course, information on real U.S. Army careers that might be right for you.

This Time It's Personal Again: The Shallows, reviewed.

Blake Lively v. Shark.

My NPR review of The Shallows, a Blake Lively-versus-sharks movie from Non-Stop and Run All Night director Jaume Collet-Serra, arrives just when it is needed. I am sorry I did not name the cinematographer in this review of a film about a woman trying to avoid becoming a shark's meal, because the cinematographer's name is Flavio Labiano. 

While I'm being crude, Iet me point out that Collet-Serra cuts directly from a shot of Lively reading a text message from her friend that says meeting up with that cute guy from last night; don't wait up for me to a shot of crabs scurrying along the beach.

Law and Border: District Merchants and El Paso Blue, reviewed.

Seth Rue, Dani Stoller, William Vaughn, and Maren Bush in District Merchants. (Teresa Wood)

Andrés Talero, Lawrence Redmond, and Verónica del Cerro in El Paso Blue. (Stan Weinstein)

District Merchants, Aaron Posner's new Reconstruction-era DC gloss on The Merchant of Venice for the Folger Theatre, is an intriguing muddle; GALA Hispanic Theatre's production of Octavio Solis' El Paso Blue is a surrealist hoot. Both reviews appear in this week's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are still hanging on.

Spy School Confidential: Central Intelligence, reviewed.

Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson (Claire Folger/Warner Bros.)

My NPR review of the not-great-but-plenty-good-enough-for-the-drive-in comedy that I keep thinking is called National Security but is in fact being released under the equally bland title Central Intelligence is up now.  You are alerted.

Bonfire of the Vanitas: De Palma, reviewed.

1987's The Untouchables exhibits director Brian De Palma's dazzling skill, but not his (or screenwriter David Mamet's) obsessions. It's probably the least challenging film he's made, but I love it still. (Paramount)

For NPR, I reviewed Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow's documentary De Palma, wherein the man behind Carrie and Dressed to Kill and The Untouchables and about three dozen other features walks us through his long, idiosyncratic career. This film won't change anyone's mind about the guy, but it's a candid, briskly edited retrospective. I enjoyed it.

The Man Trap: STC's The Taming of the Shrew and Mosaic Theatre's When January Feels Like Summer, reviewed.

Maulik Pancholy as Katherina and Peter Gadiot as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. (Scott Suchman)

The cast and audience at the intermezzo of The Taming of the Shrew. (Scott Suchman)

Rick Hammerly as the Contessa, Peter Gadiot as Petruchio, Maulik Pancholy as Katherina, and Oliver Thornton as Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. (Scott Suchman) 

Lynette Rathnam and Jason B. McIntosh in When January Feels Like Summer. (Stan Barouh)

Vaughn Ryan Midder and Jeremy Keith Hunter in When January Feels Like Summer. (Stan Barouh)

Shravan Amin and Jeremy Keith Hunter in When January Feels Like Summer. (Stan Barouh)

Directors have reckoned with the misogyny of The Taming of the Shrew in many ways. Ed Sylvanus Iskandar's fix — cast only men, and let the female characters express themselves via covers of old songs from Duncan Sheik, a man — is at least, and most, strange. I review Iskandar's perplexing boys-only Shakespeare Theatre Company Shrew in today's Washington City Paper.

Also reviewed: Mosaic Theatre of DC's When January Feels Like Summer, a shaky play featuring a rock-steady cast. Jeremy Keith Hunter apparently had a small role in Studio Theatre's Chimerica, a show I loved last year, but I don't remember him from that. He's brilliant in January, though.