Boldly Gone: Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of Star Trek at 50, and Gene Roddenberry and fandom, for Rolling Stone

Leonard Nimoy's unflappable Mr. Spock communes with the Horta in "Devil in the Dark," from 1967. (CBS Consumer Products / Star Trek Archive)

I basically got into journalism because I wanted to write for Rolling Stone. That took longer to happen than I'd hoped it might, but it was a real thrill to get to do this piece for them yesterday, reflecting on What Star Trek Hath Wrought the occasion of the franchise's 50th anniversary.

Last night, the National Air and Space Museum showed "The Man Trap," the first Trek episode broadcast (albeit not the first one produced), at 8:30 p.m. Eastern — the same time NBC had shown it 50 years earlier. It's a really fun episode that demonstrates that the rich character relationships were present in the Original Series right from the beginning, and that most of the comedy in Trek was fully intentional. (Also that what was progressive in 1966 is decidedly not in 2016. But that's how progress works.)

Thanks to Scott Tobias for suggesting me for it, and to David Fear for editing the essay. 

Everybody Ben-Hurts: Wherein I answer all your questions about the new (fourth) big-screen adaption of the 19th century novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ except "Why?"

Jack Huston, who is descended from showbiz royalty but in no way related to Keanu Reeves, and Toby Kebbell in the fourth movie version of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur.

Here's is the sort of sterling-quality joke that got whittled from what started out as a straight-up review of the new, Timur Bekmambetov-directed adaptation of Ben-Hur, but quickly turned into this.

EDITOR: Agreed. So they got an actor of Middle Eastern descent?

KLIMEK: They got a guy from Memphis.

EDITOR: You mean Memphis, Egypt?

KLIMEK: I do not. His name is Morgan Freeman.

EDITOR: I have heard of him.

KLIMEK: He has been in some other movies.

You can't blame me for digging in to the little differences between new and old, especially in light of the fact that Ben-Hur '59 is a venerable classic that I first saw when I was whatever age I was last Saturday night.

1959: BEN-HUR, from the director of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.

2016: BEN-HUR, from the director of ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER.

— Chris Klimek (@ctklimek) August 8, 2016

All that (Inventor of) Jazz: Jelly's Last Jam and The Lonesome West, reviewed.

Jelly's Last Jam, a celebrated but rarely-revived musical biography of seminal jazz artist Jelly Roll Morton.

My reviews of Signature Theatre's new production of George C. Wolfe and Susan Brikenhead's early-90s Jelly Roll Morton bio-musical Jelly's Last Jam, and Keegan Theatre's production of Martin McDonagh's late-90s black comedy The Lonesome West, are in today's Washington City Paper.  Notice is served.

Be Brief, I See into Thy End: Fear, reviewed.

Vince Eisenson, Matthew Alan Ward, Seamus Miller, and Amal Saade in Fear.

I had the good fortune to interview Star Trek's resident alien linguist Marc Okrand this week, for a video that'll posting next week as part of Air & Space / Smithsonian's coverage of Trek's 50th birthday. I met Marc through his involvement in DC theatre. After the shoot, we got some coffee and talked about—well, okay, yes, about his work on various Trek movies mostly, again, some more. But we also discussed how much we both enjoyed writer/director Kathleen Akerley's ambitious new play FEAR, which I review in this week's Washington City Paper.

For evidence of just how pear-shaped the genre of plays-about-playmaking can go, consider Jackie Sibbles Drury’s unaccountably popular We Are Proud to Present…, a story about a half-dozen actors working to “devise” a play about a historic tragedy of which they know nothing. Though it’s meant to look improvised, it’s fully scripted, and the it's the single worst play I’ve ever seen in my professional or biological life. Akerley's play needs a revision, but it ducks the self-absorption that makes Drury's so, so insufferable.

Texas Holds 'Em: Hell or High Water, reviewed.

Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham as a pair of Texas Rangers. (CBS Films)

After what feels like a streak of mediocre-to-awful summer blockbusters (Star Trek Beyond excepted), David Mackenzie's thoughtful, attentive crime drama Hell or High Water is a relief. My NPR review is here.

Self-Inflicted Wound: Suicide Squad, reviewed.

"I loved you in that movie Focus." Will Smith and Margot Robbie. (Clay Enos/Warner Bros.)

I was genuinely curious about Suicide Squad, because I admire many of writer-director David Ayer's films, and because I like the sturdy bad-guys-on-a-dangerous-mission premise in general. (I finally saw William Friedkin's 1977 thriller Sorcerer a few months ago, and I loved it.) But Suicide Squad is at least as awful as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and probably would've been lousy even if a panicked studio hadn't commissioned an edit from a company that specializes in trailers. Anyway, I performed an autopsy for NPR.

While can't endorse the movie, I strongly endorse my friend Neda Ulaby's All Things Considered piece about Kim Yale, who co-wrote many issues of the late-80s Suicide Squad comic with her husband, John Ostrander. He gets shouted out in the movie in the form of a sign for the "John F. Ostrander Federal Building," but Yale does not. I'm glad Neda stepped in to correct the record.