"Fly Me to the Moon" and the Persistence of Lunar Lunacy

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum meet cute en route to the Moon.

Fly Me to the Moon is an ahistorical comedy about the selling (and near selling-out) of the Apollo program. I spoke to my National Air and Space Museum curator friend Margaret A. Weitekamp about it, and to NASA Chief Historian Brian Odom, for this Smithsonian piece about why some people just won’t accept that America went to the Moon.

'Bot Seriously: "Sunny," recapped.

I’m staying in the scary sci-fi realm for my next Vulture recapping gig, though Sunny — Katie Robbins’s ten-part Apple TV+ adaptation of Colin O’Sullivan’s 2018 novel The Dark Manual — is a lot funnier than Dark Matter was. If you love Rashida Jones (and who doesn’t?) and neurotic droids (ditto), you can find ‘em in abundance right the hell here.

A Contradictory Tapestry: "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical," reviewed.

Natalie Weiss as Carole King in Olney’s Beautiful. (Teresa Castracane)

The paradox of building a musical around the fact that Carole King was much more comfortable writing songs than performing them publicly for the first dozen-plus years of her remarkable career is that it requires you to find a Broadway belter who can sell the idea that she's shy.

For me, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical never figures out how to square that circle, but it's clear from what a monster the show has been that audiences do not agree! And those ancient-but-ageless King/Goffin hits, like those ancient-but-ageless Weil/Mann hits, are undeniable. My review of Olney’s new production is in the Paper of Record.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "A Quiet Place: Day One"

Lupita Nyong'o is trying to die on her own terms in Michael Sarnoski’s A Quiet Place prequel.

Shhhh! I’m on PCHH today dissecting PIG auteur Michael Sarnoski’s A Quiet Place: Day One with Aisha Harris and Kirsten Meinzer. Aisha mentioned Thomasina, with no prompting from me, so you can also go find our A Degree Absolute! episode on that 60s Disney curiosity here.

Two-Lane Blacktop: "The Bikeriders," reviewed.

Tom Hardy and Austin Butler as a couple of Vandals. (Kyle Kaplan/Focus Features)

“Comer’s Chicagoland accent is dead-solid perfect. Hardy, as is his wont, has affected a vocal timbre native to no place on this planet; Butler is still playing Elvis.”

My Washington City Paper review of Jeff Nichols’ great-looking-if-somewhat-underfed latest, The Bikeriders, is here.

Best in Show: Round House's "Topdog / Underdog," reviewed.

Ro Boddie and Yao Dogbe as Lincoln and Booth. (Margot Schulman)

My review of Round House’s Topdog/Underdog, a sublime production of the 2001 psychodrama that made Suzan-Lori Parks the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, is up at the Washington Post. A couple of months back I had a day where I went directly from interviewing Ms. Parks for this Smithsonian piece into a Pop Culture Happy Hour recording session wherein we discussed Doug Liman’s Jake Gyllenhaal-headlined remake of Road House. Like Dalton, Road House ‘89’s inexplicably famous “cooler,” I contain multitudes.

Burning Chrome: "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," reviewed.

Drive-By Truckers: Tom Burke and Anya Taylor-Joy in Furiosa. (Warner Bros. / Jasin Boland)

Picaresque in form and Biblical in its savagery, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the first entry in the five-film Max-iad that unfolds over years instead of days. A revenge flick about the futility of revenge, it sticks the landing, and then binds itself too tightly to that movie we all loved 9 (!) years ago in its closing moments. But it’s still a marvel.

My full Washington City Paper review is here.

America's Ass: "There Was Nothing You Could Do," reviewed.

The about-to-turn-40-year-old blockbuster album that came wrapped in an Annie Leibovitz closeup of the Boss-terior isn’t any true Bruuuuuuuce fan’s favorite, but it was a cultural landmark all the same. I reviewed Steven Hyden’s new Born in the U.S.A. reflection There Was Nothing You Could Do for the Paper of Record.