Lost in Space: Passengers, reviewed.

Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence in Passengers, a miscast and misbegotten fairy tale in space.

I had hopes for Passengers, from Prometheus writer Jon Spaihts and The Imitation Game director Morten Tyldum, because I root for science fiction films in general and because I've just edited a story for Air & Space/Smithsonian about research into human hibernation for long-term spaceflights, which is key to the premise of this movie. But its billion-dollar ideas are undermined by its five-cent guts, as I aver in my NPR review. Bummer.

The Yule Prologue: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, reviewed.

Felicity Jones and Diego Luna lead a small team of rebel guerillas in Rogue One.

My NPR review of what is probably the second-most-review-proof movie of the year after Captain America: Civil War (which I reviewed) is here.

We'll Always Have Casablanca: Allied, reviewed.

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as glamorous spies in Allied. (Paramount)

Here's my review of Robert Zemeckis' high-tech-but-old-fashioned WWII espionage thriller Allied. It's meant to evoke a genre that includes great films like Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious or Carol Reed's The Third Man. Or lesser Graham Greene works, like this one.

Pop Culture Happy Hour No. 322: Arrival and Seratonin-Boosting Pop Culture

Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams, humans.

I was delighted as always to join my friends Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Jessica Reedy for this week's badly-needed Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein no one mentions politics at all because that's not how we do on this show. Here's the episode.

The name the lazy file-clerk in my brain was trying to retrieve while Stephen was talking about how much he loves the Anthrax & Public Enemy version of Public Enemy's jam "Bring the Noise" was Clyde Stubblefield: Clyde is the link between Stephen's picks and mine, because he was James Brown's drummer at Brown's late-60s-to-mid-70s peak. That drums sample you hear at the end of "Bring the Noise" — probably the most-sampled ever — is Stubblefield's, originally recorded for Brown's "Funky Drummer" in 1970.

Halo, Goodbye: Bleed for This, reviewed.

Here's my NPR review of Bleed for This, writer-director Ben Younger's new biopic about super middleweight champion Vinny Paz's unlikely-but-true comeback from a massive injury. Not essential, but not bad. 

Desert Heat: Lazy Eye, reviewed.

Lucas Near-Verbrugghe and Aaron Costa Ganis in Tim Kirkman's Lazy Eye.

I wrote this review of writer-director Tim Kirkman's romantic drama Lazy Eye the day after the election. It's not a pan, but I think I owe Kirkman that disclaimer anyway. It was difficult to focus on a movie that day, especially one about gay people made by a gay person. The world just got a lot more frightening—a little more for LGBT folk than for straight folk like me, but only a little.

Doctor Strange, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Review Movies on the Radio

Tilda Swinton and Benedict Cumberbatch in Dr. Strange (Marvel).

Something new for me: Reviewing movies on the radio. Here's my Weekend Edition Sunday assessment of Doctor Strange, wherein Marvel hands the role of brilliant, arrogant, goateed rich-guy Avenger from Robert Downey, Jr., the most recent movie Sherlock Holmes, to Benedict Cumberbatch to the most recent TV Sherlock Holmes.