Pop Culture Happy Hour #230: Jupiter Ascending and Chemistry

Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis in Jupiter Ascending (Murray Close/Warner Bros.)

I was happy as always to join my buddies Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, and Glen Weldon on this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein we dissect Jupiter Ascending, the "original" sci-fi epic from auteur siblings Lana and Andy Wachowski from which audiences flocked away in droves last weekend. (I reviewed the film for The Dissolve.) We also try to figure out what people mean when they talk about "chemistry" among performers onscreen.

As always, I thought of more stuff I could've mentioned after we taped. I must disagree with my Pal-for-Life Glen we he praises Jupiter Ascending as being light on exposition, wherein stuff is "asserted, not explained," but I do believe in leaving some stuff on the table vis-a-vis world building.

One of the consequences of having sequels and prequels and reboots to almost everything now is that it's very difficult to sustain any sense of wonder or mystery. (We really didn't want to know about the Midichlorians, did we?) But the Matrix spinoff The Animatrix – shorts written and directed by animators handpicked by the Wachowskis – builds out the world of The Matrix much more satisfyingly than its own feature sequels do. These shorts are on DVD; they were released online for free in the run-up to the release of The Matrix Reloaded in May 2003, and you can still watch four of them gratis – including the best one, Mahiro Maeda's "The Second Renaissance."

For our chemistry experiment, I brought in a few more clips than we could use. This is an inexhaustible topic, but these are the ones I thought I might have something to say about on this particular day.

William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick & Nora Charles in 1934's The Thin Man and its five sequels. File under: Chemistry, romantic and spousal.

Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg as Steed & Mrs. Peel, from The Avengers, circa 1965-7. The show ran from '61 to '69, giving MacNee a succession of partners during that span, but the Rigg Era seems to be the most fondly remembered. It's certainly my favorite. File under Chemistry, Professional and Sexual.

And of course, the Riggs & Murtaugh of film criticism, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. File under Chemistry, Professional and Adversarial.

Finally, I can't believe I misidentified my own Justified viewing club, The Justified League of America, as the Justified Society of America. We're Silver Age, not Golden Age. Chalk it up to nerves.

The Feminine Critique: Rapture, Blister, Burn, reviewed.

Maggie Erwin & Michelle Six represent two different generations (Danisha Crosby/Round House).

When I saw Round House Theatre's production of Becky Shaw two years ago, I found in Gina Gionfriddo a playwright whose humor and unpredictability made me want to read everything she'd written. I got the scripts for After Ashley and U.S. Drag, and I read them both during the same flight. My review of Round House's new production of her latest – 2012's Rapture, Blister, Burn – is in today's Washington City Paper.

American-Chinese-Canadian Bacon: Outcast, reviewed.

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“You’re not the man you once were,” says the star of Star Wars II and III, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

“None of us are,” growls the Oscar winner for Leaving Las Vegas.

My review of Outcast is up at The Dissolve.

Gas Giant: Jupiter Ascending, reviewed.

The rocket-boots (and the wolf DNA) make the man. Channing Tatum & Mila Kunis (Warner Bros.)

Sorry, you guys: Jupiter Ascending, the Wachowskis' latest sci-fi epic, is neither the trainwreck you want nor the home run you need. My review, for The Dissolve.

There're Two Things About Mary: The Widow Lincoln and Mary Stuart, reviewed.

Mary Bacon & Caroline Clay as Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley in The Widow Lincoln.

My reviews of The Widow Lincoln, a world premiere play from writer James Still at Ford's Theatre, and of the Folger Theatre's new production of Mary Stuart, are in tomorrow's Washington City Paper, and also right here.

FURTHER READING: My review of Still's prior Lincoln play for Ford's, The Heavens Are Hung in Black, from 2009. And my 2010 review of WSC Avant Bard's Mary Stuart.

The Best Movies of the Half-Decade, 2010-4: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori as Gustave and Moustafa.

And here're Nos. 25-1 on the poll of the best films of 2010-4, as chosen by The Dissolve's staff and contributors. I wrote the entry for The Grand Budapest Hotel. As with every Wes Anderson movie save for The Darjeeling Limited, I've loved it more each time I've seen it. 

The Best Movies of the Half-Decade, 2010-2014: Inherent Vice

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The Dissolve invited a bunch of its contributors to join its staff in selected the 50 best films made so far this decade. I ran out of time to submit my ballot, but I still did writeups for a couple of the winning films that I agreed belonged in the half-decade's top 50. The first half of the list – or the bottom half – was posted today. The one I wrote up for this part, Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, came in at No. 48.