Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Year With Which We're Still Making Contact, or We Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts But It Would Be Better If We Were

The ghostbustin' Class of 2016.

With the release of a new iteration of Ghostbusters — Sequel? Reboot? Don't know; the DC screening conflicted with the first session of the new Boxing Fundamentals class I'm teaching at Y — every single one of 1984's ten highest-grossing films has either been sequeled or remade. I believe '84 is the only year for which this is the case. In terms of what ruled the box office, it resembled 2014 a lot more than it did '83 or '85. Because I enjoy staring at box office charts, apparently, I wrote about this discovery for NPR Monkey See.

When the Legend Becomes Fact: Tarzan, reviewed.

Samuel L. Jackson as real-life Renaissance man George Washington Williams, with Alexander Skarsgård as fictional he-man Tarzan. (Jonathan Olley)

For NPR, I wrestled with the 201st (give or take) iteration of The Legend of Tarzan, a movie wherein in the Uncanny Valley is often represented by a valley. 

Dealer's Choice: The Trump Card, reviewed.

Mike Daisey performs The Last Cargo Cult at Woolly Mammoth in 2010 (Stan Barouh).

This took a few days longer to appear than it should've, for boring reasons only partly within my control. Anyway, last Friday I attended a workshop of a new monologue by Mike Daisey — an artist I've written a lot over the last six or seven years. I didn't find room in the piece to mention that the monologue was directed by Isaac Butler, who has been doing some terrific writing on the theatre for Slate. The oral history of Angels and America that he and my sometimes-editor Dan Kois posted this week is marvelous piece of historical journalism. Anyway, my Washington City Paper review of the still-developing The Trump Card is (finally) here.

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.