Post-Racial? Not Really. Woolly Mammoth's "Ain't No Mo'," reviewed for WCP

Shannon Matesky, Brandi Porter, Shannon Dorsey, and Breon Arzell in Jordan E. Cooper’s post-”post racial” satire. (DJ Corey/Woolly Mammoth)

“I quote [director Lil-Anne Brown] to acknowledge that, as a White person born during the Carter administration, I am by no means the primary audience for this, and that my modest critique must and shall be taken with a grain (or possibly a mine) of salt. For what it’s worth: I liked the show a lot. Cooper is a visionary writer, equal parts Jordan Peele and Tony Kushner.” That’s me on Jordan E. Cooper’s Broadway-bound satire Ain’t No Mo’ in the Washington City Paper.

StoryDistrict's 25th Anniversary Celebration

My Story District feature from the old newsprint days of WCP.

My contribution to the Washington City Paper’s Fall Arts Guide was a preview of Story District’s 25th birthday party at the Lincoln Theatre on October 2. I wrote a cover story on how the organization has grown up a million years ago back in 2017.

"M*A*S*H" at Fifty for Smithsonian

September 17 marked the 50th anniversary of the debut of M*A*S*H, a pioneering TV series that was a little before my time (says the guy who co-hosts a show about an older a much more obscure series) but which has its share of latter-day acolytes. I spoke to a couple of them for my Smithsonian piece about the show’s legacy.

"Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir" Reviewed in The Washington Post

Rolling Stone’s first issue, from December 1967.

Turns out you can’t say “starfucker” in the Paper of Record, even if you spell it “starf***er.” So I subbed in “starstruck to the point of myopia.”

There’s lots else I could say about Rolling Stone co-founder and longtime editor Jann S. Wenner’s new memoir Like a Rolling Stone, but the Washington Post kept me to 1,000 word or so. It was a genuine honor to write about this very superficial and self-serving book by a man who created a magazine I loved.

"The Outsider" at Keegan Theatre, reviewed

Michael Innocenti and Zach Brewster-Geisz are principled pols in The Outsider. (Cameron Whitman)

As satire, it’s yesterday’s news, but as farce, it works. My Washington City Paper review of Paul Slade Smith’s The Outsider at Keegan Theatre is here.

"HEAT 2" Reviewed in The Washington Post

Michael Mann’s 1995 crime epic HEAT gets a new prose sequel.

HEAT 2 is—like The Godfather, Part II—both prequel & sequel. It is also—unlike The Godfather, Part II—a novel and not a movie. One that preserves little of what made HEAT, the movie, a classic. I’m a Mann’s Man. It pains me to air my disappointment in the Paper of Record.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Bullet Train"

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brad Pitt can’t just get along. (Scott Garfield/Sony Pictures)

Bullet Train, director David Leitch’s strangers-on-a-fast-train-fight thriller, is way less diverting and way more confusing than it oughta be. Letich and Chad Stahelski made John Wick together, and Stahelski stayed on for the subsequent Wicks while his old creative partner went off to make Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, the hilariously double-ampersand-packin’ Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, and now Bullet Train. Stahelski is fairing better, I reckon. Anyway, it was fun to talk Bullet Train with Glen Weldon, Aisha Harris, and Mallory Yu.

A Degree Absolute! episode forty-one: "Brass Target" with Keith Phipps

Our guest Keith Phipps is not just a sterling critic and a dad — an essential component when we cover a movie as openly paternal as 1978’s post-WWII espionage thriller Brass Target . He is also the author of new book examining the career of a singularly idiosyncratic actor. A Degree Absolute! endorses Keith’s book Age of Cage absolutely.

And Brass Target? Well, minute-for-minute, it has the most undiluted Patty McG purity rating of any film we’ve covered save perhaps for Braveheart. It’s much harder to find but worth the hunt for those such as we. Invest in physical media, people.

Brass Target

Screenplay by Alvin Boretz, adapted from Frederick Nolan’s novel The Algonquin Project

Directed by John Hough

Released December 22, 1978

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Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek

Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark

Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark

Guitar, Percussion, Mixing by Jonathan Clark

Bass by Marcus Newstead