Summer of '82: "The Future Was Now," reviewed.

Walter Koenig and Paul Winfield on the set of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, part of the genre Class of ‘82.

If you’re a certain kind of cinephile, you probably know a few things with the rote force of scripture: That Conan — the barbarian, not the talk show host — philosophized about what is best in life. That E.T. phoned home. That Spock sacrificed himself to save the crew of the starship Enterprise. That patricidal “replicant” Roy Batty, in the final moments of his own brief life, eulogized his vanishing memories as “tears in rain.”

My Washington Post review of Chris Nashawaty’s The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982 is here.

A Cosmic Odyssey in a Honda Odyssey: "Deadpool & Wolverine," reviewed.

Ryan Reynolds, probably, and Hugh Jackman, almost certainly, as/in Deadpool & Wolverine. (Disney)

“You might not care about the canary-colored onesie. You might not be swayed by the fact the film’s multiversal milieu empowers Reynolds, director and cowriter Shawn Levy, and their collaborators not only to resurrect long-dormant Marvel heroes like [REDACTED], but to corral stars whose long-rumored superhero turns never happened such as [REDACTED], and even coax a walk-on from [REDACTED] who in a surprise twist, plays [REDACTED] instead of [REDACTED]. If you care about precisely none of that, you might still find this thing a worthy diversion, just for the light-speed potty-mouthed quips. Surely no film from within the Disney megalith has ever given us so many euphemisms for masturbation—or so many jokes about Honda Odyssey minivans.

“Me? I’m just here for Jackman.”

My incredibly consequential Washington City Paper review of Deadpool & Wolverine is here.

Not a Chuckle Less: "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA," reviewed.

Clown-as-life-coach Julia Masli. (Cameron Whitman))

On HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, a clown show that was one of the most popular attractions at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, now at Woolly Mammoth for a short run.

Kate Versus the Tornadoes: "Twisters," reviewed.

Daisy Edgar-Jones snd Glen Powell are just a couple of crazy, stormchasin’ kids in Twisters. (Universal)

Twisters feels like the accretion of several alarming trends: the acceleration of the climate emergency; the rapidity with which indie auteurs get sucked up into franchise world (Minari writer-director Lee Isaac Chung, in this instance); and the coronation of Glen Powell.

Okay, that last one isn’t so bad.

My Washington City Paper Twisters review is here. And my 2017 NPR remembrance of Twister star Bill Paxton, may he rest in peace, is here.

"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.