Mouth Almighty: I Am Ali, reviewed.

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Neil Leifer's iconic photograph captured the aftermath of the controversial "phantom punch" with which Ali felled Sonny Liston for the second and final time, in 1965. 

Muhammad Ali is already the subject of many, many fine books and films. The distinguishing feature of the new documentary I Am Ali, which I reviewed for NPR today, is that filmmaker Clare Lewins was given permission to use never-before-released private tapes that Ali made of his conversations with his daughters and close confidants for his own enjoyment.

As someone who has listened to all 537 episodes of This American Life, many of them more than once and some of them more than twice, and who has annoyed my parents, brother, friends, and girlfriends by recording lengthy interviews with them on various occasions, this approach strikes a chord with me. The recorded voice of someone speaking to one other person will always feel more intimate than a close-up photograph ever could – to me, at least.The excerpts Lewins uses mostly date from the late 70s, by which time Ali, having reached his mid-30s, had slowed down and was getting hit more than he ever had in his twenties. He also started to exhibit symptoms of the Parkinson’s syndrome with which he would finally be diagnosed in 1984.

With so much strong Ali scholarship in the world already, I Am Ali can muster only slight contributions to the canon, but it’s a well-made and inspiring tribute to The Greatest if you're looking for an all-in-one Ali doc. Like I said in my review, the best Ali documentaries have tended to zoom in on a single fight or era of his life. What I happened to learn from this one is how Ali came to pose as St. Sebastian for the April 1968 issue of Esquire. 

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Muhammad Ali had to get Elijah Muhammad's permission to "dress up" as a Christian for this photo shoot.

Where the Wild Things Are: Synetic's The Island of Dr. Moreau, reviewed.

ICE to see you! The inhabitants of The Island of Dr. Moreau (Johnny Shryock)

This acrobatic Moreau is a rich sensual experience, one that deflates at the end but not before it has vividly dramatized Wells’s big question: Is physical suffering at best irrelevant and at worst necessary? Can we evolve by teaching ourselves to ignore it? By way of demonstrating his answer, Moreau takes a glinting blade and slices a red trail through his own forearm, ignoring the pain like he’s Peter O’Toole playing Lawrence of Arabia, or Gordon Liddy playing himself, or Gary Busey playing Mr. Joshua. (In Lethal Weapon, duh. Read a book, why don't you.) We always hurt the ones we’re forcibly trying to improve.

My review of Synetic Theater's new adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau is in today's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away for free.

Its cover feature is "The DC Manual of Style and Usage," the handy and hilarious brainchild of my editor, Jonathan L. Fischer, who announced this week that he's leaving his post as the Washington City Paper's managing editor to become a senior editor at Slate. He's a meticulous, imaginative, patient editor who always smartened-up my copy, and a genius at punny headlines and captions. (Here's just one example.) I look forward to working for him again.

WaPo book review: Easy Street (The Hard Way)

My review of Ron Perlman's autobiography Easy Street (The Hard Way) is in the Arts/Style section of this Sunday's Washington Post. But you can read it now. 

Perlman's frequent deployment of the phrase, "Any muthafucka but this muthafucka!" really endeared him to me. I've always liked him as an actor, though. I watched Beauty and the Beast when I was a kid because I had a crush on Linda Hamilton stemming from The Terminator, of course.

Drive Harder, John Cusack

John Cusack and Thomas Jane are both slumming in the low-budget chase flick Drive Hard.

My review of Drive Hard, an ultra-low-budget Australian chase flick that is every bit as inspired as its name, is up today at The Dissolve. Come back to us, John Cusack.

All Men Are Not Created Equalizer

Nighthawks at the Diner: Denzel Washington & Chloe Moretz in The Equalizer.

"A man can be an artist at anything," Christopher Walken said in Man on Fire, speaking of Denzel Washington's burnt-out assassin character, Joyhn (!) Creasy. "Creasy's art is death. He's about to paint his masterpiece."

Ten years later, Washington is playing another regret-haunted killer who returns to the warpath when a young girl to whom he feels a protective attachment is hurt. But the regret-haunted killer he plays in The Equalizer is a more personable and approachable guy, one who drinks special tea instead of booze. Are you not entertained? My NPR review is here.

Wig Time: Marie Antoinette, reviewed.

 Gavin Lawrence and Kimberly Gilbert in Marie Antoinette

My review of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's production of David Adjmi's Marie Antoinette, starring the great Kimberly Gilbert, is in today's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away for free.

Risible Business: Believe Me, reviewed.

Alex Russell summons his best Young Tom Cruise in Believe Me. So does everyone else.

I reviewed cowriter/director Will Bakke's uneven phony-evangelicals comedy Believe Me for The Dissolve. 

WaPo book review: Without Frontiers: The Life and Music of Peter Gabriel

I was pleased when Ron Charles, the Washington Post's book critic and one the Style section's very best writers, reached out to ask if I'd like to review a trio of upcoming auto/biographies -- that's two autobios, one bio -- by artists. The first of those, in RE: Daryl Easlea's new biography of prog-rock provocateur-turned-adult-rock-minimalist Peter Gabriel, is the Sunday Arts section and online now.

Writing it last weekend inspired me to play some Gabriel albums for the first time in many, many years. Easlea repeats the conventional wisdom about how Gabriel's last album to have any notable chart impact, 1992's Us, was the denser, more difficult follow-up to his five-million-selling So. I loved Us when I was in high school, which gives you a hint what kind of 16-year-old I was. Most of it still sounds good to me.