The Power of the "Dog Man"

Squirrels and criminals beware. (Dreamworks)

Look, I didn’t hallucinate the ALIENS and Die Hard quotes in Dog Man; they were really there. The only thing that came out of my draft of my Washington Post review was where I pointed out that the bloodless canine-human head-trade in this PG-rated movie reminded me of the cranial swap in the original 1958 version of The Fly.

Lupine Intervention: "Wolf Man," reviewed.

Julia Garner, Christopher Abbot, and Matilda Firth have a wolf problem. (Blumhouse)

Leigh Wannell’s 2020 Invisible Man was so strong that I had high hopes for his next update of a Universal Monsters classic. But his new Wolf Man is oddly toothless.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "A Complete Unknown"

Timmy as Bobby. (Fox Searchilight)

I was less than enthused when I read Timothée Chalamet would be playing Bob Dylan in a biopic set during the most widely-covered period of Dylan’s career, circa 1961-5. But I’m glad to say I was wrong! Placed within the Dylan Cinematic Extended Universe, James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is not as original as Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There or the Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis, nor is it as informative as No Direction Home, the 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary that covered this same Dylan era — and takes its title from the lyric that immediately precedes “a complete unknown” in “Like a Rolling Stone.” (I actually like the way this suggests Mangold’s dramatization of the same era as a companion piece to Marty’s fact-based account.)

I was glad to sing the praises of the new movie alongside Stephen Thompson and Bedatri D. Choudhury on today’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein I also sneak in my traditional plug for my latest Christmas mixtape.

Girlfight the Power: "The Fire Inside," reviewed.

Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry as Claressa Shields and Jason Crutchfield. (MGM/Amazon)

If you don’t wanna take your folks or your grandma or your kids to Nosferatu (it’s good!) or Babygirl (haven’t seen it yet), and you want something more uplifting than A Complete Unknown (it’s good!), I endorse the boxing biopici. My Washington Post review is here.

Ninety-Six Puppeteers: "Life of Pi," reviewed.

Understandably the Paper of Record did not use my suggesed hed, —Ninety-Six Puppeteers — but my review of the touring production of the stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning 2001 novel Life of Pi at the Kennedy Center through the holidays is in The Washington Post.

Presenting "Christmas to Christmas," my XIXth annual yulemix.

In the assembly of each yulemix, I reach a point where I realize it’s time to stop. This year it was when I was about to put in the lady yelling “JUDAS!” at Dylan in response to a Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog joke. CHRISTMAS TO CHRISTMAS, the Charli XIXth installment, hath dropped!

ctklimek · CHRISTMAS TO CHRISTMAS—Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XIX: Kid Santa Claus, or Project Dec. 2025

I managed to make on in 2016, and I managed to make one this year. Turn up! Those halls ain’t gonna deck themselves.

Something Wicked This Way Comes: "All the Devils Are Here," reviewed.

Creator/performer Patrick Page dances with the devils. (Julieta Cervantes)

I missed the by-all-accounts-world-beating King Lear that Patrick Page headlined for the Shakespeare Theatre Company last year, as press night was the night before my knee surgery. But I was happy to review his masterclass in skullduggery All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain for the Paper of Record.

After the Tornado: Talking with Gillian Welch for WaPo

David Rawlings and Gillian Welch (Alysse Gafkjen)

I spoke with the great Gillian Welch about one of my favorite subjects — setlist-making — and about how she and David Rawlings put a (great) song called "Hashtag" on a (great) album otherwise populated by (great) tunes with titles like "Lawman," "Turf the Gambler," and "Howdy Howdy." For The Washington Post.