POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR: "Avatar: The Way of Water" and What's Making Us Happy

Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Zoe Saldaña, and Sam Worthington shooting one of the current or forthcoming Avatar sequels at some point between late 2017 and early 2020. (Fox)

James Cameron only releases a new feature film every dozen or so years, so you’ll forgive me if I’m excited. My Avatar: The Way of Water media blitz kicks off with a fun PCHH wherein Stephen Thompson, whom I’d incorrectly predicted would hate this movie, Reanna Cruz, and I talk through our reactions, and I plug my holiday mixtape.

Magic & Loss; Round House Theater's "The Tempest," reviewed.

Nate Dendy, Eric Hissom, and Meagan Graves in an illusion-spiked The Tempest. (Scott Suchman)

The Vegas-birthed production of The Tempest at Round House Theatre through mid-January has plenty to recommend it: jaw-dropping stage illusions, haunting Tom Waits songs, a truly beastly Caliban performed by two actors sweating in tandem. Co-adapters Aaron Posner and Teller have had to do some clear-cutting to make room for all this good stuff, but it’s a fair trade, says I, in my Washington City Paper review.

Presenting THE AIRBORNE YULETIDE EVENT!

The yulemix enters its Pierce Brosnan era with this seventeenth senses-shattering installment!

It's another paradoxically digital yule (ana)log, optimized to obfuscate and illuminate your holiday season. Each side will conveniently fit onto a one side of a 100-minute cassette. Break off those recording tabs and commence hall-decking, revelers!

A Degree Absolute! episode forty-two: "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"

It's a Y2K-pop extravaganza as Chris and Glen emerge from their unplanned and unannounced hiatus to dissect 72-year-old Patty McG's brief-but-memorable guest appearance reprising the role of Number Six for (the final eight minutes of) the Season 12 Simpsons episode "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes." Cowabunga!

The Simpsons, season 12, episode six — "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"

Written by John Swartzwelder

Directed by Mark Kirkland

Originally aired December 3, 2000

POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR: "THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN" and What's Making Us Happy

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in another Martin McDonagh joint. (Fox Searchlight)

I was happy to join Bedatri D. Choudhury and host Stephen Thompson on Pop Culture Happy Hour to talk The Banshees of Inisherin, playright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonagh’s latest feature. I was one of the few defenders of his prior film the highly divisive Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri five years ago, but I was mostly here as a stan for McDonagh’s plays, which are what Inisherin recalls far more than any of his prior movies. My reviews of some of his plays seem to have blinked out of existence, but I reviewed Constellation’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in 2015, and Keegan’s The Lonesome West and Forum’s The Pillowman, both in 2016. When we got to the What’s Making Me Happy segment, I had several good candidates, but I chose — defaulted, really — the most Irish of them. Because McDonagh.

I went with the Most Irish of my Happy candidates on today's INISHERIN-themed @pchh, but: QT's CINEMA SPECULATION, Bechdel's THE SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, & on @criterionchannl BLACULA & THE FAN*.

*scenes wherein Lauren Bacall rasps her way through Broadway rehearsals only pic.twitter.com/UHO8blcQ7D

— Chris Klimek (@ctklimek) November 4, 2022

"Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story" REVIEWED IN THE WASHINGTON POST

Reviewing Bono’s memoir for the Washington Post was a big deal for me. U2 was my first favorite band, and I remain, as I say in the piece, “wearily devout.” It’s been a few years (but only two albums) since the Paper of Record let me rank their albums! (I’d like a word with circa-2009 me about some of my decisions.)

I didn’t find space to point out that the only two living world leaders for whom The Fly has anything less than an admiring word are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Or to point out that two episodes from the author’s career — though I would not call them successes — go unmentioned entirely: U2’s 9/11 memorial performance at the 2002 Super Bowl halftime show, and Bono and The Edge’s ill-fated foray (with Julie Taymor!) into musical theatre with the Broadway flop Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Though it you want to know about that exercise, I can recommend Glen Berger’s Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History.

Anyway. My review of Bono’s memoir is here. Am I boogin’ ya I doon’t mean to boog ya.

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.