contact us

Use the form on the right to contact us.

You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.​

         

123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999

(123) 555-6789

email@address.com

 

You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.
Link to read me page with more information.

Adirondack---More-Rides.jpg

Latest Work

search for me

Carl Weathers: Always the Best Man, Never the Groom

Chris Klimek

He got name-above-title on the poster, but not in the opening credits.

I had a swell time working once again with one my former Washington City Paper editors, Jon Fischer, over the weekend in his new role as WaPo’s arts editor in this piece that it only occurred to me to pitch as I was out for a run Friday evening, just a couple of hours of learning of Carl Weathers’ death.

Alt lede:

A long time ago in a century far, far away, before Liam Neeson turned AARP-eligible throat-punching into its own thriving genre, it was unusual for action movies to be released in the winter. But that was where the long-defunct Lorimar Motion Pictures chose to dump “Action Jackson” in February of 1988 — just under a year after the release of “Lethal Weapon,” seven months after “Predator,” five months before “Die Hard.” Each of those better-remembered, franchise-launching shoot-’em-ups were, like “Action Jackson,” produced (or coproduced) by Joel Silver, and each one features memorable moments from actors who were perhaps not quite famous enough even to be called character actors, but who also show up in “Action Jackson.” If you’ve a yen for hypermasculine Reagan-era bloodbaths, you’ll know their faces, if not their names: Robert Davi. Bill Duke. Mary Ellen Trainor. Ed O’Ross. The unofficial Joel Silver Players.


The exception, of course, was Jericho “Action” Jackson himself, Carl Weathers.

Larson's THX-1138: "tick... tick... BOOM!"

Chris Klimek

Brandon Uranowitz in tick… tick… BOOM! (Teresa Castracane)

With chief theatre critic Peter Marks having abdicated, the Paper of Record looks to its loyal cadre of contributors to fill the void, at least for now. My review of the Kennedy Center’s new Neil Patrick Harris-directed tick… tick… BOOM!, an expansion of the 2001 three hander musical that was already upscaled from the “rock monologue” Jonathan Larson performed as a solo piece before creating RENT, is here.

It was my editor’s suggestion to move a comment I had calling this piece Larson’s THX-1138 up into the lede. It struck me that Superbia, the never-finished dystopian future-set musical that Larson laments he’s been working on for five years in tick…, sounds quite similar to the experimental film George Lucas made before finding fame with American Graffiti and Star Wars. Equally forbidding, equally uncommercial.

"Masters of the Air," recapped.

Chris Klimek

Callum Turner, Austin Butler, and a B-17. (Apple TV+)

With seven years as an editor for Air & Space / Smithsonian, may it rest in power, under my belt, I was the only man for the job of telling you which real American historical figures are played by real English and Irish actors. My Vulture recaps of Masters of the Air, showrunner John Orloff’s long-delayed Apple TV+ adaptation of Donald L. Miller’s nonfiction history book, are here.

The Elf-Man and the Bat-Man

Chris Klimek

Wherein a reflection on the 1989 film Batman and composer Danny Elfman’s substantial contribution thereunto belatedly attempts to reckon with two sexual assault claims filed against him. I don’t think Elfman is an ideal subject through which to continue the eternal can-one-separate-the-art-from-the-artist debate for many reasons, but I was asked to reframe the piece that way. I hope that some of what was initially fun about it survives.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Ferrari"

Chris Klimek

Two-hander* PCHH episodes are somewhat rare, but I was glad to be able to take part in one with pal Linda Holmes about Michael Mann’s new biopic Ferrari. That it was just the two of us allowed for some discussion of how the movie fits into the 80-year-old auteur’s filmography that we might not have gotten to with a larger panel.

Other critics who on the whole love Mann’s work as much as I do have taken more from this picture than I did. As you’ll hear, I found it to be surprisingly staid and conventional, coming from the guy who’s only other biopic was Ali, 22 years ago, and whose prior feature — almost nine years ago! — was Blackhat, a little-seen thriller that was at least as exciting as it was disjointed. In my City Paper review, I called Ferrari “a sensible sedan of a movie,” which I think fits. Good movie, but I don’t think it’s even as exceptional as Ali, never mind Heat or The Insider or Thief. As always, I’m open to revising my opinion upward upon a second viewing.

*I still don’t get why two-actor plays are called “two-handers” instead of “four-handers.”