Chris Klimek

A narrative spoiler in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

The Four Types of Spoilers and How Reviewers Should Handle Them

Recently, Anne Washburn's astonishing Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play wrapped up a sold-out run at Playwrights Horizons in New York. I saw the show's world premiere in June 2012 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., where I write about theater. It was one of the most imaginative and......
Pacific Rim

Pleasure in the Rubble: Why the Summer's Last, Smallest Blockbuster Was Its Best

We'll always have Iron Man, they must be telling each other in Hollywood. As summer wanes, the hulking corpses of would-be blockbusters litter the home-video distribution channels like fallen kaiju from Guillermo Del Toro's giant-'bots-vs.-giant-beasts movie Pacific Rim, the most enjoyable of 2013's many urban-renewing summer blockbusters. In Del Toro's......

Simon Killer Is a Hypnotic Angry Young Man Thriller

"The meek shall inherit the Earth," somebody said once — probably Truffaut. Two pictures into his thrilling career, writer-director Antonio Campos seems determined to show us that might not be anything to celebrate. Campos' feature debut, 2008's Afterschool, was essentially one part Blow Up to three parts Rushmore-as–psychological horror flick......