By the time Liam Neeson growls, "I didn't forget everything! I remember how to kill you, asshole!," Unknown has borrowed from so many other action thrillers—The Bourne Identity, Frantic, and Neeson's own Taken—that my mind was spinning like a dreidel. That said, Unknown is reasonably entertaining (though it doesn't reach the propulsive heights of Taken), and it's kind of fun watching the classically trained Neeson continue to blossom into an action star. (Let's hope he doesn't turn into a lunatic.)

After the movie, my mom and I bumped into my father, who had been at the same theater we were at. My dad—unable to speak since his stroke many years ago—gave a big, smiley thumbs up, and we agreed with him. Yup, Unknown is, apparently, a fine family film—though probably the first one in which a guy gets stabbed in the neck with a shard of glass.



I Am Number Four, adapted from a young-adult sci-fi novel that came out of James Frey's literary sweatshop, also borrows from the ghosts of films past—Superman, Twilight, X-Men, Terminator, Spider-Man, X-Files, will somebody stop me, I'm exhausted. And as much as every intelligent bone in my body wanted to dislike this movie (I really wanted to type the words, "I want to go Number Two on I Am Number Four), I couldn't resist its charms—nifty action sequences, cool special effects, and a good sense of pacing. Sure, some of the acting's questionable, but it's not anywhere close to the Master Classes in Bad Acting that are the Twilight movies.



On my Twitter page, I wrote: "The audience for I Am Number Four was made up of tween girls and me. How did I fall into this demographic? AND HOW THE HELL DO I GET OUT?!" I was being coy, of course. Doesn't the fact that the film's star, Alex Pettyfer, can't seem to keep his shirt on for long explain everything? (Skip ahead to the 2:50 mark:)



Finally, The Mechanic borrows from, well, The Mechanic. Charles Bronson starred in the 1972 thriller, and Jason Statham stars in the new one. Meh. Liam Neeson could so kick both their asses, assholes.

On the rare occasion that a writing student of mine tries to refute a note I give in class, I immediately shut him or her down with this simple declaration: "Respect your sensei!" And then I pull back to address the whole class with a simple "if you know what's good for you and your future, then you will do everything I tell you to do!"

I hurled enough praise and threats at playwright Paul Kikuchi in my advanced rewriting workshops at East West Players' David Henry Hwang Writers Institute that he was in a constant state of enchantment and nausea. To most of you, that probably doesn't sound very pleasant, but Paul's first play, the Asian-Americans-in-the-afterlife-comedy Ixnay, went on to a world premiere at EWP in 2009.

On the advice of DHHWI counsel, he set aside his second play (are you writers out there committed enough to your craft that you would be willing to abandon a full-length work that you spent months and months creating?!) and began work on the almost family-friendly elder-porn comedy, Wrinkles, which opens this week at EWP.



I caught the play's final preview on Sunday, and it's a raucous crowd-pleaser, so jam-packed with clever jokes and gags that it clearly makes Paul the heir apparent to something. I mean, c'mon, theatre gods, give this man a title!

What's most surprising about his story about a 73-year-old Japanese-American porn star (based on a real-life dude that I, incidentally, blogged about a couple years ago) whose dirty big secret shocks his daughter and grandson is that it has an unexpectedly sweet center. It's themes of family bonding and of sexual freedom as a weapon against old age and death give Wrinkles some lovely emotional moments.

The play is served well by Jeff Liu's nimble direction (have you ever seen the Prince & Jeff show?; oh, man, you are missing out!) and by a dream cast of stage and screen veterans Sab Shimono and Amy Hill (whose comic timing is impeccable); the always-reliable Elizabeth Ho; and spirited newcomer Ki Hong Lee.

Go see this play. Discounts abound! Seriously. If you know what's good for you and your future, then you will do everything I tell you to do!

Wrinkles by Paul Kikuchi runs through March 13, 2011, at East West Players in Los Angeles.

I wrote a new post for The Gamut, the official blog of the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.



Read "Have You Ever Looked Like a New Yorker Cartoon?"

I was going to write an extensive post about my adventures in Washington, DC, but Howard Ho—who was one of my co-adventurers—covered the most important topic related to the AWP Conference: the goddamn cold weather. So in lieu of my thoughts on the matter, go to Howard because he has deeper thoughts (and pictures of me)....



Read "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cold" on the group blog, You Offend Me You Offend My Family.