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Day: January 24, 2008

Voices

On playing the game and being played

Last week, my life was fantastic. I had just moved into one of Georgetown’s finest townhouses. I was finishing all of my work and getting plenty of sleep every night. Sure, it was only the first full week of the semester, but I was still feeling pretty accomplished.

By January 24, 2008

Leisure

It’s alive! The yuppies … not so much

Pack the Dramamine, kids, because Cloverfield—the newest creation from Lost/Alias wunderkind J.J. Abrams—is a visceral thrill ride with a few new twists on the classic monster-destroys-New York trope.

By January 24, 2008

Leisure

Diary of a Bad Year: Not so bad for marginalia

Imagine reading an essay on political theory that has a note scrawled along the bottom of the page in the author’s handwriting. It describes a young woman he has just seen walk into a laundromat wearing a “tomato-red shift … startling in its brevity.” Notes continue on pages throughout the essay, bit-by-bit, developing into a suspenseful tale of the relationship between the writer and the woman, while interacting with the philosophical work with which it shares the page. This is the basic format of J.M. Coetzee’s inventive new novel, Diary of a Bad Year.

By January 24, 2008

Leisure

One too many dresses?

As you would expect from the writer of The Devil Wears Prada and the director of Step Up, 27 Dresses is a romantic comedy we’ve all seen before: within the first few minutes, you’ll recognize the formula and be able to predict most of the plot. The clichés are numerous—the unrequited love, the beautiful and bratty sister, the sharp-tongued best friend and the irksome acquaintance turned love interest. Original, this movie is not. But enjoyable? Surprisingly, yes.

By January 24, 2008

Leisure

The Mars Volta, The Bedlam in Goliath

The Mars Volta, led by former At the Drive-In members Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, have long been divisive in the critical world. Their spastic progressive rock has won them as many detractors as fans, and that’s not likely to change with their fourth album, The Bedlam in Goliath. Still, the album is an exciting development for the band’s sound, which is faster and more focused than on their previous albums.

By January 24, 2008

Leisure

He’s Not There

By the time you read this Heath Ledger will have been dead for at least about 48 hours. Yet his death and his life have already been discussed, examined and analyzed, the analysis analyzed, a thousand theories raised and discarded and made into cover stories.

By January 24, 2008

Sports

Women get first Big East win

Having dropped their last four contests going into Tuesday’s game, the Georgetown women’s basketball team was in a funk. In those four games, though, the team showed true determination and signs of life—most notably in their mere 10 point loss to the fifth ranked Scarlet Knights of Rutgers and senior forward Kieraah Marlow’s 34 point and 17 rebound tear against 16th-ranked Notre Dame. But Tuesday’s game against Seton Hall was a different story.

By January 24, 2008

Sports

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Hoyas barely swat away Mountaineers

West Virginia fans do not like Patrick Ewing Jr. Last year’s small scuffle with then-coach John Beilein earned the senior forward the chagrin of the Mountaineer Maniacs, but his game-ending, heartbreaking block on Saturday night placed the crown prince of Georgetown basketball somewhere between Satan and former football coach Rich Rodriguez in the current Morgantown lexicon of hatred.

By January 24, 2008