Leisure

Reviews and think pieces on music, movies, art, and theater.

Leisure

Color School returns to D.C.

Washington, D.C. is not a town renowned for its art scene. Hardcore kids might proudly recount the days of Minor Threat, and Wale might slip a line about D.C. into some of his Chicago-indebted raps, but the city’s a haven for politicos and diplomats—artists usually go a bit farther up the coast. That being the case, many might be surprised to learn that our city gave birth to one of the most exciting styles of American studio art of the modern era: the Color School.

By December 9, 2010

Leisure

Black Box ballet

Last night in the Walsh Black Box Theater, which was unadorned except for a string of what looked like colorful prayer flags, Ballet Folklorico, in conjunction with Latin dance group Ritmo y Sabor, put on their final show of the semester in honor of Posada, a Hispanic celebration in anticipation of Christmas. The show featured Ballet Folklorico’s traditional dancing with elaborate and colorful skirts.

By December 9, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Daft Punk, Tron: Legacy

We’ve been waiting on a new Daft Punk album for a while now, and in late 2009, when the duo announced that they would be creating the soundtrack for the upcoming Tron: Legacy, it sounded like a match made in heaven. We would we have the first Daft Punk album in five years (!)

By December 9, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Keep Shelly in Athens, In Love With Dusk EP

Keep Shelly in Athens is a band with an outlandish name and an intentionally mysterious persona. But although you might expect a band with such a ridiculous moniker to be irritatingly elitist, if you close your eyes and play their new EP, In Love With Dusk, you will quickly change your mind.

By December 9, 2010

Leisure

Amuse-bouche: Don’t try this at home

Earlier this year, my access to Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything convinced me that I could, in fact, cook everything. And when it comes to pasta, potatoes, fish, chicken, and a few fancy things like risotto, I’m not half bad. In July, inspired by this confidence, I undertook a more ambitious project—French fries.

By December 9, 2010

Leisure

Fade to Black: Gazillion dollar baby

Next Friday, Disney’s latest mega-budget production, Tron: Legacy, opens in theaters across the country. Though it will no doubt please the Comic-Con regulars who have been fantasizing about this movie for years, with a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Tron will need to appeal to a slightly wider market.

By December 9, 2010

Leisure

The CIFF: No, we don’t show The Boondock Saints

If you only associate Irish culture with green beer and leprechauns, this year’s Capitol Irish Film Festival will surprise you. The largest Irish film festival in America, CIFF opens tonight at E Street Cinema and the Goethe Institut.

By December 2, 2010

Leisure

Comic nerds are Party Crashers?

D.C. is home to many of our nation’s greatest museums: the Air and Space Museum, the Portrait Gallery, the American History Museum … But if you’re seeking something beyond the National Mall that features an art form less traditional than your Smithsonian staples, then Party Crashers: Comic Book Culture Invades the Art World, a new exhibit at the Arlington Arts Center and Artisphere’s Terrace Gallery, fits the bill.

By December 2, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Curren$y, Pilot Talk II

Besides his unspeakably massive cannabis consumption, Curren$y is best known for his incredible prolificacy. Since leaving Lil’ Wayne’s Young Money label in 2008, he has released nine album-length mixtapes and four full albums, whose subject matter rarely deviated from typical independent rap trope: weed, fly kicks, and fucking.

By December 2, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Tigers Jaw,Two Worlds

Born in the basements of Scranton, Pa., Tigers Jaw has bucked indie rock trends and blogosphere pressure to create a sound that is patently their own. Their blend of indie rock and pop-punk is musically complex while still being flat-out fun and relatable.

By December 2, 2010

Leisure

Rub Some Dirt On It: You may not go blind, but…

College kids tend to do a lot of dumb things—some of them pretty unsafe. But when we’re not partying hard or gorging ourselves on Leo’s food, most of us spend a good chunk of our time studying. Doesn’t that count for something?

By December 2, 2010

Leisure

Warming Glow: Giving them the hook

Every pilot season, we media-consuming Americans find ourselves assailed by an endless blast of magazine ads, billboards, and outright shameless publicity stunts that beg us to watch “the next Mad Men/Friday Night Lights/Modern Family!”

By December 1, 2010

Leisure

Post-dramatic stress disorder in the Gonda

Educational video games suck. Even if the kid with the controller doesn’t realize that the “game” he’s playing is actually edutainment and demands higher mental functioning, it’s a pretty safe bet that he’d still rather be blowing up heads in Gears of War than hopping to the next lily pad with a prime number on it. But what happens when the violent, war-driven video games are the educational ones?

By November 18, 2010

Leisure

Lez’hur Ledger: The missing link between porn and monkeys

As a dozen other people and I watched a woman have sex with an ape-man, I thought to myself, “This is not your grandmother’s Washington D.C.” It was a rainy November night, and I had slipped into The Passenger—a lonely 7th Street bar a few blocks north of Chinatown—and edged past the Tuesday night crowd of 20-somethings.

By November 18, 2010

Leisure

Gtown shows off its GAMS

Mentioning on-campus concerts often churns up memories of the “The Coolio Incident,” when in 2007, the crazy-haired rapper gave an acoustically disastrous performance in Georgetown’s gangster’s paradise, or Leo J. O’Donovan Hall. But now, Georgetown students have a reason to thank the University for its mediocre concerts of yesteryear, because they inspired Daniel Alexander to give Georgetown a better show.

By November 18, 2010

Leisure

Reviews, Haiku’d

Faster Smell what he’s cooking? Faster, Billybob! Kill! Kill! The Rock’s gon’ getcha. Love and Other Drugs Given the choice of Love and Other Drugs…and drugs I’d rather OD.

By the November 18, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Back in high school, my precocious self had an idea. I was going to write—for Rolling Stone, no less!—an article on Kanye West and his role as “This Generation’s Beatles.” Although most aspects of the story make 2010 me cringe, I’ve got to hand it to myself: 14-year-old me sure had foresight.

By November 18, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Girls, Broken Dreams Club

Next Monday, indie band Girls will release Broken Dreams Club, their first offering since 2009’s creatively titled Album. The EP’s overarching theme is singer Christopher Owen’s unconventional childhood in the Children of God cult—a group that, according to Owens in FAQ magazine, tried “to raise a generation of kids that were not spoiled at all by the world.”

By November 18, 2010

Leisure

Suffer for Fashion: No more knockoff knickers

Times may get a little tougher for quick-to-market fashion designers this January. Under a new Congress, legislation on unethical practices in the fashion industry might get a second wind, and plagiarists have every reason to be shivering in their knockoff Lanvin boots.

By November 18, 2010

Leisure

Literary Tools: Ironically intellectual

The youthful American literary journal n+1 is known for its social, literary, and political commentary, with a particularly keen eye for theoretical musings. The editors claim to embrace theory, but also reject the way academia prostitutes and exploits worthwhile ideas, and criticize the commodification of culture.

By November 18, 2010