Leisure

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

Critical Voices: Mark Ronson & The Business Inl., Record Collection

Mark Ronson can play a mean guitar, but his extensive knowledge of rap, funk, and soul was what got him noticed in the first place. Ronson’s past two records have been slick, sample-heavy dance records that hint at his formative years as a club DJ. The formula is no different on his newest album, Record Collection.

By Matthew Decker September 30, 2010

Critical Voices: Lazerbeak, Legend Recognize Legend

As the primary producer for the Minneapolis-based alternative hip-hop crew Doomtree, Lazerbeak has been responsible for the bass-heavy beats heard behind rappers P.O.S., Dessa, and Sims. With hip-hop credentials like these, and Doomtree’s reputation for aggressive, punk rock- infused hip-hop, you might expect Lazerbeak’s first solo album, to be filled with club hits.

By Akshay Bhatia September 30, 2010

Warming Glow: Sympathy for the devil

You’ve just watched a man drug and kidnap someone. He ties the victim to a table, waits until he wakes up, then ritualistically stabs him in the chest, dismembers the corpse, and dumps it off a small boat into the Atlantic Ocean. Moments later, you see the same murderer holding an infant, cooing and singing the kid to sleep.

By Leigh Finnegan September 30, 2010

Rub Some Dirt On It: Addicted to the pump

If you’re anything like me, when you go to the gym, you agonize over the clock as you wait for your 20 minutes of cardio to be over. Or you’re gaping in admiration at the energizer bunny in front of you, who has been running hard since before you got there and shows no signs of slowing.

By Sadaf Qureshi September 30, 2010

Beauty is in the eye of the professor

Have you ever taken a snazzy picture of the Potomac from your walk across the Key Bridge and thought “Wow, look how beautiful D.C. is?” Probably. Have you ever thought the same about a photo you took of the grimy outside of a Metro car, or traffic moving through DuPont? Probably not.

By Brendan Baumgardner September 23, 2010

Encyclopedia Prep-tannica

When Lisa Birnbach’s The Official Preppy Handbook came out in 1980, its audience was the yuppies who had just graduated from college. But while TOPH parodied the lives of preppy college and boarding school students, Birnbach’s True Prep is geared towards those who’ve grown up, weathered a divorce or two, and still wear their collars high.

By Nico Dodd September 23, 2010

Food trucks: Like restaurants, only faster

Fresh peppers, onions, and Cuban roast pork sizzle on the grill, producing a mouth-watering aroma that draws a serious crowd. Could it be? A new grilling station at Leo’s? Not a chance. This is the work of Rebel Heroes, one of the many food trucks that are popping up all around D.C.

By Mary Borowiec September 23, 2010

Dirty old Town

This settles it. With the release of The Town, the gritty Boston crime drama is officially its own genre, comprised of such films as The Departed, Mystic River, and The Boondock Saints. The main reason The Town stands apart, is that it has the dubious honor of being the first of its kind to feel cliché.

By Brendan Baumgardner September 23, 2010

Critical Voices: Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest

I was a Deerhunter virgin before I had heard Halcyon Digest. There’s something exciting about diving into a new artist, and when the minimal, ambient sounds of Halcyon Digest first washed over me I was immediately intrigued.

By Paul Quincy September 23, 2010

Critical Voices: Ben Folds & Nick Hornsby, Lonely Avenue

Many of today’s most successful pop stars write very little of their own music or lyrics, and they don’t want you to know it. This has never been the case for Ben Folds, who writes the vast majority of his own work.

By Matthew Decker September 23, 2010

Literary Tools: I dare you to read this book

A novel that is written so that it is a struggle to read is meant for a particular, masochistic literary crowd: fans of post-modernism. The works of classic post-modern authors, like Flann O’Brien and Jorge Luis Borges, abandon convention and required readers to plunge headfirst into a metaphysical world.

By James McGrory September 23, 2010

Suffer For Fashion: D.C. Fashion Week—NY Who?

The models may have stepped off the runway at New York Fashion Week, but if you’re still hungry for hot new fall fashions, the nation’s capital has what you need. D.C. Fashion Week started on Monday and will be in full swing through Sunday, Sept. 26.

By Keenan Timko September 23, 2010

Student drumline beats up the beat

If you were anywhere near New North on Monday night and couldn’t study, converse, or hear yourself think, then you’re already familiar with the Georgetown Drumline. From 8 to 9 p.m., the group’s 15 members banged out eighth-notes and bashed cymbals together at a deafening volume on the outdoor patio across from the Davis Center.

By Leigh Finnegan September 16, 2010

Start shakin’ your bacon

Bacon is the great equalizer. Rich or poor, black or white, super fly or rhythmically inept, everybody can get down on some grease-fried pork. So when a group of local DJs set out to create the most inclusive funk and soul dance party in town, there was only one name that could truly capture its essence—Fatback.

By Brendan Baumgardner September 16, 2010

Crikey! Everyone’s dancing

Travelling across the harsh continent of Australia can be too much for even the strongest of us. We’re familiar with the wild bands of marauders in the Mad Max series, and witnessed horrific acts of violence in 2005’s The Proposition.

By Sooji Kim September 16, 2010

Movies? Where!?

When you’ve exhausted all your on-campus excuses to avoid the rapidly growing pile of work on your desk, it might be time to escape to the movie theater. That’s right, the actual theater. Sure, the unscrupulous among us may be content to download the latest releases, but that can never truly stack up against the true movie-going experience.

By Chris Heller September 16, 2010

Critical Voices: Weezer, Hurley

Few bands are more frustrating than Weezer. They produced two of the best records of the last fifteen years, Weezer and the early emo classic Pinkerton, but recent, unfortunate efforts have reduced the band to a parody of itself. Their last few successful songs have been candy-coated, sugar pop anthems.

By Matthew Decker September 16, 2010

Critical Voices: The Walkmen, Lisbon

The Walkmen are proof that past failures do not prohibit future successes. But the thing is, you can never predict whether the band’s next album will be an instant classic or an ignored flop. After two lackluster albums, A Hundred Miles Off and Pussy Cats Starring The Walkmen, the band turned around and released 2008’s killer You & Me.

By Nico Dodd September 16, 2010

Warming Glow: Kicking TV up a notch

Blame it on Colonel Sanders. Blame it on the kiddie play areas at McDonald’s with the multicolored ball pits. Blame it on the good ol’ American attitude that bigger is always better, and so supersize is the only option. Whatever the culprit, the unavoidable fact remains: obesity in the United States is an epidemic.

By Leigh Finnegan September 16, 2010

Rub Some Dirt On It: Show me your tats

I cannot understand why anyone would pay money to have someone puncture their skin with tiny needles that stab at the speed of 100 times per second using a machine that sounds like a dental drill and stabs like a sewing machine, and then fill the resulting wounds with ink.

By Sadaf Qureshi September 16, 2010

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