Leisure

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

Leisure

Critical Voices: Josh Ritter, So Runs the World Away

For his seventh studio album, Josh Ritter was faced with a daunting challenge: follow up two of modern folk music’s mini-masterpieces, 2006’s The Animal Years and 2007’s The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter.

By April 22, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Dr. Dog, Shame, Shame

Dr. Dog makes some of the most inoffensive music around—straight-up rock ‘n roll that echoes every classic rock reference you want to throw out there—but the Philadelphia band tends to be pretty polarizing.

By April 22, 2010

Leisure

Suffer for Fashion: From the Hilltop to Foxfield

Every spring, hundreds of Georgetown students rise early on the last Saturday of April to make the pilgrimage to a small, southern town located about a three-hour bus ride from campus.

By April 22, 2010

Leisure

Yr Blues: A music heart-to-heart

So this is my swan song. It’s been four great years writing for The Voice, but the time has come when we must regrettably part ways.

By April 22, 2010

Leisure

Nic Cage can still Kick-Ass

Alan Moore’s Watchmen was arguably the first post-modern superhero comic book, looking at the neuroses and psychology of the men and women who choose to don the capes and tights.

By April 16, 2010

Leisure

Hot wax and vinyl: Record Store Day

Valentine’s Day is a manufactured holiday created by the Hallmark Corporation. The “Christmas Season” pushes further into November every year. Arbor Day exists solely at the behest of a mysterious multinational pine tree conglomerate.

By April 15, 2010

Leisure

Let’s tame! That! Shrew!

There’s little subtlety to be found in The Taming of the Shrew, Mask and Bauble’s last production of the semester, which opens in Poulton Hall on Thursday night.

By April 15, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon, Wu-Massacre

At first glance, it’s tough to tell whether Wu-Massacre is a triumph or a half-baked disappointment.

By April 15, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: The Tallest Man on Earth, The Wild Hunt

Listening to The Wild Hunt, the sophomore release from indie-folk artist Kristian Matsson’s solo project The Tallest Man on Earth, is puzzling.

By April 15, 2010

Leisure

Bottoms Up: Bud Light’s slogan In-ability

“Drinkability” is dead. All I can say is, it’s about time. You know what I’m talking about—at least you do if you’ve watched TV or opened a magazine in the past three years.

By April 15, 2010

Leisure

Rub Some Dirt on It: Rethinking the “T” out of G.T.L.

With the weather in D.C. finally beginning to warm up, many of us will be bringing our books and our bikinis to the front lawn to sunbathe and study.

By April 15, 2010

Leisure

Mmm Mmm: Mediterranean meat on M Street

Ed Witt is not an ordinary chef. He is a tattooed, bald force of nature that just so happens to wear a chef’s apron. Yet he does not inspire images of fire and brimstone—his soft, drawling voice and laid-back attitude exist at odds with his shaved head and body ink.

By April 8, 2010

Leisure

Traverse-ing 18th Century lust and innuendo

The Georgetown University Theater and Performance Studies Program’s latest production, the D.C. premiere of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Grace of Mary Traverse, is not for the faint of heart.

By April 8, 2010

Leisure

Hey girl, I like your Tattoo

If you want to understand the title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, don’t blink. Lisbeth Salander, the movie’s inked-up heroine, does have a massive, detailed tattoo of a dragon encompassing her entire back and a good chunk of her leg, but during the film’s two and a half hours, it gets no mention and only passing screen time.

By April 8, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Das Racist, Shut Up, Dude

When “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” blew up on the music blogosphere last summer, it provoked a firestorm of controversy—depending on who you asked, it was either insipid, repetitive drivel or witty, inventive joke rap.

By April 8, 2010

Leisure

Critical Voices: Jónsi, Go

Sigur Ros’s Jónsi Þór Birgisson, a fairy-like, grandeur-loving vocalist with a keen sense of drama, teamed up with his boyfriend Alex last year to release an ambient album called Riceboy Sleeps.

By April 8, 2010

Leisure

Suffer for Fashion: April is the smelliest month

While the warm weather arriving on the Hilltop might bring out the best in Georgetown’s landscaping, rising temperatures often bring out the worst in what Georgetown students wear.

By April 8, 2010

Leisure

Yr Blues: I like playing outside too

This past weekend, emboldened by some incredible weather, I did something that I hadn’t done in a very long time: I brought an acoustic guitar outdoors.

By April 8, 2010

Leisure

You rotten, dirty Motherfu—

The rural South Korean town in Joon-ho Bong’s Mother is a dark, ominous place for the film’s setting. The weather is always rainy or overcast, the town’s hills are covered with tombstones and soggy debris, the residents constantly lurking in alleyways or suspiciously peering out windows. It’s a town full of secrets, but Bong doesn’t distract us with superfluous details.

By March 25, 2010

Leisure

Scratch that Itch

Bruce Norris’s The Pain and the Itch is a tricky piece of dramatic machinery. Its structure is carefully convoluted, painstakingly difficult, and yet, by the end, complete and exact.

By March 25, 2010