Leisure

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

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Raise a brow for D.C. artists

According to the mission statement of Georgetown University Art Aficionados, “creativity is and remains Georgetown University’s Achilles heel.”

By March 25, 2010

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Lez’hur Ledger: Adventure to the land before time

A Neanderthal woman struggles under the weight of the antelope slung over her shoulder, carrying it laboriously back to her family’s shelter.

By March 25, 2010

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Critical Voices: MGMT, Congratulations

From its scratch-off lowbrow album art to its panned leak of “Flash Delirium,” critics and bloggers were eager to make scant predications about MGMT’s follow-up to 2008’s smash hit Oracular Spectacular.

By March 25, 2010

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Critical Voices: Fang Island, Fang Island

According to Jason Bartell, one of Brooklyn-based Fang Island’s guitarists, the group’s goal is to “make music for people who like music.”

By March 25, 2010

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Rub Some Dirt On It: This is your brain on hookah

Smoking is a fairly prevalent vice at Georgetown. We have all walked past that guy in the GERMS shirt smoking on the Village C Patio, and there is nothing new about having to pass through the eternal smoke cloud in front of Lauinger in order to get some studying done.

By March 25, 2010

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Bottoms Up: Booze in your back pocket

In the Prohibition era, knocking one back—or two, or three, for that matter—was about more than just getting sloshed on a Saturday night.

By March 25, 2010

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Director Bong Joon-ho on Mother and incest

South Korean director Bong Joon-ho has been making critically-lauded films for over a decade, striking international box office gold in 2006 with The Host, the highest grossing South Korean film of all time. Through a translator, Bong discussed Western cinema, the role of sex in film, and the importance of actors’ input with the Voice’s Mark Stern.

By March 18, 2010

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Lewis’s Big Short takes on Wall St.

In financial parlance, to short something is to bet that it will fail. If I were to short your grades this semester, for example, I would be gambling that you’ll sleep through one final and bomb the rest.

By March 18, 2010

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Another overpriced café

As a lowly, jobless college student whose parents don’t respond to my weekly pleas for cash as promptly as I’d like them to, the thought of lunch at a Georgetown café makes me think about my starving wallet rather than my grumbling stomach.

By March 18, 2010

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D.C.’s “other” venues

Even though the first official day of spring isn’t until Saturday, this rash of warm weather we’re experiencing is a sure sign that the season is here.

By March 18, 2010

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Critical Voices: Daughters, Daughters

Coherence is a trait that most musicians strive for in their songwriting. Rhode Island band Daughters, however, originally took a different approach, seeking instead to create disjointed structures and illogical rhythms.

By March 18, 2010

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Yr Blues: The age of Aziz

It’s still pretty early in 2010 to start making bold assertions about any purported albums of the year, so brace yourself for this one: Aziz Ansari has already released the best comedy album of 2010 with Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening.

By March 18, 2010

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Suffer for fashion: Fashion tip-off

March Madness is finally here. Tonight, as Georgetown squares off against the Ohio University Bobcats in its first game of the tournament, fans in living rooms and common rooms across campus will don their game-day t-shirts and glue themselves to glowing television, hoping for NCAA glory.

By March 18, 2010