Leisure

War is Hell

Tropic Thunder surprised me. The trailer and ads had me braced for a classic screwups-in-peril format: hopeless incompetents defeating death with liberal doses of slapstick and potty humor. In that respect it didn’t disappoint, pouring on sight gags and classic slap in epic proportions. But the real reason to see Tropic Thunder is its razor sharp satirical dissection of the Hollywood hit machine.

By Anna Hunter August 22, 2008

Leisure

Culottes for you lots: a bi-weekly column on fashion

It sounds very third grade of me to say so, but I love back-to-school shopping. I can’t resist the earth-toned window displays, and every year I buy corduroy that I never end up wearing. There are still a few humid weeks of August left and nary a leaf has fallen, but I’ve already cast my summer wardrobe aside and am imagining crunching through leafy drifts in knee-high boots and a navy blazer. I’m getting giddy just thinking about it.

By Katherine Norton August 22, 2008

Leisure

Voice Restaurant Guide

View Larger Map Here you can see all the Voice’s restaurant reviews in one place. Green means go, yellow means think about it, and red means stay away.

By Will Sommer August 15, 2008

Leisure

Georgetown students making art: Senior Studio Art Majors Group Exhibition

Looking for an art exhibit to check out during study days? Art lovers and the broke alike should find just what they’re looking for in the Class of 2008 Senior Studio Art Majors’ Group Exhibition held in Gallery 101 in Walsh. From drawings and paintings to photography and pop art, there’s something for everyone, as the styles, perspectives, and forms are more diverse than Georgetown itself.

By Vivian Chen April 24, 2008

Leisure

Drinking the Derby

The Triple Crown is considered one of the greatest sporting events on earth. Man and beast labor as one, sweating and straining to reach the finish line; everyone else hangs out at the bar, showing off their large hats and signet rings. Ponies and potent potables have always gone hand in hand, and though this weekend’s Busch-soaked festivities at Foxfields may give the casual observer the impression that horse-racing aficionados are nothing more than meatheads marauding in madras, the average adult libation at a racetrack is as refreshingly spirited as the fillies galloping around it.

By admin April 24, 2008

Leisure

Fountains, belly dancers, and finger food, oh my!

Whether it’s a drive-in, a draft house, or a serenading mariachi band, the elusive combination of food and entertainment is dying out. Dupont Circle haunt Marrakesh, though, masters the art of bringing entertainment straight to the dinner table by pairing hypnotizing belly dancers with delectable Moroccan cuisine.

By Vivian Chen April 24, 2008

Leisure

Just forget it, Sarah Marshall. Superbad was funnier.

Producer Judd Apatow has created a perverse (yet strangely endearing) Holy Trinity of contemporary comedy in the last few years: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad. And this machine just keeps spitting out more, with Drillbit Taylor and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story as the most recent (and worst performing) of the bunch. His latest film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, has its charms, and certainly tries to engage in an honest examination of relationships, like the best of Apatow’s films. But unlike, say, Knocked Up, the laughs feel cheap, and so does its exploitation of the audience’s emotions.

By Jeff Reger April 24, 2008

Leisure

High Times with Mr. Doug Benson

There is exactly one difference between comedian Doug Benson’s documentary Super High Me and Morgan Spurlock’s much lauded Super Size Me: marijuana. Benson, who was dubbed “Stoner of the Year” by High Times Magazine in 2006, uses himself as a guinea pig to examine the physical and mental effects of smoking pot non-stop for thirty days. The end result is both an entertaining parody of Super Size Me by a stoned comedian, and a meaningful documentary, thanks to the well-focused effort of the production crew as they confront many of the societal issues regarding marijuana.

By Eliott Grover April 24, 2008

Leisure

Arty Dreamy Movies

If you’re looking for a dose of cinematic pretension (we all get that itch sometimes), Andrea Simon’s 1989 short film, The Happiness of Still Life, will take care of all your needs. The movie, which is running in the National Gallery’s Spring Film Program in 16 mm format, is a study of Austria’s Biedermeier culture of the mid 1800s—a lapse into middle class ecstasy characterized by pretty furniture and domestic bliss. While the film itself isn’t necessarily pretentious, if you leave the theater thinking you completely understood it, you probably are.

By Katherine Norton April 24, 2008

Leisure

T-Pain, on Top of the Game

Faheem Najm—sound familiar? If not, perhaps you know him better by his stage name, T-Pain. Despite being married with two children, his songs about hitting on bartenders and buying women drinks have propelled him to stardom in a pop/R&B field flooded with younger, more visible talents.

By Justin Hunter Scott April 24, 2008

Leisure

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Critical Voices: Wolf Parade

The group’s sophomore release, now available in a store near you, delivers in full (and then some) with a set of longer, stockier songs that rival, if not best, their debut.

By Daniel Cook April 24, 2008

Leisure

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: The Voice chats up Islands’ Nick Thorburn

The Voice caught up with Thorburn at the onset of his summer 2008 tour to talk about tendinitis, the occult, and why people think he’s an asshole. (And in case you didn’t know, the Unicorns are dead.)

By Daniel Cook April 24, 2008

Leisure

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: The next Fugazi takes Tenleytown

The free event takes place at the highest natural point in the District and features a panoply of local talent.

By Daniel Cook April 24, 2008

Leisure

Newseum: where the news comes to die

Pennsylvania Avenue’s towering new monument to journalism, the Newseum, opened last week with a six-story glass and steel atrium, a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, an interactive newsroom, a 4-D theater, an apartment complex, two operating broadcast studios and over 15 galleries.

If that sounds expensive, it was: total costs for the new museum are estimated at $450 million. Paid for by major donations from Bloomberg LP, the New York Times Company, News Corp, Comcast, Time Warner, ABC, NBC and others, the Newseum claims in its promotional material to have two major goals: to educate the public about the importance of the First Amendment, and to help “the media and the public gain a better understanding of each other.”

And if a museum of the media, by the media and for public relations purposes sounds a little fishy, it is.

By Sara Carothers April 17, 2008

Leisure

Cabaret: what good is sitting alone in your room?

Before the audience of Mask and Bauble’s spring musical, Cabaret, is ushered to its seats, it is afforded a brief glimpse into a dimly lit dressing room. The room, populated by ladies in bustiers and hotpants and men in lipstick, is just a tantalizing taste of the raucous, racy experience ahead. While not without its serious plot points, the show is worth seeing for the erotic musical numbers alone, which almost make the storyline incidental.

By Katherine Norton April 17, 2008

Leisure

Smart People, stupid movie

Smart People really should have been called “Arrogant and Socially Inept People”—all of the characters have chips on their shoulders proportionate to the sizes of their IQs. Characters in a film like this one should fall into one of two types: either delightfully dysfunctional (see: Little Miss Sunshine) or delightfully malicious (see: The Squid and the Whale). The problem with Smart People is that writer Mark Poirier (COL ’91) can’t seem to decide which type he wants his characters to be, so their constantly bizzare behavior comes off as disingenuous. And because its characters are at the heart of the film, Smart People falls flat.

By Vivian Chen April 17, 2008

Leisure

Popped Culture: I can has meme?

I absolutely love lolcats.

My brother once told me that they are the worst thing ever to befall the internet, and our disputes on the subject have done almost as much damage to our relationship as the time I broke his K’NEX tower when he was 8.

Lolcats, for the unfamiliar, are an internet phenomenon that consists of pictures of cats with captions in a big ugly font, posted on icanhascheezburger.com.

By Shira Hecht April 17, 2008

Leisure

Critical Voices: Subtle, ExitingARM

ExitingARM as whole, though, represents a gamble on Subtle’s part. They’ve seemingly restrained their sound to rope in more listeners, at the expense of some of their more substantive content. Not that I can blame Doseone (see: Subtle album sales), but I get the sense that ultimately no one’s happy here: the songs aren’t poppy enough for mass appeal and will likely disappoint former enthusiasts.

By Daniel Cook April 17, 2008

Leisure

Forte: The power of music blogs

Turns out the internet isn’t killing the music industry after all. According to a recent study by NYU’s Vasant Dhar and Elaine Chang, the level of blog activity preceding an album’s release strongly correlates with its subsequent sales. Dhar and Chang tracked online buzz for 108 albums during an eight-week period (four weeks before and after release dates), using Amazon.com CD sales as their fiscal reference point. Interestingly, blogging beat out other relevant sources of “chatter”—consumer reviews, online and mainstream media reviews, and (amusingly enough) the bands’ friend count on MySpace—in its predictive power for commercial success.

By Daniel Cook April 10, 2008