Leisure
Reviews and think pieces on music, movies, art, and theater.
Trees and Ghosts ghastly, fun
To really enjoy Trees and Ghosts, you have to come into it with an open mind and absolutely no irony. Check your cynicism at the door; even the in-flight entertainment (no, really—they have a video with flight attendants and everything) is over the top.
Wristcutters: A Love Story
I really wanted to love Wristcutters. It’s populated with actors I adore, and the idea seemed charming. If they could make it work, it would be so beautiful. It is beautiful, and the actors really are that cool. But I had to settle for, “I liked it a lot, most of the way through.” I hate artistic disappointment.
Good eats pho cheap
Hiding behind a gas station, just a 10-minute walk from the Rosslyn Metro Station, is Vietnamese cuisine’s gift to the poor college student: Pho 75.
Critical Voices: Daft Punk, Alive 2007
Daft Punk manages to be all things to two people: the drunken partygoer and the electronic music aesthete. Providing aural brain teasers for the latter and a chance to discover new rump-shakers for the former requires some serious Venn diagram technique. Alive 2007, a live album recorded in Paris last June, is a worthy addition to that sweet overlap.
Fabulation nothing short of fabulous
For about an hour after “Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine” (it makes sense in the context of one of the play’s best moments, but damned if I’m actually going to write it out each time), I walked around in a kind of shocked appreciation, the stupor of being in the presence of something fleetingly, unevenly true. The production, under Isiah Wooden’s direction, has some problems, but the moments that work do so beautifully.
Gone Baby Gone finds success
I went into Ben Affleck’s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone hoping that it wouldn’t be too terrible. I left the theater doubting everything I knew about the man.
Gangster tears shit up
Already being hailed as the black Godfather and the Harlem Scarface, many critics have essentially taken for granted that American Gangster must be judged against the classics of its genre. I was less sure that it couldn’t be judged on its own merits, though, and I feared that stacking it up against The Godfather and other greats would inevitably make it seem disappointing in comparison. Surprisingly, despite its length and its failure to truly innovate, it holds its own among the heavyweights of the gangster film canon and is a contender for the best movie of 2007.
More Method Than Madness
The Director’s and Dramaturg’s notes on Hamlet talk of the pitfalls of reinterpreting Shakespeare for a modern audience. Gussy it up with modern twists and it becomes a gimmick; try to tie it to its original time period and it becomes an artifact. The goal is to “create a common space,” as dramaturg David Cumming (SFS ’08) puts it; to be “bridge-builders.”
Bold impressions of the sea
Impressionists by the Sea is the latest much-anticipated exhibition to grace the walls of Dupont Circle’s Phillips Collection. Composed of selected pieces from The Collection and contributions from the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, the exhibition depicts the evolution of the northern French shore from wind-swept fishing villages and raw breakers to a Riviera-style parade of luxury.
Environmental aesthetics on M Street
What would you do with some algae, horsehair and snow? Throw it all away? Not Emily Chirstenson. Her first East Coast show, Blue Currents, proves that paintings become prettier if you let nature participate in their creation.
Deadbeats
To the laziest constituents of music’s critical and consumer realms, each sparkle from Lil’ John’s grill represents the victory of style over substance, production values over quality songwriting. We are entrenched in an era when studio trickery can wax even the window-shattering squawks of Ashlee Simpson to an FM-ready polish.
Lust, Caution heats up screen
When the producers of Lust, Caution confronted director Ang Lee about his film’s NC-17 rating, he refused to take out any scenes. Directors know that such a rating can be a death sentence at the box office, but Lee’s decision was justified; the sex scenes make the film, adding not only the right tone but the right emotions to elevate the film from just another thriller to a study in lust and power.
Chilling Halloween Highballs
So you’re throwing a Halloween party? Try some of these bloodcurdling cocktails for a killer bar selection—the usual Natty Light, Burnett’s and jungle juice trifecta is getting old anyway.
We Own the Night falls short of Departed
We Own the Night is a standard crime drama with a slight twist: the two main characters are still on opposite sides of the law, like The Departed, but this time, they’re brothers.
Fixer Clayton needs fixing
Confusion in a film can create suspense, serve as a plot device or even develop a character, but the biggest problem with Michael Clayton is that it is just plain confusing.
The Exonerated
“This show is ultimately about hope,” show producer Jessica Stone (COL’08) said after the first run of The Nomadic Theater’s production of The Exonerated.