Leisure

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

Leisure

The Mars Volta, The Bedlam in Goliath

The Mars Volta, led by former At the Drive-In members Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, have long been divisive in the critical world. Their spastic progressive rock has won them as many detractors as fans, and that’s not likely to change with their fourth album, The Bedlam in Goliath. Still, the album is an exciting development for the band’s sound, which is faster and more focused than on their previous albums.

By January 24, 2008

Leisure

He’s Not There

By the time you read this Heath Ledger will have been dead for at least about 48 hours. Yet his death and his life have already been discussed, examined and analyzed, the analysis analyzed, a thousand theories raised and discarded and made into cover stories.

By January 24, 2008

Leisure

It’s alive! The yuppies … not so much

Pack the Dramamine, kids, because Cloverfield—the newest creation from Lost/Alias wunderkind J.J. Abrams—is a visceral thrill ride with a few new twists on the classic monster-destroys-New York trope.

By January 24, 2008

Leisure

Fast food that’s just plain un-American

In Georgetown, pricey bistros are a dime a dozen, but there are few opportunities for a college student looking for a quick bite that’s both economical and delicious. For the adventurous eater on a budget looking for something other than Chipotle and Five Guys, here are a few recommendations.

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

Sifting through the thrift in D.C.

You hate everything in your closet, that duct tape won’t hold your favorite pair of pants together any longer or you need a new set of dishes. Whatever the reason, you need to shop. There is a healthy alternative to the extravagant prices and looming sales floor assistants behind those gleaming storefront windows on M street. If you are a fan of recycling and a good bargain, then “thrifting” may be your calling.

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

Critical Voices: Dengue Fever

L.A.-based sextet Dengue Fever has the kind of back-story that’ll crinkle more than a few cynical noses: five white dudes from the United States travelled to Cambodia, fell in love with that country’s ‘60s psych-rock output, enlisted Cambodian pop singer Ch’hom Nimol and released a self-titled album comprised almost entirely of Cambodian pop-rock covers. Luckily, over the course of seven years the band has melded its diverse influences into a strikingly distinct Cambodian-pop-meets-Ethiopian-jazz aesthetic that in no way hints at the white-boy cultural misappropriation its back-story suggests.

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

Critical Voices: Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend began their career like most college bands: toiling away in the relative obscurity of bars around campus. Eventually, though, the indie press noticed their clever mixture of well-crafted melodic pop, African rhythms and New York rock sensibilities, prompting XL Recordings to sign them and put out their very good eponymous first album. Its youthful energy, more than its oft-touted world influence, makes it a compelling and involving listen.

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

She’s all that… jazz

Crandall hopes to introduce new music to her peers. “The two artists I admire most are Ellen Fitzgerald and Sara Vaughan,” she said. “Too often, I hear that jazz is for old people. I want to enlarge that age range. There are so many styles and ways you can approach [jazz] that I hope [people our age] will open up to it.”

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

2007’s best?

For me, the best album of 2007 was Animal Collective’s Strawberry Jam. Despite the critical gravitation toward frontrunners such as Radiohead’s In Rainbows and LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver, Jam provided the most exciting batch of songs last year, effortlessly progressive in execution and more cohesive than the band’s earlier releases. I read the year-end, “best-of” lists like anyone else and compared my thoughts to other critics, but I’m a big boy—I can make my own opinions.

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

Patrician food at plebeian prices

If you find yourself forgetting how to use utensils because your diet consists entirely of finger-food favorites like bagels and pizza, you’re in luck. There are only three days left of D.C.’s Restaurant Week (extended at some places like Farrah Olivia), when the best restaurants in the city offer top-quality cuisine for a fixed price of $20.08 for lunch and $30.08 for dinner in honor of the new year.

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

Leave the “House,” ASAP

“House of Blue Leaves” wants to say something, and touches on a lot of grand themes—fame and media in society, the individual in our saturated world, the tension between dreams and reality. Unfortunately, it just ends up a mess, so nothing much comes through. One leaves feeling battered, rather than contemplative.

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

Not cool

It’s January. In January, wearing a sundress when the thermometer hits sixty degrees is the fashion equivalent of wetting your pants with excitement: overzealous, and (eventually) uncomfortably cold.

By January 17, 2008

Leisure

El Pollo Rico: a taste of Peru

Some restaurants do everything decently, others do a few things well and a small number do one thing spectacularly. Just as Ben’s Chili Bowl is all about the chili, El Pollo Rico earns its customers by serving delicious chicken.

By December 6, 2007

Leisure

Performing LGBTQ Awareness

In the wake of the two hate crimes against LGBTQ students that occurred at Georgetown earlier this year, Nomadic Theater’s Square Pegs Productions will present a staged reading of Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project tonight.

By December 6, 2007

Leisure

Golden God?

The Golden Compass, which comes out nationwide on Friday, has all the ingredients of a standard big-budget fantasy epic. Complex fantastical universe, surprisingly like our own—check. Talking animals—check (several times over). Ian McKellen and/or Christopher Lee—check and check! Shadowy, evil villain bent on controlling the entire magical world—check.

And that’s where things get complicated.

By December 6, 2007

Leisure

Critical Voices: Ghostface Killah

Ghostface Killah’s third release in two years, The Big Doe Rehab, proves that he’s quite the prolific rapper, but does little to silence the cries of inconsistency that have plagued him since his breakthrough Supreme Clientele. With its lack of innovation and absence of any true standout tracks, The Big Doe Rehab doesn’t live up to its colossal expectations as the follow-up to 2006’s excellent Fishscale.

By December 6, 2007

Leisure

WEB EXCLUSIVE: The nightmare that keeps on giving

Director Tim Burton delivers a visionary new nightmare before Christmas with his macabre adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s award-winning musical Sweeney Todd. As the haunted pipe organ and bloody opening credits make abundantly clear, this gory film, laced with coal-black humor, is not your average musical.

By December 6, 2007

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WEB EXCLUSIVE ‘There Will Be Blood’: There Was Blood … And More

Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood is a devilish movie that isn’t easily absorbed in its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Although it offers hardly any satisfying moments, There Will Be Blood is challenging and engaging, polished filmmaking at its best that makes for a demanding, but extremely rewarding, experience.

By December 6, 2007

Leisure

Decaying Photos

Christopher Myers’ “Standing on Two Eyes” is a refreshing departure from the modern-day overkill of digital photography, confronting the unrest of urban gentrification with a collection of hauntingly beautiful and nostalgic black and white giclee (a type of fine-art ink-jet) prints.

By December 6, 2007

Leisure

No Country for Old Men

Joel and Ethan Coen’s brutally masterful new film, No Country for Old Men, is an unnerving piece of filmmaking as harsh and unforgiving as the parched Texas landscape where the story unfolds.

By November 29, 2007