Leisure

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

Leisure

‘I am mad or else this is a dream’

William Shakespeare may not have written in the language college students are accustomed to hearing in a Chris Rock routine or an Adam Sandler movie, but that doesn’t make his theater any less raunchy, witty, or entertaining. The often base humor of Shakespeare’s comedies is theatrically exposed in Mask & Bauble’s new production of Twelfth Night, as the actors deftly go from playing dirty pranks to jousting, from singing Beatles songs to lamenting a count’s broken heart.

By the April 3, 2003

Leisure

‘Hail to’ new Radiohead album

Hail to the Thief, Radiohead’s new album is a record that incorporates its earlier guitar-rock into a sound that is increasingly experimental and unconventional. Probably. Like the group’s previous albums Kid A and Amnesiac, its newest offering is available weeks before it is scheduled for release.

By the April 3, 2003

Leisure

‘Irreversible’ unforgettable

The rape scene is reported to be ten minutes long, but no one ever checks their watch. Whatever the exact time is, it’s long enough. Alex (Monica Bellucci) walks through a Parisian underpass, red-lit like the road to hell. Two minutes later, she is sprawled face down against the gritty, concrete floor while a hand muffles her screaming, her crying.

By the April 3, 2003

Leisure

Point-counterpoint: Cursive live

All year you taunt me with your Brit pop and your jam bands. Yet by bringing you to see Cursive last Thursday, March 27, I have proved once and for all that my music is better than yours.

Let’s say you judged bands on toughness like sports teams. Openers No Knife get toughness points and the spirit award for coming out and putting on a great set even though lead singer Mitch Wilson was out of commission with a stomach ulcer.

By the April 3, 2003

Leisure

Point-counterpoint: Cursive live

I can’t believe you dragged me to that place again. I hate the Black Cat. Everyone there wears weird clothes and has multiple piercings, which I personally find unsanitary. I’ve put up with your crap music all year long. Built to Spill? More like Built to Crap on Your Face.

By the April 3, 2003

Leisure

Can’t kill the rooster

When I was abroad, a friend of mine lent me Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. And let me tell you, I couldn’t put it down! I was laughing out loud! Golly! But seriously, this stupid hyperbole actually applies to Sedaris. An essayist and humorist based in New York, Sedaris’ humor can make anyone laugh … and trust me, it’s funny as all hell.

By the April 3, 2003

Leisure

Richter exhibition off the scale

There is something about Gerhard Richter’s paintings which sets them apart from the works of most of the post-modernists and neo-expressionists he is typically associated with: they are pretty. Pretty in a way that transcends their typically grim spectra. Say what you will for the theoretical implications of his blurred portraits and crackling abstracts, they are first and foremost the work of a man with a hell of an eye.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

Kirchner show features bright colors, vivid figures

In the pages of this week’s New Yorker, a cartoon depicts a group of patrician-looking types chatting in front of a Calder-ish mobile and a squiggly-lined painting. “Jim’s a good old-fashioned modernist,” says one to the others.

“Good old-fashioned modernist” is an apt moniker for Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, co-founder of Die Br?cke and perhaps German Expressionism’s most remarkable artist.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

Shock and ‘AwNaw’

“Nappy don’t have nothing to do with hair,” said Scales, one member of the Kentucky hip-hop sextet Nappy Roots. “It’s about staying close to where we came from and building on that.”

The group, which will play at McDonough Arena on Saturday night, are the leaders of the new country-fried rap genre, a style of hip-hop that combines the funk of Outkast and the glossiness of Master P’s No Limit, first popularized by the now-forgotten Timbaland prot?g? Bubba Sparxxx.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

I saw you

Your hand brushed against mine during our introductory econ class. We both mumbled sorry, and I was too scared to ask for your number. Want to see if our supply and demand curves intersect?

You: tall, husky, belligerently drunk lacrosse player. Me: stunning, dark haired vixen wearing a green sweater and black skirt.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

Mo’ Career Fair

First Free Agents vacated the District. Then, after only three weeks but a lot of graffiti, the Playahaters left too. The only thing we’ve got now is Career Day, and while that may pale in comparison to the MBNA Career Center’s Eco-Tourism and Aqua Socks Info Session, at least D.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

‘Spider’ spins a stultifying story

There’s something wrong with Spider, not the least of which is his name. Dubbed so for his love of all things arachnid, Dennis “Spider” Cleg remembers building webs of natty string in his room. He also remembers his father doing something awful to his mother.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Improvfest comes to campus, so get excited

Trying to write a review about an improv comedy press run is a sure set-up for failure. Unlike a theater production performance, there is no set script or directions for the performers. Rather, spontaneity and off-the-cuff humor is employed in lieu of choreographed, well-rehearsed scenes and dialogue.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

The Plan dismembers

With all four members of Dismemberment Plan sporting beards as they took they stage, lead singer and guitarist Travis Morrison was the only one who seemed particularly displeased with his. Just returned from a New Hampshire shanty where he had been writing songs for his solo career, Morrison maintained “Everyone’s ugly in New Hampshire,” during his between-song banter.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Pimpin’ for the 9:30

I know it’ll be hard to pull yourself away from the television this weekend, what with televised Iraqi carpet bombing and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to brighten our days. While the prospect of late nights with Lute Olsen and Wolf Blitzer will certainly be enticing, I recommend getting your ass off of the couch and heading down to the 9:30 Club on Friday and Saturday for a cheap pair of concerts that blow Saddam-watching out of the water.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Nomadic Theatre sets ‘Angels’ ablaze

As the United States’ diplomacy grinds to a halt, historical relationships become the guiding force for the future. Likewise, in the search for progress, Angels in America II: Perestroika declares and wonders, “The great question before us is: are we doomed? ... will the past release us? ... can we change?” The play is Tony Kushner’s sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-and-Tony Award-winning Angels in America: The Millennium Approaches.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

2003 World Championship for Global Hegemony

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Ninjas! Ninjas! Ninjas!

The state of online, student-made ninja films is deplorable. There, someone needed to say it. Luckily, we have The Tenchu Reel Ninja Film Contest, found at www.ninjafilmcontest.com, a competition sponsored by Activision which features some of the best homemade ninja films by college-age directors around.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

‘Hearts of Oak’ full of heart, good music, lacks oak

As unrelated as a British naval hymn and the Ghanaian national soccer team might sound, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists allude to both in the title of their latest release Hearts of Oak. The band appears clad in lime green soccer jerseys on the cover, paying an oblique tribute to the “Hearts of Oak,” a poor Ghanaian team that went on to win international soccer championships.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

‘The Guide’ to loneliness

Gabe Fischbarg claims that men should never act vulnerable, because girls can smell desperation. What he hasn’t taken into account is that girls can also smell a sleaze a mile away, and his The Guide to Picking Up Girls emits a stench similar to that of month-old sea bass.

By the March 6, 2003