Leisure

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



Leisure

Leisure Ledger

*Vagina Monologues auditions were held this week, and the e-mail promised that “every vagina will be heard.” We’re pretty sure they prefer to be called women now. *Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball is scheduled to host a live show in Gaston Hall on Wednesday, Jan.

Leisure

Revolucion! Kind of.

The intended purpose of this godforsaken column is to promote off-campus activities. While it rarely lives up to its “revolutionary” moniker, this week’s installment should provide the opportunity for you to really get out there and make change and inspire true revolution.

Leisure

Cinema ecstasy

It’s the beginning of a new semester, which means standing in long lines at the bookstore, add/drop and correcting new professors on the pronunciation of your last name, right? Well, to a certain degree, but there’s also that awesome little perk—no homework! But only for a limited time, so here’s a short guide to a few of D.

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Photographing the ‘dark continent’

by Sonia Smith The West is slowly coming to grips with its abusive colonial past. Europe dominated Africa with an authoritarian hand for almost a century. The Smithsonian African American Art Gallery’s new exhibit, In and Out of Focus: Images from Central Africa, 1885-1960, focuses on an aspect of colonial rule often overlooked.

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Leisure’s hottest singles of the year

To complete the annual fit of year-end list compilation, it’s important not to neglect what rules the radio waves, dance floors and TRL playlists. Media consolidation makes finding classics among the trash as diffcult and as crucial as ever. Last year, Timbaland’s production for artists such as Missy Elliot and the now forgotten Bubba Sparxx were the unmistakable cream of last year’s Top 40 crop.

Leisure

Mediocrity within reach

The new Loews Cineplex Georgetown is open for business. With 14 screens, it is the largest movie theatre in D.C. and for a cut-rate $7.50, students can watch both mainstream and art-house fare.

It’s about goddamn time. Movie screens have been disappearing in this town faster than Penelope Cruz’s career, the latest casualty being the Foundry, a magical place where one could see second-run films on small screens for three bucks.

Leisure

Kinky Darnall

In a recent study conducted by Cornell University, Georgetown University’s own Darnall Hall was ranked as the 19th most ssexually active dorms in the country. The study, which can be found at http://www.heartwarmers4u.com/ members/?jbarn1, raises grave concerns for many students in Darnall that they are living on the wrong floor or, at the very least, not walking around naked nearly as much as they should be.

Leisure

Solaris remade into a bad film

In a film where a brief shot of George Clooney’s ass is the warmest thing going, something must be awry. After doing a drug movie, a sex movie, a caper flick, even one with J. Lo, Steven Soderbergh has ventured into the realm of oblique Russian cinema with a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

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Strokes finish too quickly, fail to satisfy

The Strokes’ concert last Tuesday was a safe bet for D.C. kids with a curfew: By 11:30 p.m. ushers were already yelling for the hangers-on to clear the building. After playing a 50-minute set with no encore, the Strokes had cleared D.A.R. Constitution Hall in record time.

Leisure

More art, less matter

While the shopping opportunities on Wisconsin Ave. and M St. are the best around, art galleries in Georgetown are somewhat sparse. You have to look a little harder in order to find some substance beneath the overpriced clothes and trendy restaraunts. The Addison/Ripley Georgetown gallery on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Reservoir Road fits nicely into the void left by these other shops.

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Santarchy 101

This Saturday, Dec. 7, if you’re in the vicinity of the Georgetown Park Mall around 5 p.m., you might be in for a treat, as Santa Claus is scheduled to pay a visit. Actually, about 40 Santas should be around, but they won’t be handing out any sugar plums or candy canes.

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Interpol: Not strokes

Perhaps the best thing about the whole Strokes/New York underground music “revival” is that it has brought a bunch of bands that are a whole damn lot better than the Strokes into the mainstream. Although those guys think they’re cool with that scraggly-haired thrift-store alcoholic image they stole from CBGB circa.

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Urban Fare brings the city to …

Urban Fare 3 opened to a packed crowd in Gaston Hall this past Friday, bursting with fresh energy as talented performers brought a number of diverse acts. Full of noteworty performances, the night’s highlights included the poetry of Jessica Rucker (SFS ‘05), Becky Katz COL ‘06) and Lensa Fufa (CAS ‘04).

Leisure

Swamped? If not, check out Art-O-Matic

Art-O-Matic, an unjudged grassroots art exhibition, is currently making its third annual appearance, this time inside an abandoned EPA office building in the elusive southwest quadrant. It’s huge, it’s varied and it’s completely anarchical. Come prepared to exercise your better judgement.

Leisure

Holy musical, Bat Boy!

You walk in to a large warehouse-ish room. It’s all splintery wooden beams and black paint, huge red-and-black bat faces and unfinished walls. Smoke floats overhead. The slight beat of a drum echoes in the background, and bare risers surround a small stage.

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Northerners deliver two snoozers

The dashing hero of a Russian romantic novel poses a question to his traveling companion: “It was the French, I suppose, who made boredom fashionable?” “No, the English,” the companion replies. Surprisingly, both were wrong. Neither the Francos or the Anglos live in a locale quite northerly enough to facilitate truly mind-numbing boredom.

Leisure

Versatile acting shines in Studio play

Has American society has reached a stage where superficial appearances are valued above all else? We are constantly bombarded with images of “beautiful” people and find ourselves trying to conform to these stereotypes. Are we motivated to change to improve ourselves, or simply to impress others? The Studio Theatre’s production of Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things raises pointed moral questions about the nature of change and the extremes one is willing to go to for art and love.

Leisure

Liquid Lunchables

If the D.C. bar scene was a collection of packable lunch items, The Tombs would be the peanut butter sandwich?reliable and tasty. But the same lunch everyday gets boring. Sometimes you need to throw in a Lunchable or a Snack Pak. If the Tombs has been the center of your diet, it’s time to mix in some new ingredients.

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Falsettos delivers false promises

Just where did the lesbians next door come from and why should we care about them? It’s a question you will end up pondering towards the end of the ponderous Mask & Bauble production of Falsettos, an overlong musical whose size couldn’t be overcome, even with some good performances.

Leisure

Heaven takes earnest look at post-war ennui

Ten bucks says that Ricky battered Lucy and Ward Cleaver had a crush on Rock Hudson. It is almost a game now among pop culture nuts to decode the subtexts of those unbelievably pure television shows of the 1950s. A war had just ended and audiences wanted something that reflected their desires for an existence that was simple, happy and clean.