Leisure

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

Leisure

Masterpieces hit Phillips

Picasso was a genius. Monet revolutionized art. Rodin reinvented emotion. Perhaps these revelations aren’t new or quite newsworthy, but they should be. Regardless of how well-known the great artists of the 18th and 19th centuries are, you can never know them well enough.

By the February 28, 2002

Leisure

Denzel’s latest tackles health policy

Hopefully, your local hospital gives out free health care. Hope Memorial Hospital does not, and one dying little boy doesn’t have time to wait for the medical system to change, and neither does his determined father. John Q. looks at John Quincy Archibald (Denzel Washington), a hard-working factory employee and even harder-working family man, who is having trouble doing either effectively after having his hours trimmed back at work.

By the February 21, 2002

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Emo sideman hits the country with solo album

Rock ‘n’ roll has taken a turn for the generic, with emo ascending the Top 40 faster than you can say “smells like another Dookie,” but Cub Country has resisted this trend by taking a sharp dive into the South. Not that anyone can blame the band, as Southern influence has expanded outside its borders with the sleeper success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, which compiled a variety of bluegrass-twinged country tunes.

By the February 21, 2002

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New Indian film colorful

With the world’s eyes fixed rigidly on the Asian subcontinent, it is quite fascinating to note the powerful contrasts that exist in the region. In India, the world’s largest democracy, there still exists a semblance of the age-old stratified caste system. In the streets of its larger cities, Hindi is heard spoken beside English?that leftover remnant of British colonialism.

By the February 21, 2002

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The dialectic of rock

Friedrich Nietzsche claimed that all great art emerged from the clash within man between the Apollonian impulse of order and Dionysian impulse of lust. Rock is certainly no exception, but from case to case, one impulse seems to trump the other. After all, rock spans a great range of sounds, from the gentlest folk ballad to the loudest misanthropic metal freakout.

By the February 21, 2002

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A tale of two Johns

This week has seen some exciting developments in the lives of two distinguished members of the Georgetown community, both named John. The new film John Q. may at first glance be a stirring tale of a man determined to save his son at all costs, but this morality play has a Georgetown connection.

By the February 21, 2002

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Cherry Tree benefits from ringers

For a campus that otherwise shows little interest in student-led artistic activities, the Georgetown community has a peculiar fascination with a cappella music in all of its doo-wopping glory. One can find spontaneous outbursts of coordinated vocal seranades in many forms, from small-scale performances by the Saxatones to Sellinger sing-alongs with the Phantoms and Superfood.

By the February 14, 2002

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Korean film features big action, little message

A team of crouching police, weapons drawn, herds a wounded woman into a back alley. As they circle around her, guns aimed at her temples, her look changes from panic to a calm intensity. She spends a moment silently facing her captors and then makes her move.

By the February 14, 2002

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Wrapping it up at NGA

We can criticize and kvetch all we want, but in the end, we must face the truth: We absolutely delight in the fruits of the packaging, in the billions of dollars that make sure things look just right. Sure it’s wasteful, but who can deny the allure of a glistening pile of, say, empty presents in a Macy’s window display? This mystery of packaging?its textures and vibrance, its ability to seduce the eye?is perhaps what compels Christo and Jeanne-Claude to wrap, artistically speaking.

By the February 14, 2002

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Eye of the tiger

Radical feminist and anarchist Emma Goldman once said, “I don’t want to be part of your revolution if I can’t dance.” Like other musicians with good politics who came before them, Le Tigre provides anthems for its target demographic. This threesome will be visiting with their multimedia slide show Wednesday at the Black Cat.

By the February 14, 2002

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Memento writer visits campus

Were the secrets of Memento unlocked when Georgetown alumnus Jonah Nolan (CAS ‘98) spoke to students this Tuesday evening? The answer is no … or is it yes? Or rather, maybe there just aren’t any solid answers when one tackles such difficult subjects as forgiveness, revenge, the mercurial nature of memory and the possibility of a world in which the passage of time is removed.

By the February 7, 2002

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Stereophonics rock 9:30 Club to crowd’s delight

Wales’ most famous rock band, the Stereophonics, wound down its American tour promoting its third album, Just Enough Education to Perform, (or J.E.E.P.) at the 9:30 Club on Saturday night. On the album, the band sounds like a good natured U2 rip-off, and the T-shirts worn by the attendees gave evidence to that hypothesis.

By the February 7, 2002

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For Colored hits Walsh

Black Theater Ensemble’s performance of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf is at times both strong and passionate, but mostly fails to rise above clunky predictability. Many of the production’s failings can be traced to the weakness of the play’s structure.

By the February 7, 2002

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Women behind the lens

Every child has done it. Scanning through the tightly-packed shelves of yellow, bound magazines that your parents so religiously collected, hoping to pick out a volume of National Geographic filled with pictures of wild animals, exotic places and even bizarrely dressed, but usually undressed, people.

By the February 7, 2002

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Lounge lizards

For years, the Washington, D.C. music scene has been known primarily for its reputation dating back to the early-’80s hardcore boom. Today, that reputation is beginning to change. While hardcore has fallen off to a degree, local electronic/dance artists have recently been making a name for D.

By the February 7, 2002

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Playing with water

Even if Afghanistan is landlocked, we’ll settle for a Victory at Sea. If you are racked with paranoia from this week’s State of the Union speech, go to the Black Cat and relax to their sultry and desolate sounds of this quietly captivating Boston indie band.

By the January 31, 2002

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Keyes for TV success

Cable-news junkies have welcomed the latest addition to the pantheon of talking heads. Sometime Presidential candidate and full-time conservative pundit Alan Keyes is now hosting a program on MSNBC called Alan Keyes Is Making Sense. One portion of the program is devoted to a “conversation” between Keyes and several guests, supposedly “regular folks” plucked from the District’s streets.

By the January 31, 2002

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Nomadic tackles complex play

Named after the Schubert Quartet around which much of the plot circles, Death and the Maiden raises questions of trust, women’’s empowerment, the nature of true justice, the role of silence in healing, forgiving, forgetting and the existence if objective truth, but provides few answers.

By the January 31, 2002

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French import ruins it for everyone

“Oh, The Brotherhood of the Wolf?” said my friend, “That was out in France about a year ago.” Having spent the semester abroad, she had been in Paris to witness first-hand the sensation that surrounded this film. I had already formulated my opinion, and was desperate to draw out of my friend how the French?and if I am to believe the trailers that tout this film as the most momentous thing to hit the Old World since the Bubonic Plague, all of Europe, too?came to theirs.

By the January 31, 2002

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Good music gone bad

In a business as increasingly cynical as the record industry, the “tribute album” phenomenon might be the most cynical trend of all. After all, for what purpose other than to perhaps cover time-share fees for record-company executives might these records be released? However, such cynicism is not necessarily warranted?some recent tribute albums have been a pleasant artistic diversion.

By the January 31, 2002