Leisure

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

Leisure

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

Leisure

Jumping for love

A remarkable thing is happening right now at Arena Stage: They are performing a romantic comedy that somehow escapes the nauseating and hackneyed nature of the genre as a whole. On the contrary, Arena’s latest production, On the Jump, is both cleverly engaging and surprisingly refreshing.

By the January 31, 2002

Leisure

Cold cut fever

With any luck, you’ve already read this week’s cover story about the Voice staff’s favorite area restaurants. Now, while we at Voice Leisure are committed to getting students off campus to take advantage of Washington’s many cultural offerings, we understand that there are many times when leaving campus just isn’t an option.

By the January 31, 2002

Leisure

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

Leisure

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

Leisure

Storytelling another unsettling tale

Todd Solondz makes me cringe. He also makes me laugh, but it is the laughter of discomfort, the laughter that asks, “Did that just happen?” Those who have seen a Todd Solondz film are all too familiar with this feeling. Partly due to this, the three films since his popular debut further reinforce the stereotype of what “A Todd Solondz Film” will be, namely a movie that is controversial, mean-spirited and unsettling.

By the January 24, 2002

Leisure

Nas returns to form with anti-war statement

Much politically and socially conscious music once emanated from mainstream hip-hop. In recent memory, however, this has not been the case. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, a list of songs were sent to the major radio programmers in the country, strongly suggesting they not be played.

By the January 24, 2002

Leisure

Brown paper bag blues

We all know why it’s there, this den of secret passions and forbidden pleasures. Although temporarily situated behind and underneath a vast web of scaffolding, and permanently located in the less fashionable end of M Street, Key Bridge News appears to be chugging along today as the same model of utopian urban efficiency and inauspicious prosperity that it always has been.

By the January 24, 2002

Leisure

Wax in your ears

Two or three months ago, some elitist tool delivered a polemic in the Washington City Paper about the sad state of record stores in our fair city. Granted, this may be the case if you’re a vintage vinyl hound, who can’t live without a weekly dose of first-pressing mono-recorded wax.

By the January 24, 2002

Leisure

Arcadia a literate trip into the past

There has been a link between landscaping and scholarship dating back to the Greeks. In the Golden Age, Socrates had his classes among the trees, giving rise to the phrase “The Groves of Academe.” In the present age, Tom Stoppard sets his satire/treatise of the academic world in a Devonshire manor house famous for its beautiful and literarily significant garden.

By the January 17, 2002

Leisure

Local theater celebrates German cinema

The casual American moviegoer’s knowledge of German cinema most often begins and ends with films such as Das Boot (1981) and Run Lola Run (Lola rennt, 1998). While both films merit viewing, a thriving German film industry exists beyond Franka Potente’s shock of flame-red hair in Lola and Das Boot’s boatload of doomed submariners.

By the January 17, 2002

Leisure

Schreifels strikes a chord

Walter Schreifels of Rival Schools is a rock star. Not in that good-looking, sings-to-the-camera, ladies’-man kind of way—although this writer finds the first to be true. Instead, he is the kind of rock star that has vision in his blood and determination behind his eyes—undoubtedly the product of a 15-year music career.

By the January 17, 2002

Leisure

A twist of fate

When George Bush choked on a pretzel Sunday, media outlets across the world exploded in speculation. Was this a conspiracy? Is there a cover-up? Yet we at The Voice Leisure section choose to dig deeper?we mine the pits of sound bytes and news releases that have swallowed pundit and wonk alike.

By the January 17, 2002

Leisure

Where the ladies are

In the past year, Ladyfest, a female-run music festival that originated in Olympia, Wash., has become kind of a hippie-mom version of the riot-grrrl aesthetic, fashioning that “you ain’t it, la la la” feeling into a self-reliant community, complete with radical-feminist workshops, spoken-word slams and good old-fashioned boy bashing.

By the January 17, 2002

Leisure

Deep blues take Arena Stage

Do you think the blues are dead? Think again. The blues are alive and well, not only in their original forms, but also in the music they have inspired for the past 80 years. With their wholly original rhythmic and lyrical styles, the blues have influenced the formation of jazz, gospel, hip-hop and, of course, rock and roll.

By the January 10, 2002

Leisure

Grammy nominations disappoint (again)

Last Friday, The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences released its nominees for the 2002 Grammy Awards Ceremony to be held on Feb. 27 in Los Angeles. Doing so proved that, once again, record sales?not artistic innovation or quality?reign supreme in the annual selection process.

By the January 10, 2002

Leisure

Louder than Bombs

While I’m sure most of you enjoyed vegetating in the suburbs for the past two weeks as much I have, it sure is great to be back in the big city. Or is it? ... Like you, I went to class today. After a period of thought, I realized due to the shortened winter break this year, I haven’t forgotten enough from last semester to facilitate the absorption of new knowledge.

By the January 10, 2002

Leisure

Voice picks 2001’s best

It may not have been as major a year for music as some in recent memory, but 2001 really did see the release of some great ways to pass the time. Among other things, heaven hath given us the Strokes to make fun of, American Analog Set to nap to and Atmosphere to decipher.

By the January 10, 2002

Leisure

Voice picks 2001’s best

After a succession of years which saw a dearth of quality independent films, but a plethora of the usual Hollywood dreck, 2001 saw a comeback of sorts for cinema. Propelled by foreign offerings and a number of great Hollywood flicks, this year saw some of the most ambitious films in recent memory.

By the January 10, 2002

Leisure

B-boys (and girls) descend on AU

“Hey, that kid’s wearing a skateboard helmet!”

This would not have been an out of place comment had it been heard on a half-pipe, but instead it was half-mumbled by a stranger inside “The Tavern,” an American University version of Hoya Court. The reason for the helmet? To perform headspins, a staple breakdancing move.

By the December 6, 2001