Leisure

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

Leisure

Idiot Box: My star, my perfect silence

There’s something paradoxically satisfying about watching a great hero’s tragic downfall. Every tumble down a slippery slope confirms our expectations, even as that character manages to draw our sympathies on the road to perdition. Over the narrative arc of its consistently glorious five seasons, Breaking Bad has accomplished that difficult task of getting the audience to root for the bad guy throughout his descent into monstrosity. The problem is deciding whether or not to play to those sympathies when the end is nigh.

By October 3, 2013

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Critical Voices: Blitzen Trapper, VII

It seems impossible for a band to be together for over a decade, release seven records, and still be considered “off the radar.” Nevertheless, Blitzen Trapper makes the impossible possible. The Portland-based quintet has been around since the turn of the century, showing off their offbeat style to a small but loyal following.

By October 3, 2013

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Critical Voices: Lorde, Pure Heroine

Lorde isn’t old enough to drive. This detail is relevant not as incontrovertible proof that the New Zealand songstress is an astonishing prodigy, but because her songs are so concerned with movement: The shrinking distance between her and the world of fame and fortune, as she travels through her own unknown town on the back of a story she’s telling for the people unaccustomed to being the protagonists.

By October 3, 2013

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Critical Voices: Remix your weekend

Whether you're in need of new study tunes or something fresh to play at your Saturday rager, the Voice has reviewed a slew of LPs for you.

By the September 28, 2013

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Masturbatory masterpiece hits dark theater near you

It’s not difficult to imagine how the pitch meeting for Don Jon went: “So, there’s this porn addict…” I know I would be skeptical, but, then again, I’m not part of Hollywood’s key adolescent boy demographic. It’s certainly not an easy story idea to pull off, and the main character is about as likable and multi-layered as a cardboard cutout of Todd Akin. Still, there’s a lot more to this film than first impressions allow.

By September 26, 2013

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Intimate new bar snuggles up to U St.

As a general rule, it’s a good idea to avoid dark, isolated basements. But despite its location underneath the pan-Asian restaurant Doi Moi in an alley just off U St., 2 Birds 1 Stone is not exactly dark and full of terrors.

By September 26, 2013

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D.C. Fashion Week struts its stuff down the National Mall

Perhaps not quite up to the standards of the holy quartet of cities who host what is informally known as fashion month (New York, London, Milan, and Paris), D.C. is doing everything in its efforts to establish a noteworthy fashion week of its own.

By September 26, 2013

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Plate of the Union: A caffeinated Turkish delight

I will never forget the first time I drank Turkish coffee. It was my eighteenth birthday, and that very morning I arrived in southern Turkey, where I was handed off to a Turkish family who would be my family for the next 10 months. They spoke no English, I spoke no Turkish, and, as we zoomed away from the airport in a tiny blue car, dust flying, sun pounding, my heart raced as I thought, “What the hell am I doing here?”

By and September 26, 2013

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Reel Talk: Reel guns aren’t real guns

Following the Sandy Hook massacre, the NRA blamed the frequency of mass shootings in the United States on a culture of violence incubated by games like Grand Theft Auto and Mortal Kombat and movies like American Psycho and Natural Born Killers. Guns don’t kill people, the combination of violent media and a flawed mental health system do.

By September 26, 2013

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Critical Voices: Chrvches, The Bones of What You Believe

A tumultuous lovers’ quarrel is not often told in such beautiful, cheerful tones. On their first full-length release, The Bones of What You Believe, Chvrches delivers the enthralling narrative of a failing relationship, dragging the listener through pain and loathing with a charming, electro-pop sound.

By September 26, 2013

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Critical Voices: Touché Amoré, Is Survived By

Touché Amoré’s Is Survived By is less an exercise in creating music than it is an emotional outpouring that happened to take place in a studio. The L.A. five-piece’s third full-length LP scours the depths of human experience and returns with a chilling tale of personal reflection in the face of total uncertainty. Is Survived By takes post-hardcore’s emotional potency to its extreme.

By September 26, 2013

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The Bard brilliantly enters the stage and exits the closet

Tattered paint peels off the walls. A smoky haze fills the room. A luxurious yet torn red velvet curtain takes center stage. This decadent late-1930s Austria, teetering on the verge of fascist annexation, sets the backdrop for the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Measure for Measure, expertly directed by Jonathan Munby.

By September 19, 2013

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Pho-king deliciousness

Nestling itself into the cozy neighborhood on Wisconsin Ave, Pho Viet & Grille brings the Georgetown area a relatively inexpensive yet satisfying new eatery. This little café just north of Q St. aims to attract the pho-loving crowd that wants to avoid the trek to Rosslyn for their Vietnamese gastro-fix.

By September 19, 2013

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Warhol brings whirlwind to Rosslyn

Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds takes you to a dreamland where your cares are lifted into the stratosphere amid the gentle roar of distant fireworks. Lost in the euphoria of unanticipated joy, visitors to the Rossyln Artisphere’s exhibit have a chance to experience a literal cloud nine in the center of a balloon whirlwind.

By September 19, 2013

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Al-Mansour triumphs with first film shot in Saudi Arabia

On paper, Wadjda is your typical Saudi preteen girl. She also possesses more spunk and spice than the entire cast of Mean Girls combined. This may be surprising given Wadjda’s context, but viewers cannot help but feel an inner glow every time the film’s titular character out-sasses the boys.

By September 19, 2013

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Marxist manic pixie girls

It’s hard to imagine a Healy Lawn devoid of Vineyard Vines and Sperrys. But even Georgetown had an edgier age when The Who and The Grateful Dead were typical lineups at our spring concert. Beyond the gates, anti-establishment America flourished, and Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Dissident Gardens pulls you by the hand through a maze of iconic rebellious decades.

By September 19, 2013

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This season’s comic relief

Any show whose opening sequence revolves around Andy Samberg wearing a leather jacket and moving in slow motion is already at a serious advantage in my book. Now that I... Read more

By September 19, 2013

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Critical Voices: MGMT, MGMT

MGMT’s self-titled LP is a beautiful labyrinth that can only be appreciated once you break free of its constricting walls. Though weirder than ever, the electro-soaked, psych-rock sound, first shared with the world on MGMT’s breakout success Oracular Spectacular, has become more refined and distinctive in their third full-length recording.

By September 19, 2013

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I’ll meet you anytime you want in our Italian restaurant

After spending a week in Rome three years ago, it’s largely undisputed that I’m essentially an Italian food connoisseur. Still, it doesn’t take an expert to know that Ghibellina serves great food. Ralph Lee and Ari Gedjenson took a piece of Italy with them when they brought the restaurant Acqua al 2 across the Atlantic and gave it a new home on Capitol Hill.

By September 12, 2013

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Another fussy French diplomat lands in Washington

Le Diplomate proves as pricey as its fancy name suggests. Tucked into the corner of 14th and Q, the restaurant mimics its French counterparts with high, open windows, rustic white and oak-paneled walls, and tiled floors. All this establishes the feeling of old Paris as you walk through a set of wooden doors. At 6:30 on a Monday night (that’s right, Monday), the restaurant was already filled, and I was cheerfully given a table on the sidewalk—nothing to complain about on such a beautiful day. That quiet, idyllic corner spot where expats scribble masterpieces is nowhere to be found at Le Dip. Instead, the patio bubbles with noise—the restaurant is quickly becoming a lively neighborhood spot.

By September 12, 2013