Leisure

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

Leisure

Critical Voices: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mosquito

Though their usual musical nuance is missing throughout most of their fourth album, Mosquito is the kind of eccentric experimentation that could only come from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. While it lacks the clear highlights of prior albums, such as “Maps” from the now decade-old Fever to Tell, Mosquito is not without its moments—but listeners will have to scratch beyond the surface to discover these glimmers of artistic success.

By April 17, 2013

Leisure

Under the Covers: A book as bland as matzah

Mystery, a love triangle, cross-cultural conflict, and a foreign setting—what more could you want in a summer read? And for us internationally aware Georgetown students, Second Person Singular’s author, Sayed Kashua, is yet another of its attractions.

By April 17, 2013

Leisure

Reel Talk: Risqué, violent movies ‘R’ us

Most movie fans remember the first R-rated movie they watched. If you have trouble recalling this formative experience, you probably had awesome parents who let you watch Commando when you were three. But that’s beside the point. A couple hundred R-rated movies later, we cannot help but miss the visceral reactions our younger selves felt as we saw explicit images on the screen, images that opened the door to terror, sexuality, and humor which our virgin eyes and ears had never been exposed to.

By April 17, 2013

Leisure

Astounding Trojan Barbie takes on a life of its own

Walking into Gonda Theater and seeing a Barbie doll’s limbs tied on cords is a bit of a shocking sight. At first, you think it’s just a child’s room gone horribly wrong, when in reality, it means so much more. As grotesque as it appears, it conceals profound conflict beneath the surface.

By April 11, 2013

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D.C. Film Fest kicks off

Now in its 27th year, the D.C. Film Fest continues to showcase a comprehensive selection of foreign films and documentaries. This city-spanning event brings in some of the more enigmatic filmmakers and public figures of the age, but to categorize these guests as provocateurs would be a bit of stretch.

By April 11, 2013

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Trance will hold you in its sway

A psychological thriller can only go one of two ways—astounding success or abject failure. Every piece of the puzzle must come together in the end, the build-up to the ultimate reveal being propelled by unmistakable momentum. Director Danny Boyle masterfully achieves this feat with Trance, his fascination with both visual and metaphorical fragmentation showing through in every scene and suspense pervading every line.

By April 11, 2013

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Examining intimacy with “Let’s Not Ever Be Strangers Again”

I have never witnessed a performance art show, since it’s a relatively nascent artistic phenomenon to gain attention from the general population. The closest I ever got was visiting the Curator’s Office, a gallery near Logan Circle, to examine the extraordinary documentation of D.C. native and performance artist Kathryn Cornelius’s edgy experiment, performed in summer 2012. “Let’s Not Ever Be Strangers Again” details 34-year-old Cornelius’s experience of getting married to seven different people in seven hours, and promptly divorcing each one merely an hour after the wedding vows. All in a day’s work.

By April 11, 2013

Leisure

Critical Voices: James Blake, Overgrown

A sensitive dubstep artist who’s been known to collaborate with Bon Iver isn’t exactly the kind of musician you find in droves these days. So, James Blake is somewhat of an anomaly in this sense, though the tremendous appeal of his idiosyncratic, folksy electronica is impossible to deny. With his sophomore effort, Overgrown, the London-based singer-songwriter proves that he’s in no way contained within the boundaries of genre.

By April 11, 2013

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Critical Voices: Brad Paisley, Wheelhouse

Few things are as satisfying to watch as an artist with nothing left to prove. With nine albums under his belt, country star Brad Paisley is truly in his comfort zone; now, he’s just having fun. A largely unedited, seemingly casual jam session merges his unique brand of comedy and a glimpse at pervasive social issues on the appropriately titled Wheelhouse, unleashing the full force of Paisley’s insight and creativity on a 17-track masterpiece.

By April 11, 2013

Leisure

Loose Cannon: I wish I was in Dixie

Throughout this semester, I have been contemplating many aspects and incidents of drunken debauchery here at Georgetown. The more I thought about the subject—the wild nights, the painful mornings, the stupid and awesome decisions made—the more I wanted to know the meaning behind all of this intoxicated behavior. Why does Georgetown drink so hard, and how could I get to the bottom of this question?

By April 11, 2013

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Paper View: In praise of bad men

A glass of Scotch, a pressed designer suit, oodles of witticisms oozing with creative confidence. Don Draper, the anti-hero of AMC’s Mad Men, is the symbol of masculine perfection. Hairy chest? Check. Commanding presence? Check. Insanely rich? Marry me.

By April 11, 2013

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Spring Awakening shocks and awes in Poulton Hall

This weekend, sex and suicide will be simulated on a Georgetown stage. This is not a lurid hook to get you to spend $8 at Poulton Hall. It is a salute to our Jesuit University and its students for their creative and mature handling of the, at times, violent and shocking content of the musical Spring Awakening. The show is masterfully done and displays the full spectrum of Georgetown’s talent from the singing, to the staging, to the orchestration.

By April 4, 2013

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Gosling spruces up Beyond the Pines

Ambition can sometimes be a dirty word, depending on its reach and underlying intentions. A riveting film following fatherhood and its generation-spanning consequences, The Place Beyond the Pines is certainly no stranger to aspiration. Though a narrative triptych that throws its net a little too wide, the latest film from Derek Cianfrance, the director of indie darling Blue Valentine, is nevertheless a rarity in its ability to touch on themes of novelistic proportions.

By April 4, 2013

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Outwin Boochever Competition breathes life into portraits

While the traditional notion of a “portrait” connotes the art of creating detailed personal representations, the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition takes the art of portraiture to entirely new levels. The exhibit transforms portraits into powerful works that communicate themes of personal identity, cultural differences, and the fleeting nature of beauty—qualities the average Facebook profile picture simply cannot capture.

By April 4, 2013

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Spring Sing is in the air

As the Georgetown community gets pumped for Calvin Harris’s concert this Saturday, campus a cappella groups are gearing up for a performance of their own. Superfood will host the Spring Sing concert, featuring familiar groups like the GraceNotes, the Capitol Gs, and the Chimes, as well as esteemed national acts like Johns Hopkins University’s Vocal Chords and Brown University’s Jabberwocks.

By April 4, 2013

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Critical Voices: Wavves, Afraid of Heights

We each cope with depression in our own way. For Wavves frontman Nathan Williams on the band’s fourth full-length release Afraid of Heights, it’s copious self-medication, followed by suicidal meditation. Using ‘90s-era skate punk as a vehicle for self-loathing, Afraid of Heights is a well-constructed dirge of an album, even if Williams hasn’t moved on thematically from where he was five years ago.

By April 4, 2013

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Critical Voices: Charles Bradley, Victim of Love

There are a couple of things you won’t believe when you first slap Charles Bradley’s second record, Victim of Love, on the turntable.

By April 4, 2013

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Under the Covers: Sandberg leans in, falls short

“The blunt truth is that men still run the world.” Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead asserts that gender inequality in the workplace is rampant. Sandberg’s book calls on you, women and men of Georgetown, to lean in—“be ambitious in any pursuit”—to combat this phenomenon.

By April 4, 2013

Leisure

Reel Talk: Some ideas shine, some don’t

Reflecting on the recent “conspiracy theory” documentary chronicling interpretations of The Shining’s true meaning, The Atlantic’s Jason Bailey posed a salient question: can movies be solved? A cryptic and haunting movie, The Shining asks more questions than it answers; on top of this, its famously elusive director Stanley Kubrick was known for his meticulous attention to detail and big picture thematic undertones. With these facts on the table, it becomes clear that The Shining may have an agenda beneath its horror movie veneer.

By April 4, 2013

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Mari Vanna opens a portal to the Motherland in Dupont

Borsch—a beet and assorted vegetable soup with beef—is perhaps the most iconic dish associated with Russian cuisine. Indeed, the image of a wooden spoon resting casually in a steaming bowl of the red staple, along with a surrounding crowd of bustling relatives, is common in the motherland.

By March 21, 2013