“Did you bring your mom?” Kyle Renner asked earnestly when I arrived at the Georgetown Levi’s store Friday night. My friend had been planning to take her mother along, but it hadn’t worked out. “Okay,” he said. “I just wanted to make her comfortable, if she came, let her know she’s totally welcome.” Anyone’s mom […]
W.H. Auden was known for his muffled speech. “If there are any of you at the back who do not hear me, there is no use raising your hands because I am also near-sighted,” he once told an audience. Auden himself couldn’t appear at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s reading last Tuesday night, having died in […]
Posted Thursday, Feb. 22, 2:26 p.m. Lily Allen doesn’t take requests. “I can’t fucking hear you, and anyway this is my gig,” she shouted at fans at the 9:30 Club Saturday night. When a group of guys found it necessary to inform her that they were from Atlanta, she cheerfully screamed back, “We’re in D.C., […]
Bea, one of the characters in “Breaking and Entering,” doesn’t understand the concept of metaphors. She should consider herself lucky, because her world is filled with some real clunky ones – not to mention all the awkward similes and inept analogies. Director and writer Anthony Minghella (“Cold Mountain”) is making a statement about communication in […]
During his interview with The Hatchet, Demetri Martin is looking for parking. “Two dollars for every 15 minutes?” he asks a woman. “I don’t want to park here. That’s really expensive. I hate Los Angeles. What a terrible place.” The New York-based comedian usually moves by skateboard or bike. He’s driving around L.A. to work […]
Don’t be turned off by the grim title: “God Grew Tired of Us,” currently at Landmark E Street Cinema, is as uplifting as a movie about Sudan has any right to be. It helps that the film isn’t really about the civil war that killed millions of people and displaced millions more. Director Christopher Quinn […]
Whenever a new biopic comes out, critics jump all over each other pointing out the inaccuracies. Ray Charles never stopped doing drugs. John Nash was mean. Cole Porter was gay. There can be no such hand-wringing over “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.” Steven Shainberg (“Secretary”) has taken the bare bones of the photographer’s […]
“We’re actors – we’re the opposite of people,” members of the Generic Theatre Company kept telling me. It’s a line from their upcoming production of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” opening tonight. Whatever it means, it’s probably not true – but the Generic players don’t want anyone to take them (or the production) […]
What if President Bush was assassinated and no one could see it? That’s the controversy over “Death of a President,” Brit Gabriel Range’s fictional documentary of a future assassination. Hillary Clinton called it “despicable” without having actually, technically, you know, seen it. Major film chains have refused to carry the film, citing fears of copycat […]
“The Prestige” begins with a magic trick. Cutter (Michael Caine) explains the mechanics of magic to a young girl. First there’s the pledge, when the magician presents an ordinary object – in this case a bird in a cage. Then there’s the turn – when the cage disappears. But people don’t applaud, he explains, until […]