"I'm not gonna change," Ovechkin said.

"I think it spurred our team on to, for once, let's come to [Ovechkin's] defense," Boudreau said of the Caps' ensuing penalty kills.

Though the Caps' offense started out slow (it took till 8:27 left in the first period for them to get two shots on goal), Ovechkin helped out with a nice goal in the first on a wicked wrist shot, his 17th of the season. Varlamov remained strong at the other end, where it certainly seemed like he stopped double the 25 shots on goal Buffalo ended up with at the end of the third. Verizon Center rocked with chants of 'Varly,' and the goaltender received the first star of the game.

"Varly was solid. It was like he was saying, 'I'm not letting this happen to me again in the third period,'" Boudreau said.

The Caps will take today off before going on the road Saturday at Montreal.

But for a play with enough blood, love and rhetoric to do Shakespeare proud, Lulu is an oddly tedious exercise. By the time James Finley (as Jack) bursts from a back room fully nude and covered head to toe in blood, what should be an electrifying moment just has the audience stealing surreptitious glances at their watches.

WSC's production employs a huge cast of more than two dozen actors, some of whom must still pull double and triple duty to portray the multitudes that are inexorably drawn to the irresistible Lulu. Barker does what she can with a character possessing rather inscrutable motivations apart from the basic lust for wealth and security. As sexual as she is outwardly, one suspects this is little more than a front to get her what she really desires. She can talk about living for carnal delights all she wants, but her response to the simple question posed by a Countess is far more revealing. "Do you never indulge?" she is asked after turning down a cigarette. "Not for pleasure," she responds.

The play is filled with lines like this, double entendres and buried meanings. The word play provides much of the pleasure for the audience, but there's just not enough to carry a show that suffers from both too much plot and not enough variety. Lulu's character needs to draw us in just as hypnotically as she does her many suitors. Instead, we find ourselves waiting for her to finally join her husbands on the couch.

Lulu runs through December 13 at Washington Shakespeare Company. Tickets are available online.

>> Pianist Bob Boguslaw's regular gig is playing for the U.S. Marine Corp's President's Own ceremonial band. On Saturday, he'll be leading a jazz group on the Millennium Stage. 6 p.m. Free

>> Three Stars alum Thad Wilson leads his quartet at HR-57 on Saturday. 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. $12

>> Saxophonist Bruce Swaim, a regular at Twins Jazz, will return to the club on Sunday. Call 202-234-0072 for set time and cover information.

>> In 1960, the great Duke Ellington re-arranged Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite for his big band. Catch this charming adaptation of a holiday classic on Tuesday at the Millennium Stage, where the U.S. Army Blues will perform it in its entirety. 6 p.m. Free

>> Alan Baylock is the lead arranger for the Airmen of Note, the U.S. Air Force's premiere jazz ensemble. Additionally, he is an in-demand composer and educator who has worked with many a jazz great. Baylock will lead his own big band on Tuesday for 8 and 10 p.m. sets at Blues Alley, in a program titled Baylock, Beatles & Bells. Tickets are $20 + $12.50 minimum/surcharge.

>> Veteran local drummer and Three Stars alum Tony Martucci leads a trio next Tuesday at U-topia. The band will feature two other D.C. regulars, saxophonist Lyle Link and bassist Gavin Fallow. 9 p.m. No cover

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet

Prolific documentarian Frederick Wiseman's latest film is a sprawling, 2 hour and 40 minute immersion in the Paris Ballet. Wiseman's signature style, which seeks to drop the viewer into a foreign situation and have the same experience he did while he was there, without narration or explanation, makes for something like cinéma vérité, only Wiseman fully admits to influencing the proceedings by the presence of his crew. Much of the film is devoted to rehearsals and performance footage, as Wiseman watches the ballet prepare and present seven different works, making it both an excellent primer for ballet novices, and a visual feast for aficionados.

View the trailer.
Opens Friday for only five days at the AFI. If you miss their run, The Avalon is picking it up on December 4.

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Some Like It Hot

For a director as consistently accessible and brilliant as Billy Wilder, it's hard to pick a favorite film (though I usually default to The Apartment). Some Like It Hot is always a top contender for that title, and was named the number one comedy in the history of film by the AFI in 2000. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play a pair of musicians on the run from the mob after witnessing a murder. But the only job they can find open outside of Chicago is with an all girl traveling band fronted by Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), so the two get all dolled up for the trip, and both fall hard for Sugar. Hilarity, as one would expect, ensues. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the film, the AFI is screening a brand new 35mm print.

View the trailer.
Opens today at the AFI and runs until Sunday.

Feel like something a little more bloody for the Thanksgiving holiday? The AFI is also screening a brand new print of this writer's favorite scary movie, Stanley Kubrick's epic adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining. Elevators of blood and Jack Nicholson await, starting today for one week.

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Fantastic Mr. Fox

In making his first animated children's film, Wes Anderson has been no less idiosyncratic than is his habit. He wrote much of the script (with Noah Baumbach) from the same office on the Dahl estate in which Roald Dahl wrote the original book. That book serves as the middle third of the film, as Anderson and Baumbach expanded the brief tale into a story about a fox who gives up his dangerous days of raiding farms in favor of a more family-friendly life as a newspaper man before being tempted back into a life of crime; his actions prompt retaliation by the farmers that threatens the entire animal community. Once production started, Anderson continued doing things rather differently, recording the actors' voices on location at a farm in Connecticut rather than a studio, insisting on old fashioned animation techniques that would draw attention to the animation itself, and acting out scenes from his offices in Paris to send to the animators in England. His cinematographer, Tristan Oliver, famously made disparaging comments about his director's leadership by video conference in a hatchet-job article in the L.A. Times last month, including claiming the director to be a "little bit of a sociopath." Ouch. Since then they've publicly ironed things out, but Anderson may get the last laugh in any case: he might have directed from a different country, but Fox is garnering him some of the best reviews he's received since Rushmore.

View the trailer.
Opens today at theaters all over the area.

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The Road

The big question mark for this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's tough and tender tale of a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic America is whether or not the Weinsteins let director John Hillcoat make the best film possible. HIllcoat, director of the bleak and brilliant Aussie western The Proposition, is the perfect choice to direct this film, and while his go-to star Guy Pearce might have cut a more effectively gaunt figure as a starving man, I can't really argue with Viggo Mortenson in his place. But puzzlingly, the trailers make it look like Mad Max & son, and it seems odd for the producers to cut the trailer to make it look like an action movie, when the source material was an Oprah-backed mega-bestseller in McCarthy's dark and pander-free original form. Hopefully the film itself will retain the author's somber tone, which is what one would expect from Hillcoat. But with the Weinstein name on the opening credits, you should still brace yourself for the potential editing room ambush, and hope for the best.

View the trailer.
Opens today at a handful of area theaters.

A nightly Blue Plate Special (also $5.95) makes it enticing to make strategic choices for return visits. Waiters try to pick up Monday night shifts to make a meal of meatloaf night. A cut of the thick, slightly dry (in a good way) comfort food is a good reason to come in for a late night dinner, though the mashed potatoes the slab is served with weren't quite warm enough and the green beans a bit undercooked. Fajita night Wednesday brings a sizzling skillet and a heaping plate of toppings, but the chicken is under-seasoned. Those itching for Thanksgiving will find turkey with the fixins' every Thursday.

Pitchers of cheap beer come standard at any hour, as low as $9 for Rolling Rock. All specialty cocktails from an extensive list are $8, not bargain basement, but not bad considering you're liable to pay close to that much for a rail gin and tonic at any other place in Georgetown. Fair warning: you'll see your fair share of students downing sludge green colored shots of unspecified origins.

Also available is a 20-bottle wine list, well-priced at $20. But if you're looking to go on a spending spree with dad's credit card, the full wine list of 1789 Restaurant, (also operated by the Clyde’s group), is available.

There’s plenty of people watching to go along with your study snack. One Monday night I find myself in the middle of pub trivia night, where a “palindrome” round starts things off. I can’t think of one for “a kingly brew” or any of the other impossible questions. One Saturday, an undergrad and his MacBook rock the house with an eclectic mix that can transition from Lady Gaga to Annie Lennox. My group grabs a pitcher of cheap beer to take in the action and even brave our way out to the dance floor. Cheers to pretending we're still in college!

But whether or not you truly have business hanging out at a campus bar, keep your driver's license handy. Even if you're well settled in with drinks in hand, a bouncer will walk back through at 10 p.m. to recheck IDs and stamp hands. If you forget your ID and go home to get it, the bar will give you a free beer. But no ID, no evening entry.

The Tombs
1226 36th St NW
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 337-6668

Monday-Thursday: 11:30 a.m.-1:15a.m.
Friday: 11:30 a.m.-2:15 a.m.
Saturday: 11:00 a.m.-2:15 a.m.
Sunday: 9:30 a.m.-1:15 a.m.