DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. The Parallax View This week in Popcorn & Candy, what's old is new again. We've got Cold War satire that's just as appropriate now, a TV series that was at its best in the '90s reborn on the big screen, and ancient Rome through the lens of the mid-20th century. But topping the list is Alan... [continue]

The thing about all those clichés like, "A picture is worth a thousand words"? They're actually kinda true. Iconicity, a smart offering from this year's Capital Fringe Festival, takes such sentiments to heart, and presents a meditation on the power of pictures through a theatrical lens. The title refers to the production's emphasis on iconic imagery and unforgettable, universal events. The "Where Were You?" sentiment we all fall prey to when discussing historical happenings of... [continue]

Hard-rocking renaissance man Jon Langford tears it up. Photo courtesy Bloodshot Records. In a fairer, better world, Jon Langford would need no introduction; in a world that makes Kenny Chesney a country star, he probably does. (Unless, of course, you read our interview with Langford last fall.) So: Since founding the protean punk outfit the Mekons in Leeds, England, three decades or so ago, he's become that Godfather of the Chicago alt-country scene that... [continue]

“So the thing you have to understand is this is radio,” says the voice in the darkness — a little bit squeaky, a little bit nasal, not at all the voice you’d assign to the leader of a benign radio cult if it weren't already so familiar. Ira Glass, creator and host of the weekly public radio story anthology This American Life, begins all his speaking engagements this way. That opening line is always good... [continue]

In the 1970s, a survey in Russia found that the most well-known American in the country was Richard Nixon. Placing second on that list was Willis Conover, a man unknown to many Americans, but loved by millions around the globe as the jazz disc jockey for Voice of America. This was at a time when the world was flirting with self-annihilation, but even then, leaders in government realized that music and art can be a... [continue]

Sure it’s got magic, but the Teller (of Penn & Teller fame) co-directed Macbeth has something even more unusual – it manages to inject a sense of wonder, terror and even fun into a work that is most often played as a rather dour tragedy. The blood-soaked Teller-Aaron Posner Macbeth, now at Folger, is a lot more interested in making the Weird Sisters gruesome (and boy, do they) than it is meditating on the title... [continue]

On February 28, 1978, Elvis Costello was 23 years old and convinced of his own magnificence. His second album — but crucially, his first with the Attractions, the three musicians with whom he'd make his most celebrated records — the furious, paranoid, Aftermath-styled This Year's Model, would be released the following week, and would top the Village Voice and Rolling Stone critics' polls at year's end. At the close of his first U.S. tour, only... [continue]

You've no doubt already read this impossibly horrible column penned by conservative freelance journalist Charlotte Allen that ran in the Washington Post on Sunday, but just in case you haven't gotten the outrage out of your system, consider this comment thread the place to do just that. We hardly know how to begin to wrap our brains around this series of events: Allen, the same woman who wrote the Weekly Standard story dismissing the Jena... [continue]

Chicago 10 is a thoroughly entertaining look at the infamous 1969 trial of the group that came to be known as the Chicago 7 -- which is to be expected, as its director, Brett Morgen, previously made a similarly inventive and engaging documentary on legendary movie producer Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture. The two docs couldn't be about more different subjects, and Morgen wisely ditches the wink-and-a-nod ironies of his previous film... [continue]

When Wilco first toured after the release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002, though it seems even longer ago), they'd joke around on stage about how they were trying to popularize the word "snoozin'." Jeff Tweedy would say, "You know how when people started saying 'bad' when something was really good? It's the same thing. 'Snoozin' is the new 'rockin'." It's an ethos that, while not uniformly descriptive of the band's output since then, is certainly... [continue]

Last week we were excited to tell you about our special event for the second annual DCist Exposed Photography Show. The Pink Line Project and Civilian Art Projects have done an excellent job getting the knowledgeable Emerge Exposed panel together to discuss how one can start collecting photography and other art, so we hope you'll join us on Wednesday, March 12 at 7 p.m. (sharp!). Please RSVP to info [at] pinkline.org to make sure... [continue]

Reacting just as quickly as the U.S. Mint did in shooting down the District's proposed designs for its own commemorative quarter, city officials are already floating new ideas for what will eventually grace the coin when it is minted in 2009. According to an article in the Post today, city officials will likely keep two of the proposed designs -- abolitionist Benjamin Banneker and jazz legend Duke Ellington -- while retiring the proposal for the... [continue]

Apparently Starbucks wasn’t the only coffee shop closed yesterday. According to a post on Murky Coffee's website, their Capitol Hill location was shuttered on Tuesday by the D.C. government.We've had a hiccup with the DC Government, and were shut-down for a couple of non-compliance issues. We're in communication with them, and expect to be back up-and-running in a couple of days.An employee at their Arlington location told us this afternoon the issue is related to... [continue]

Musician Keren Ann (pictured) started living an international lifestyle at a very young age. Born to a Dutch-Javanese mother and a Russian-Israeli father, she lived in Israel and Holland before her family settled in France, where she started her career. She continues this globetrotting lifestyle as a performer who is able to cross stylistic and international boundaries by creating a catalog of eclectic songs that are sung in multiple languages, while retaining a very personal... [continue]

Two men robbed the Maggie Moo's ice cream parlor on U Street at gunpoint yesterday -- and they did it at 12:15 p.m., right in the middle of the day. DCist's Lynne Venart snapped the photo above of some of the aftermath of the crime scene. According to WJLA, the armed suspects wore masks and physically attacked a 23-year-old employee of the store when she had trouble opening the safe. The gunmen only made... [continue]

Here's a type of lawsuit-related news you certainly don't see every day: The Post reports that the family of slain retired New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum has said they will drop their $20 million civil suit against the District over the negligent care two emergency medical technicians provided after Rosenbaum was hit on the head during a mugging near his home in D.C. in 2006. Rosenbaum, as you'll recall, did not receive adequate treatment... [continue]

Patti Smith. The Patti Smith. The godmother of punk. Beat poet. Artist. Musician. Rock journalist. Ex-girlfriend of some of art and music's most talented men. Subject of a documentary which just premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Recent inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In short, quite possibly the coolest woman alive. About a month ago, she and her band put on a rousing rock show at the 9:30 club. This... [continue]

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner: The National Gallery's English New Wave retrospective closes this weekend with, as far as this writer is concerned, the best film of the period. Alan Sillitoe's screenplay (from his own short story) concerns Colin Smith, a British youth whose skill for distance running is only matched by his ability... [continue]

If you were traveling over the holiday weekend, you would have easily missed the announcement that popular local NPR affiliate WAMU 88.5 FM will be making big changes to their broadcast schedule -- most notably moving the entirety of their popular weekend bluegrass programming to an HD Radio channel, leaving many listeners upset and confused as to how the station could abandon their signature music programs on the regular FM dial. Here's what's going to... [continue]