D.C. has landed an HBO comedy pilot on a D.C.-based Jewish family that will be directed by and star Ben Stiller. more ›

D.C. may be known as Hollywood for ugly people, but for a little while last night, it was almost like we were just plain Hollywood. Granted, there was no actual red carpet at last night's "red carpet" U.S. premiere — which was billed as a World Premiere despite Tuesday night's London screening — of Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian at the National Air & Space Museum. But there was a crowd of excited fans lining the steps up to the museum's doors, a red velvet rope line populated with microphone-wielding entertainment journalists inside, stressed-out personal assistants and handlers in headsets, heavily-made-up television correspondents, and discreet but tough-looking bodyguards. Substitute middle-aged male studio execs for the slightly paler middle-aged male government types who got invites to the event, and you could almost imagine you were at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. more ›

First things first. Let's get this whole controversy bit out of the way. Ben Stiller's Hollywood action satire, Tropic Thunder, has drawn the ire of a number of groups representing the mentally disabled. The offense is taken at a plot point which has Stiller's Tugg Speedman, an action hero desperate to be taken seriously, playing a character in the mold of Sean Penn's in I Am Sam. Speedman's performance in this past role is a ridiculously offensive (if comically well-intentioned) caricature of a developmentally challenged adult. He and his co-stars on his current feature, a gritty Vietnam War flick, refer back to his performance as "Simple Jack" using the word "retard." Seventeen times they use it, according to the also comically well-intentioned Timothy Shriver, who laments the frequent use of the "r-word" while the "n-word" is only used once. As if it might have been less egregious had there been more racial slurs. more ›

Aimee Mann never seemed like one of pop's 500 likeliest candidates to release a Christmas album, but last year’s One More Drifter in the Snow was a tasteful, minor-key treat, and her “1st Annual Christmas Show” at the Birchmere last December was one of the best concerts of 2006. As she promised she would at the end of last year’s freewheeling interfaith revue, she's hitched up the sleigh again this year for a monthlong yule-tour that landed for the first of two shows at the Birchmere last night. As before, the show mingled seasonal fare with secular material from Mann’s deep songbook, music with comedy, and Christmas with Hanukkah. Kind of. more ›

There are many ways to celebrate the holidays and a favorite DCist tradition is going to the movies on Christmas day. While almost everything else will be shuttered tight for the holiday, area movie theaters are gearing up for this year's big releases. Coming out Christmas day are the following: The Aviator: Howard Huges biopic staring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale and Gwen Stefani. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: A new Wes Anderson... more ›