As you might imagine, there's not a whole lot going on in the art world this week, and unlike the last holiday, even the Smithsonians close on Christmas Day. Nevertheless, we found a few exhibits for you to poke around this weekend. And if you're one of those last minute gift buyers and can't bear to wage war at the mall, don't forget our guide to art museum memberships for something a little more unique......

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Indie: Romance & Cigarettes John Turturro's third film as a director is the sort that seems tailor made to become a cult classic. Not nearly polished or glamorous enough to be the sort of Broadway to big screen musical hit that Chicago or Hairspray was, it was too oddball to fit into the heads of most......

Fishbowl D.C. scooped even the Washington Post's own gossip columnists on word that Brad Pitt was reportedly visiting the paper's newsroom this afternoon. Says a Postie: "since word got out, female producers from network news shops are clamoring to stop by and just pay a "visit" to the newsroom to see friends they've never visited before in the newsroom."Patrick Gavin says Pitt was there consulting with Post editor R.B. Brenner in preparation for his upcoming......

>> The ceremonial flame for the Special Olympics will pass through town tomorrow afternoon, starting at the White House at 12:15 p.m. and making stops on the National Mall before heading uptown to the Chinese Embassy. Expect minor traffic delays along the route. [WJLA] >> Is a Rita's Water Ice coming to the Washington Convention Center area? [Bloomingdale (for now)] >> Bob Mould is set to release his first ever live DVD, Circle Of......

Even before our scatterbrained, ADHD world began over-prescribing Ritalin, we giggled at Steven Wright's one-liners on SNL during the ‘80s. If you're like us, maybe you even stayed up late into the night listening to albums like I Have a Pony. His brand of comedy, as something of an intellectual punster, appealed to us as kids just as much as it does today. Jokes like, "I was walking in the woods all by myself. A......

Good morning D.C., and thanks for sticking with us. We realize that there may be some confusion about our legal status as a website in light of our failure, to date, to post the HD-DVD decryption key that 95% of the web seems to now be busy defiantly reproducing. Rest assured: we are still an internet website. As soon as we figure out a way to photoshop the 16-byte hexadecimal number into a picture......

After the success of the second part of its American Ring Cycle, with all performances long since sold out, Washington National Opera opened its second spring production on Saturday evening, Gaetano Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment. There is no reason to revive this rather silly comic opera, last mounted by WNO in 1993, unless you have a truly remarkable cast and perhaps a new and interesting production. That seemed to be the case with this......

We don't know about you, but it's friggin cold out there. Well, not for some of you. It seems as though places that are supposed to be cold are warm and places that are supposed to be warm are cold. Or maybe that's just us. Either way, we're freezing. Austinist said goodbye to their co-editor (sell-out) and played rumor monger on the SXSW lineup. And when dozens of dead birds littered downtown Austin, it's......

We at DCist definitely think we are. But that’s after we check Thesaurus.com, go through the blogroll twice, and then decide how to make the snarkiest pun. We like the safety of our laptops. And we’re scared of bright lights (they reflect off our geek-chic glasses). Our readers, however, may be more fearless. And they have a chance to prove it. Washington Improv Theatre, the self-proclaimed “nucleus” of the maturing D.C. comedy scene, is hosting......

MONDAY: It's hard to think of a more appropriate person to have written On the Wealth of Nations, part of the new Grove Atlantic Great Books series where contemporary writers flesh out the work of humanity's most important thinkers, than P.J. O'Rourke. Harder still to imagine a time when everyone agreed that P.J. O'Rourke had a sense of humor. At Politics and Prose at 7 p.m., also Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Cato Institute,......

For once, we could afford to buy a CD at Tower Records. Unfortunately, the pickings were slim and the occasion sad. In October the national record store chain succumbed to the pressure of its online competitors, selling the assets from its 85 stores to a liquidation firm and marking the end of a generation of music buyers who preferred to curiously browse through unknown bands at the advice of knowledgeable, if surly clerks. Since then,......

DCist and Columbia Records are joining forces this Thursday, November 30th, at Four Fields Irish Pub (formerly known as The Four P's) in Cleveland Park for an exclusive screening of the Oasis movie Lord, Don't Slow Me Down. This tour documentary was shot over the last two years during the band's Don't Believe the Truth world tour. Get there early for the your chance at some of the Oasis CD and DVD giveaways, and stay......

By DCist Contributor Mehan Jayasuriya Much like the similarly canonized Robert Johnson, Brian Wilson is an American icon for whom mythology has contributed as much to his legend of being a "musical genius" as his accomplishments have. The five years spent in a bedroom, the lost (and eventually found) masterpiece Smile, the strange, drug-induced happenings at an L.A. mansion in the 1960s and a long history of mental illness add up to something that......

Matthew Barney rarely leaves one ambivalent; in fact, it's hard to think of a living artist quite so polarizing. On the one hand, you have people like New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman declaring Barney "the most important American artist of his generation," and on the other hand there's the Village Voice's Ed Halter using words like "masturbatory," "ritual self-involvement" and "superficial foofery." How it is that he is the subject of such a......

By DCist contributor Mehan Jayasuriya Having never been to a film screening at the Black Cat's backstage before, I must admit that I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I showed up on Monday night. As I found out, I was in for a night of uncomfortable zebra-print chairs, chain-smokers in linen pants and a seven-year old film on DVD, projected onto a pull-down screen. So yeah, exactly what I should have expected. The......

If your parents have a record collection, or you've ever read a countdown list, or if you've seen Almost Famous, or if you've generally got a sense of rock history, you know that The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds is one of the most important, critically acclaimed, and talked about albums in music history. The album's landmark 40th anniversary recently rolled around. In commemoration, the album has been re-released, featuring original and remastered versions of the......

That's what we're left to conclude after receiving only a handful of Washington rants yesterday (which were solid, we don't want to take away from those that have entered). That cab post we put up yesterday? Over 40 comments and counting, and none of you took the time to copy your comment into the contest thread. Here's a rant: you guys are lazy. Big time. Lewis Black would be ashamed of you. And along those......

Perhaps it's the steamy weather, or the too-short tease of the Memorial Day weekend but for whatever reason, folks seem to be irked this week, ready to tear into a comment section with extravagant gusto. As always, DCist is prepared to oblige. If you're going to be generally upset, you may as well get something for your trouble. So, for the rest of this week, we'll be running a rant contest. In the comments section......

FRIDAY: >> After a superb D.C. debut last year in the back room, Pleaseeasaur is returning to theBlack Cat tonight, this time on the mainstage, opening for San Diego's Pinback. J.P. Hasson and his invisible sidekick Thomas Hurley III are apparently taking a break this month from recording a new Comedy Central-sponsored album to perform a number of valuable pubilc service announcements. Did you know, for example, that "Cobras are Totally Cool?" Or, for that......

Well, the classical music season is drawing to its end. Yes, there will be things to hear over the summer, but many of the major organizations will be shutting down at the end of May, or going into their reduced summer schedules. If you wanted to take in a production at Washington National Opera, for example, you had better do it soon. If you like the spectacle of musicals, opera should be right up your......

We don't often report on the happenings of our neighbor to the north, Baltimore. But the picture above -- which I snapped on the Orange Line on Friday night -- reflects a sentiment and phenomenon that has plagued Baltimore in recent years and has been receiving national billing since. This week's Time features an article on the 'Stop Snitching' movement that has swept Baltimore's rough-and-tumble neighborhoods, and has thus far complicated the efforts of......

Anybody living in the city with a couple of kids knows how hard it is to maintain any sort of indie cred. You can hardly be showing up at the Black Cat every night when little Sam or Sue needs a bottle and a viewing of Sesame Street. Well, lucky for you, here comes Pancake Mountain to the rescue! The offbeat local cable channel that hosts musical performances that both parents and kids can enjoy......

By DCist Food and Wine Writer Michael Mugmon. Like Hall & Oates, DCist is so close, yet so far away. On Tuesday afternoon, we stopped by our local Subway sandwich shop at 20th and M Streets NW for a footlong meatball sub. When we asked for the two Sub Club stamps we thought we'd earned (one stamp for each six odd inches of grunt), the cashier brusquely informed us that the venerable Sub Club program......

For one night only, the Blues Brothers will be appearing onstage, live, August 29! Actually, you'll be able to catch the movie at 83 different locations throughout the United States, including United Artists Fairfax Towne Center 10, United Artists Bethesda 10 and Regal Gallery Place Stadium 14. In conjunction with the release of the 25th anniversary DVD, The Blues Brothers will be shown on the big screen, re-mastered in high definition. Plus, before the......

FRIDAY >> Calling all horror, cult, and Italian cinema freaks. The screening of the summer is upon you. The Library of Congress is hosting an extremely rare chance to see Dario Argento's "Four Flies on Grey Velvet" at 7 p.m. Make sure to call the Pickford Theater by 4 p.m. to reserve your seats, as this film is not available on DVD and is very difficult to find. The final episode of the so-called "Animal......

Remember how Live 8 eradicated starvation and poverty in Africa? Well, our boys and girls overseas better start packing up their gear, because the anti-war movement has an impending activism concert of its own. As part of a large anti-war mobilization in DC between September 23rd – 26th, “Operation Ceasefire” will bring several music acts to the mall, including Thievery Corporation, Le Tigre, Anti-Flag, Bouncing Souls, and Head Roc, most likely with more to be......

Arguably the most successful stand-up comedian to come out of D.C. may be pulling the plug on his wildly popular Comedy Central show for good, according to Chappelle's Show star Charlie Murphy. "I don't think Dave is going to do it anymore," Murphy told the New York Post yesterday. "We shot about eight shows for the third season, and they're hilarious. They'll be released on DVD, I'm sure. But that's it." Season three of Chappelle's......

(From DCist contributor Colleen Egan) For an engaged couple, their upcoming wedding brings thoughts of unity: a merging of lives, families, DVD collections. But for a frequent wedding guest, the pending nuptials can spark a bout of separation anxiety. Separating with your cash, that is. From plane fares to rental cars to hotel rooms, the wedding gift might be the only purchase of which you have control. DCist perused the area to find shops with......

A legendary figure in the alternative music scene, Bob Mould came to prominence in the 1980s with his group Husker Du, who influenced independent music for years to come. Mould later formed the band Sugar, and now moonlights as a DJ (alongside local producer Richard Morel) at Blowoff, a popular dance night at the 9:30 Club where he spins everything from Depeche Mode to Gwen Stefani to his own material. This Saturday's Blowoff will......

Yo HBO, didn't "K Street" go off the air sometime in 2003? Sure you can buy the DVD of the entire series, but we aren't sure targeting tourists at the Woodley Park McDonald's, where we took this photo, is the best strategy. Have you seen left-over "K Street" ads around town? Did you watch? (This DCist must admit, we did.)......