Results tagged “movie”

If you ever laughed uncontrollably while engaged in a childhood snowball fight, built intricate forts out of your grandmother's afghan blankets, or made up the rules to complex playground games while the game was still being played, then Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are is for you. Actually, even if you never did those things, but still have a strong nostalgic attachment to Maurice Sendak's classic picture book, the movie is still yours. What's less clear is whether it is geared toward children still engaged in all that creative play and discovering the book for the first time. Regrettably, I'm no longer eight and can't say for sure what a child's reaction to this movie might be. I suspect — or maybe, rather, hope — that kids will respond to it despite the fact that it isn’t paced or presented like most children’s movies, and will grow to love it more and more as they grow older.

When Michael Moore went looking for funding for his newest film, he claims he told the studio that it would be a kind of sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11, the director's most financially successful film to date. They handed over the cash, and he turned around and made a film that has little to do with that anti-Bush polemic, that is instead unapologetic about biting the corporate hands that feed him. That doesn't mean that Capitalism: A Love Story isn't a sequel, though. It's just that its direct antecedent is Moore's debut (and arguably still his best), Roger & Me, which was released 20 years ago this December.

DCist witnessed D.C. Police escorting the production trailers for the Untitled James L. Brooks Project out of Adams Morgan last night, and we've since heard stars Jack Nicholson, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd have moved on to other locations, including spots along the 14th Street NW corridor (trucks are lined up today from at least R Street up to T Street), while other scenes will be filmed inside the lobby and outside of the office building at 875 15th Street NW, aka The Bowen Building, for big chunks of the weekend -- a security notice sent to workers in the McPherson Square-adjacent building says they'll be there pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday, and then again overnight at the end of next week.

We hope a few current and former D.C. Council members didn't storm the WTOP newsroom with pitchforks today. Reporter Mark Segraves penned a sort of comedy post for his far too rarely updated Malcontent Minute blog/online column where he suggests casting choices for a movie about local D.C. politics. Naturally, the story would revolve around Marion Barry, and he picks Don Cheadle to play the flamboyant former mayor and current Council member, which sounds about right. But the ladies of the D.C. Council don't fare quite as well with Segraves in the casting chair. He chooses the not exactly well-liked (and not exactly an actress) Star Jones of The View to play Linda Cropp, even going so far as to mention that she'd need to get her gastric bypass reversed to pull off the role. Perhaps even more harsh is his suggestion that former Golden Girl Bea Arthur should play Carol Schwartz. Bea Arthur is 86 years old, while Schwartz is only 64. Brutal. Other, less totally mean casting suggestions include Russell Simmons as Anthony Williams, Hillary Swank as Cathy Lanier, and Morgan Freeman plus 50-pounds as Charles Ramsey.

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.

The second Transformers movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, is apparently filming in Washington right now, because people keep sending us celebrity gossip reports that actor Shia LaBeouf allegedly set off a smoke alarm inside a bathroom at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum over the weekend when he tried to sneak a cigarette inside the building. The story seems to have come entirely from the National Enquirer, however, so we should probably take it with a grain of salt for now. The actor was recently fined $500 for smoking illegally on a Burbank sidewalk (you can't even smoke outside in many California cities now). Why is Shia LaBeouf famous again?

It sounds like — if you’ll pardon the expression — something out of a movie: Junior Middleweight Champion fighter Kassim “The Dream” Ouma escapes the darkest of pasts to find his way from Africa to America, arrives penniless and unable to speak English, and within a year he’s a professional fighter with a surrogate family, money in his pockets, and a smile on his face that makes you like him before you know anything about him.

At the outset of Lost Holiday, a charming, funny, and almost unintentionally political documentary out of the Czech Republic, director Lucie Králová rather cheekily declares the film, via the opening credits, to be a "detective documentary." It's a touch that borders on precious, and a tone that continues in the often wry intertitles that mark time throughout the "investigation" that is the film's subject. What they're trying to detect are the identities of six men who they know only through photographs. A man that Králová meets through an art project in which she was involved happened upon a suitcase in a dumpster in a run-down neighborhood near Sweden's Göteberg airport. Inside there was nothing but a plastic bag containing 22 rolls of undeveloped film. He had them processed, and found himself with over 700 photos of six Asian men on what appeared to be a holiday throughout Scandinavia. What Králová wanted to know is if it's possible, in the interconnected world we now live in, to track down these men based solely on what they can glean from their photographs.

FRIDAY: >> Ted Leo and the Pharmacists are at the 9:30 Club with Kristeen Young and Partyline, $15, 9 p.m. Also Saturday with Kristeen Young and Ris Paul Ric. >> DC9's Liberation Dance Party hosts Brooklyn's Jaguar Club. $6, 9 p.m. SATURDAY: >> The Historic Sixth and I Synagogue hosts The Eight, D.C.'s part of a "worldwide Hannukah party" featuring the LeeVees, DeLeon and D.C.'s own Black and White JohnsonsJacksons. $12/$18, all ages, 9 p.m....

FRIDAY: >> Local comic book store Fantom Comics is celebrating the grand opening of their new Union Station store tonight with a party from 6 to 10:30 p.m. They'll be serving up free pizza on the early side and the comedy stylings of the Geek Comedy Tour during the second half of the night. There will also be a trivia contest with $500 gift certificates up for grabs. The party is inside the Union...

Good Morning, Washington. In an apparent attempt to rule the D.C. media landscape through terror and intimidation, the Washington Post has published the scariest local news story we've ever read this morning: apparently, these disgusting-looking creatures called camel crickets are infesting area basements due to the lack of moisture in the ground thanks to the region's rather serious drought. Described as "a mix between a spider and a cricket" and accompanied by disturbing photographic...

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Repertory: Stranger Than Paradise "You go to some place new and everything just looks the same," says Eddie, one of the two hipster-slacker protagonists of Jim Jarmusch's wickedly funny second feature. Press materials made a big deal of the origin of the film, pointedly calling it "A New American Film by a New American Director." There's...

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness – we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts...

>> Author Paul Karasik will be at Politics and Prose to talk about his book, I Shall Destroy All Civilized Planets, which chronicles the life of Fletcher Hanks, old school comics illustrator from the 1930s and creater of Stardust, and why he disappeared from comics. 7 p.m. >> Catch up on your parking lot loitering tonight to see Colombian born artist Kata Mejia perform Healing at 1622 14th Street NW. Presented by the Randall...

There was a time in the 1970s when male artists could become famous by simply writing and singing great songs. Seemingly average joes such as Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Paul Simon, and Elton John sold millions of records without subscribing to the psychedelia of 60s rock, the angst of punk, the glam of the 80s, or the hyper-masculinity of metal and hip-hop. Today, acts such as Coldplay and James Blunt might hint at a resurgence...

With all the hubbub this past weekend over 07/07/07 – the weddings, worldwide concerts, and the seven new wonders –- it was easy to forget that today is another “lucky” numerical date: 07/11.

Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?
Now here's the tricky part
Oh won't you rhyme with me?
Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?
It's already on Flickr-E-Mart
They're in the sticks-E-Mart
It's a marketing trick-E-Mart
The Kwik-E-Mart is really — d'oh!
Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?
Not me! But then we started to see the photographic evidence. There's this Flickr set of the Kwik-E-Mart in Burbank, Ca. Between the Frostillicus decal, the Krusty-Os and the relatively obscure donut-topping reference, it's clear that this is both a crass marketing exercise and a labor of love. Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart? We doooooooo... More photos after the jump. Photos by Sommer Mathis

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network. It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by...

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti...

FRIDAY: >> Don't forget to check out our guide to the Six Points Music Festival as it takes over the town in its second weekend. We're going to once again heartily recommend you head to Iota to catch Unbuckled alums Middle Distance Runner headline a show that also features Unbuckled alums These United States, plus Pittsburgh's Black Tie Revue. Get there early -- this is going to be a packed house for sure. $10, 9:30...

In the 2001 film Not Another Teen Movie, Chyler Leigh plays Janey Briggs, a misfit high school artist-girl who wears a ponytail, paint-stained overalls and horn-rimmed glasses. When the popular starting quarterback Jake Wyler bets that he can turn nerdy Janey into a prom queen, hilarity (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) ensues for the duration of the flick’s twisted Cinderella storyline. Near the end of the movie, Janey takes off her Woody Allen style spectacles,...

FRIDAY: >> Potty Fest? Not really, but it's called POONanza. It's actually a comic variety show named after the host, Larry Poon. A Washington native, Poon grew up in the tough "CrackLand" housing projects in Southeast. Debuting on stage back in 1999, he's haunted countless area-comedy shows, and will perform POONanza III tonight at Warehouse Theatre. We're not really sure what the roman numerals signify, but he promises POONification. We're intrigued. Check out the man's...

Much as we hate to admit it, D.C. isn't known for being a particularly great Halloween town. When a list of the area's best Halloween events prominently features a concert at the Kennedy Center, it's pretty obvious that the true potential of the holiday is being wasted. Sure, there are good parties to be found, but as a city we don't even get any haunted public transportation. It's outrageous! But there are a few wonderfully spooky Washington area events available, and right now none look more promising to us than the 2006 Spooky Movie Festival in Fairfax. Running from October 27-29, the festival will screen 30 films. Running times vary, but the ghoulishness should be consistent. The movies aren't what's gotten us most excited about the event, though. The real highlight promises to be an appearance by Count Gore De Vol, the D.C. area's premiere horror host. The Count, who also did time as Captain 20 and helmed the local Bozo franchise for a while, hosted a regular program on channel 20 during the 70s and 80s, bringing schlocky thrills and low-rent charm to the area airwaves. He keeps up the tradition with a regularly updated website. And check out this tour of the Count's dungeon:

Landless Theatre Company's latest production (clearly to some degree a satire of , as its "Shpadoinkle Day" number can only be a send-up of "Oh, What A Beautiful Morning!") follows the unassuming Alferd Packer, who leads a motley crew of gold-seekers into the mountains, where they are met with less-than-desireable circumstances, from a mythical Cyclops to, well, the prospect of having to eat each other to survive. The work, based on a true story in the loosest sense of the phrase, is the brainchild of "Southpark" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and, like their epic "Southpark: The Movie," is a bawdy send-up of the musical genre it occupies.

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on...

Friday >>Summer Fridays are meant for free beer, long strolls and casual socializing. Which is exactly why they started the Bethesda Art Walk. We recommend catching the opening reception of the Fraser Gallery's Summer Group Exhibit. Six artists have displayed their new work in photography and painting. The oil on metal paintings by Michael Fitts look like a rougher versions of light, breezy subjects, while Lee Goodwin's gelatin silver prints of black and white landscapes...

MONDAY

The Examiner reports today that D.C. Lottery's DC-4 game has been a pretty rich bet this fiscal year, paying out well over the average take for most of the fiscal year. The game normally pays out an average of 50 cents for each dollar bet on the game, but in six of the past nine months, the average payout has reached 70 cents per buck, and in May an astonishing 87 cents was paid out...

Summertime in D.C. brings three things: heat, interns, and outdoor movies. The First Baptist Church at 17th and O Streets NW is providing one of those, sponsoring Movies by Moonlight, a free movie series benefitting local charities. Tonight's movie is Spiderman, starting at 8:30 p.m., with donations going to First Helping, a D.C. Central Kitchen program that feeds the homeless. There will also be free popcorn and drinks, so bring a few dollars and help a good cause while watching Tobey Maguire swing from New York City landmarks. The series will be rounded out by Raiders of the Lost Ark on July 13th, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington on July 27, Life is Beautiful on August 10, and Back to the Future on August 24.

FRIDAY: