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......

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......

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......

He's a lover and a fighter: Kassim Ouma reflects on his violent past in Kassim the Dream 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......

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......

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. While newly wedded couples are off at their honeymoons today, 7-Eleven is celebrating its birthday with free Slurpees. In honor of the chain’s 80th year in business, 7-Eleven will be handing out 7.11 ounce samples of the brain-freeze-producing drink for today only.......

You might remember hearing the news, back in March, that the folks marketing The Simpsons Movie would be remaking some 7-11s across the country in the image of Apu Nahasapeemapetilan's beloved Kwik-E-Mart. As Simpsons devotees, we were pretty excited. Well, the D.C. area is among the lucky metropolises selected — but, to our dismay, the Associated Press (via NBC4) tells us that the lucky 7-11 is in Bladensburg, Md. Of course Bladensburg isn't all that......

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......

Those who thought Urinetown would be the most irreverent musical to hit the D.C. area never bargained for Cannibal! Landless Theatre Company's latest production (clearly to some degree a satire of Oklahoma!, 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,......

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 >> Everyone, we're stumped. We've been scratching our heads for weeks now, trying to figure out why three bands with as much buzz following them around as Cold War Kids, Midlake, and Sound Team (pictured) would be playing the Black Cat's back stage, especially when nothing else is booked upstairs. We loved Cold War Kids when we saw them last month. Midlake is winning fans left and right, including a very hyperbolic Jason Lee.......

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......

FRIDAY: For many of us, going to see Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” recorded live was one of the few times in our early teens when both we and our parents could agree on attending the same event without rancor. But Keillor's getting up there, and it seems more likely we'll be sharing "This American Life" or even some yet-to-be produced program with our own kids. For now, thank goodness, Keillor and company are......

FRIDAY: >> There have only been a handful of actors in this world who are genuine badasses. Robert Mitchum. Robert Redford. Robert Loggia. Any of the Roberts, really. And then there's Kris Kristofferson. This is a guy who has hung out with both Sam Peckinpah and Janis Joplin, been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and oh, makes time to kill a few vampires on the weekends. Dude is so virile a gal could......

The opinions expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily shared by other DCist editors or writers. This Opinionist is running today, because the film discussed opens in theaters tomorrow. Four and a half years ago, I ran from the basement of my office building across from Union Station to the street, where I stood and stared at the Capitol Dome, believing, with good reason, that I was about to witness its......

Coming back to work after the holidays can be about as exciting as oral surgery, so we here at DCist have devised a special post-New Year's treat for you: A Free Movie. Granted, we realize that the number of our readers out there who both enjoy movies AND getting things for free might be somewhat limited. But if DCist is known for anything, it's for taking the big risks. On Thursday, Jan. 5 at 7......