>> Canada’s The Most Serene Republic bring their large and melodic sound to The Rock and Roll Hotel tonight, with Bellflur and Watch Man Walk. $10, 8:30 p.m. >> Married Charlottesville rockers Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule will share the stage out at Jammin’ Java tonight, touring in support of their latest releases, Sproule’s Keep Your Silver Shined and Curreri’s The Velvet Rut. 8 p.m., $10. >> Rescheduled from last week, Judith Jones, cookbook…

DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Repertory: The 400 Blows Expect to see plenty of French New Wave retrospectives over the next year or so, as 2008 represents the movement’s 50th anniversary. If Claude Chabrol’s 1958 Le Beau Serge lit the fuse, François Truffaut’s 400 Blows was the first in a subsequent series of cinematic explosions that announced France’s new generation of…

A recent review noted the tendency of today’s indie rock bands to combine large lineups with unusual instrumentation. Last night at the 9:30 Club, the Great White North’s Broken Social Scene didn’t skimp on bandmembers with seven people on stage, but gone were all the strings, kazoos, melodicas, and other assorted bells and whistles. This band was just a bunch of dudes who revel in the glory of the almighty power chord and understand that…

DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Indie: The Darjeeling Limited By now, five features into his career, it’s likely you already have a strong opinion on Wes Anderson. Despite his tendency to borrow liberally from his own film and literary heroes, from Kubrick to Fitzgerald to the entire French New Wave, a Wes Anderson film feels like a Wes Anderson film from…

How bad can it be to be Nick Lowe? That shock of fluffy white hair notwithstanding, the guy seems like he doesn’t know what stress is. The onetime Brinsley Schwartz pub-rocker, seminal Stiff Records producer, and punk pioneer releases albums at a glacial pace. He enjoys critical respectability coupled with the kind of low-level semi-fame that comes from being known more for your songwriting and production work than for your singing. In addition to manning…

Matt Sharp and Rivers Cuomo have a number of things in common. They’ve both been in Weezer for starters. They both have a tremendous gift for a catchy melody. They both look good in thick-rimmed glasses. They’ve both put bands they’ve been in on indefinite hiatus. Where they depart though is in what happened after their bands’ respective hiatuses. Cuomo, after having revealed perhaps a bit too much of his inner monologue for his own…

Though it’s an open question as to whether D.C.’s rock scene has sacrificed quality for quantity, there is no denying a time when there were not that many places for a rock band to play in this city. “During college, the music scene was a bit struggling, especially in the Georgetown area,” says The Bravery’s guitarist and Georgetown University alum Michael Zakarin, “but I was at the Black Cat or the 9:30 every weekend. It’s…

FRIDAY: >> This weekend is filled to the brim with events surrounding the 2007 Urban Film Series tour just in time for Black History Month. Dozens of short and feature-length films addressing the black experience are being screened at Regal Cinema Gallery Place, many with panel discussions following. There’s a bevy of established and rising talent to see, but our pick for Friday has to be a conversation and book-signing with the Wizard’s own center…

This piece was written by DCist contributor Cynthia Rockwell. Sure, you could bask in the seasonal spirit and check out the classics this weekend, but if you’re looking to escape the incessant holiday cheer, here are a few ideas for cinematic diversion: >>Attention Cate Blanchett fans, we have not one but two films starring the willowy beauty opening this week. First is the slick black-and-white espionage thriller The Good German, Steven Soderbergh’s homage to film…

MONDAY >>Two turntables and a…slide rule? If you thought nerdcore hip-hop was isolated to Weird Al’s latest hit, you were wrong. Two of the genre’s best known artists, Optimus Rhyme and MC Frontalot, bring in tha geekiness to The Red & The Black tonight. What better way to gear up for the new Transformers movie than by listening to someone rap about it? $8 >>School’s in after summer, and Alice Cooper is taking a break…