A Post business columnist and an independent music non-profit have joined the chorus questioning Live Nation’s proposal for a Silver Spring music hall. Last Friday, Steven Pearlstein wrote that while I.M.P. boss Seth Hurwitz has fought against competition for his 9:30 Club before, and his alternative proposal to Live Nation is in his own best interest, “he’s put forward a financial proposal attractive enough that county officials cannot ignore it.” Under their non-binding letter of…

DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Foreign: 2007 Washington Jewish Film Festival The Washington D.C. Jewish Community Center’s annual film festival has become one of the largest and longest running of the local festivals. This year’s program encompasses over 40 films, from 11 countries. Nearly half of the selections are films from Israel, in recognition of the nation’s 60th year. The event…

Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine are two filmmakers who call D.C. home. They’ve made a name for themselves as writers, producers, and directors of documentary films, often for National Geographic and television, but their latest project has raised their profile far beyond the recognition of their previous work. War/Dance, for which the pair take joint directorial credit, has earned the couple a mantle’s worth of awards this year, including the documentary directing prize at…

DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Indie: War/Dance Sometimes you need an antidote before the poison even arrives. Next week Hollywood releases yet another of those diabetic-shock-inducing films about musically gifted youngsters and how they can be an inspiration to us all, designed to make soccer moms everywhere weep into their hankies. One week prior to that, though, comes a documentary from…

While the “nature v. nurture” argument may rage for years to come, two respected musical patriarchs showed that regardless of which is the more important, nature and nurture in tandem are a most formidable combination. Oliver Lake (pictured right), a trailblazing elder statesman of jazz, and Ravi Shankar (pictured below), the most celebrated Indian classical musician in the world, each performed at the Kennedy Center this past weekend with gifted progeny in tow. The result…

>> The Jets are gonna have their day tonight at Wolf Trap with the first night of a one week stand of the Leonard Bernstein/Steven Sondheim classic West Side Story. The production celebrates the 50th anniversary of the musical. 8 p.m., $18-$55. >> It’s a great evening for movies. If the Jim Jarmusch classic we recommended last week isn’t quite what you’re looking for, then there’s also a FREE screening of Butch Cassidy and…

Yesterday we attended the press preview for next month’s 5th annual SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival and got a sneak peak at a few of the documentary films that will be making their Washington area (and in some cases World or North American) premieres at the Silver Spring festival in June. DCist will be covering the festival once again this year, but in the meantime we thought we’d share a handful of the 100 announced…

Start singing the blues D.C., just don’t do it in front of a panel of judges hostile to you and a nation with their fingers literally on the button of your career. Last night Catholic University student Antonella Barba was dismissed from American Idol in a cut that chose the final 12 contestants. While the judges were shocked when voters gave Jason “Sundance” Head the boot, they seemed content to let Barba go. Much of…

As the world holds it’s breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called “punk rock” for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry’s plans…

Completely unlike your great aunt Edna, DCist is here to shower you with gifts you will actually use and enjoy. We’ve teamed up once again with our friends at Landmark’s E Street Cinema to bring a free film screening to our readers. This time around it’s God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of Lost Boys of Sudan, a powerful new documentary by Christopher Dillon Quinn and co-director Tommy Walker, which chronicles the inspirational story…