Straight women and gay men all across D.C. were presumably disappointed by the news that came out over the Thanksgiving holiday that Brad Pitt had dropped out of the production of State of Play, a big-budget political thriller set to begin filming here in Washington this winter. You may recall that Pitt had stopped by the Washington Post newsroom in September to do some research on the character he was slated to play in the......

Just who does Bob Dylan think he is? There must be a truth, a real life story way down underneath the layers of the biography that Dylan has created, but where that truth lies is probably only known to Mr. Zimmerman himself. So how does one approach making a film about the life of a man who has made a career out of self-mythologizing and asking us to please pay no attention to the man......

When the Dismemberment Plan decided to call it quits in 2003, D.C. lost the one hometown act that just about everyone could agree on. The years since have been filled with high expectations for all of the band's former members, though none of the post-breakup projects have managed to incite the level of excitement that always seemed to surround the Plan. As you'll probably recall, the first out of the gate was Travis Morrison with......

A day after Washington’s loss to…yes—hated rivals, the Dallas Cowboys, I find myself indulging in that oft-snarked out tendency of Redskins fans: the telling of sweet little lies. At least we didn’t get run out of the stadium, as we did against the Patriots. At least we didn’t collapse stupidly, like we did against the Eagles. At least the team we struggled with was a quality team (insofar as anything the NFC produces this year......

It's hard out there for a frat guy. That, at least, is what pro-Greek commenters over at George Mason University's Broadside newspaper would have you believe. The student publication has a story up about a law suit filed by the school's banned chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, which is suing GMU for violating their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Sigma Chi was kicked off the campus after being found guilty of a series of......

>> The 1900s are playing the Rock and Roll Hotel, not to be confused with the 1990s. Three Stars alum Shortstack will join them on the bill, along with The Dead Trees and Kitty Hawk. $10, 8:30 p.m. >> Tonight at Blues Alley one of the area's finest jazz drummers, Nasar Abadey, takes the stage with SuperNova, featuring Allyn Johnson on piano, Gary Thomas, Jazz Studies Chair at Peabody, altoist Joe Ford, and bassist......

Early in Sean Penn's new film, Into the Wild, a pickup truck driving across a frozen landscape drops a young man off at the literal end of the road. The young man is Emile Hirsch, who portrays Christopher McCandless, the Annandale native who sent his $25,000 life savings to Oxfam and disappeared abruptly after graduating from college in 1990. The man driving the truck is James Gallien, who also happens to be the same man......

Ah, Wilderness! is the lone comedy in Eugene O'Neill's eye-gougingly tragic catalog. It works as a sort of photo-negative of his later, bleaker masterpiece A Long Day's Journey into Night, with which it shares the setting of a "large small town" in early 20th century New England. Written in the early years of the Great Depression but set in the happier days of 1906, it’s a deliberately idyllic take on the sweet miseries of......

There was very little else for Londonist to be concerned with when the threat of a Tube strike became a very unpleasant reality. The inconvenience was extreme: there aren't many alternatives to the Tube in London despite the best efforts of the Londonist team to get everyone from A to B. Brighter news came in the form of the first ever female Yeoman Warder, or Beefeater as the position is more commonly known, and......

The oven-like heat outside reminds us of summers off from school, which in turn got us into a conversation about the fast food we remember from those days. Maybe it's a good thing that the D.C. area, and the city in particular, isn't overrun with these places, but it doesn't mean we don't remember them fondly -- or, for that matter, dearly wish they had a few outlets closer by at times like these. A......

Home is a pretty subjective concept. Where you hang your hat? The place you can always go back to? Where your love lies waiting silently for you? But what about where you spend the largest part of your waking hours? We may like to keep a firm separation between office life and "home" life, but let's look at the facts: who do you spend more hours awake and in the same room with than that......

MONDAY >> You may not be able to pronounce their name, but !!! (chk, chk, chk)’s disco enfused indie pop will leave you speechless. The former band members from The Yah Mos, Black Liquorice and Popesmashers are on tour promoting their recent release Myth Takes. Catch them at the 9:30 Club tonight with Canadian experimental rockers, Holy Fuck. $18. TUESDAY >> Velvet Revolver kicked off their Re-evolution tour on May 3rd the same way they......

I’m struggling to remember from point A to point B: I first saw Arcade Fire in a Midwestern college town, right on the heels of the release of Funeral, before their official anointment by every critic in North America. The show had to move from a smaller café to a bigger bar because of ticket demand, but, even still, no more than 70 people showed up. The next time I saw them, in a sold......

Written by DCist contributor Maria Flores Sometime in the early 1970s, when the photographs in Melody Maker, NME, and Rolling Stone were no longer enough to satiate his appetite, Claude Gassian swapped his guitar for a 35mm camera and took to the road with his finger on the shutter button. So began his photographic conquest to document the lives of some of his favorite musical artists. Over three decades later, his photographs stand alone as......

The most comprehensive, reliable, and eclectic farmers’ market in the Washington metro area is the Takoma Park Farmers’ Market. Located just across the D.C.-Maryland border, where Carroll Street NW meets Laurel Avenue, the market surpasses all other local farmers’ markets in quality, variety accessibility, and endurance. Last week my wife and I bought apples, free range pork loin and a beef marrow bone while 20 mph winds and 35 degree temperatures whipped furiously at both......

Yesterday Mayor Fenty made his way to the far north end of the city with plans to demolish a brand new home. Why would the mayor and neighbors invite the media to see the shiny, $1.5 million building dismantled piece by piece? The answer lies in an almost farcical gaffe on the part of city officials and the federal government's control over lands in the District. We've mentioned it briefly before, but the full story......

We mentioned in it the roundup, and our search for really great still shots of what went down has come up empty so far (though thanks to all the AU students who've sent us photos and personal accounts directly), but this video is making its way through the series of You Tubes, and it's worth sharing. You can read the WaPo's account of the "citizen's arrest" attempt/protest action carried out by a group of......

Danièle Thompson's Avenue Montaigne (released in France as Fauteuils d'Orchestre, or Orchestra Seats) is a charming, slightly sugary movie. Thompson got her start writing screenplays, most famously a shared credit for the excellent, disturbing history film La Reine Margot, perhaps the truest look ever at the troubled French monarchy. In the last several years, she has been directing her own comic screenplays, beginning with La Bûche in 1999, with the same incisive approach to character......

It isn't easy being the District. While we District residents pride ourselves on living in a city that is diverse and dynamic, the rest of the country tends to lump us together with the federal government that shares our geographic space. Call it guilt by association -- Congress wastes money and the president lies, and suddenly everyone who lives within the city limits has something to do with federal excesses and excuses. This couldn't be......

We're not sure if Indian Summer is an entirely PC term, but when mall Santas start appearing the same week it's predicted to skirt 70 degrees, we're left with two conclusions. Either we were really nice to puppies and orphans in a past life or global warming isn't so bad. Now for the rest of the news. Fenty Already In The Hole: Incoming Mayor Adrian Fenty hasn't even been sworn in yet and he's facing......

Just when you thought you could escape politics, even briefly, in our fair city, there's a new menace lurking: the subversive marketing of yet another set of political trading cards. It happened on Monday, when exiting the Dupont Metro. The perfect storm of heels, gum and litter had left me with a little present. Further inspection revealed it to be a small piece of cardboard with an illustration of George W. Bush, surrounded by flames......

MONDAY When it comes to examining the state of contemporary theatre, Robert Brustein has few peers. Expect a stimulating discussion when Brustein comes to the J to offer his viewpoint on how the post-9/11 years have played out on stage — issues he takes on in Millennial Stages: Essays and Reviews 2001—2005. District of Columbia Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th St. NW., at 7:30 p.m. $8. Also, from the McSweeney’s camp of writers come Kevin......

So suddenly it's chilly? Yesterday we were all sweaty messes, but today, with highs predicted to stay in the 60s, we're wearing sweaters. All this temperature-related confusion has led us to look longingly at the Southwest Airlines web site, since the airline finally began service from Dulles this morning. Cheap flights to Vegas are looking pretty sweet. And while we're of course very sad to be reminded of the demise of our hometown airline, we......

The Nationals had an exciting game last night, tying the Phillies in the bottom of the ninth and again in the tenth, then falling just short in the 14th. However, you wouldn't know it from the Nats fans. We wrote about fairweather fans before, but this game was just sad - for one, a lot of people hit the exits as the 9th inning ended. So the Nats aren't in the playoff hunt and the......

Mayor-to-be Adrian Fenty is probably marveling at the sheer irony of the situation -- a project he voted against may become his first challenge as the District's chief executive. As the Post reported last weekend, the development plans for the area around the new stadium have largely fallen apart, virtually assuring that the April 2008 opening date will find the Washington Nationals playing in an area that remains desolate and under-developed. The problem? Developer Herb......

For reasons that I understand but dislike, new operas are the hardest tickets for most American companies to sell. For Washington National Opera, whose audience is largely allergic to anything outside the familiar repertory, it must be difficult to reconcile what a major American opera company should be doing — performing recent operas and commissioning new ones — with the overwhelming concern for the bottom line. All the more reason, then, to praise WNO for......

This graffiti's sentiment notwithstanding, today the Democratic voters of the city will express their concerns and hopes for the city through their ballots, and, in the process, likely determine what most of the city's government will look like for the next few years. You can find your polling place here, and the Post's election guide here. Redskins Fall To Vikings: You probably don't need to be told, but we'll say it anyway. Last night the......

Written by DCist Technology Editor Tom Lee. Between the nearly-biblical rains, eruption of explosions and massive scheduled work stoppage, you may not have noticed the recent changes to our humble corner of the Internet. But the folks at Gothamist have been hard at work, furiously wiping sweat from their brows with labcoat-clad arms (the pajamas go underneath). And now you can see the fruits of their labor. Behold: the mighty "Recommend this!" link now lies......

We're a bit late on discussing this, because yours truly was on the left coast last week when the news came out, but considering the potential impact of the issue, we're posting late, rather than never. The Armed Forces Retirement Home made news earlier this year after announcing plans to develop a portion of its large Northwest property. The news was greeted with excitement by many, but neighbors of the property, particularly on the western,......

In his latest play, Love-Lies-Bleeding, now being staged at the Kennedy Center, renowned author Don DeLillo seems to have capitalized on the societal rift that divided the country during the Terri Schiavo scandal: Is it ethical to end the life of an individual in a "persistant vegetative state"? And while DCist commends him for not merely exploring the two sides of the ethical debate and instead focusing on the interpersonal ramifications of one family's story,......