From Kurosawa to Hitchcock, The Criterion Collection has a well-earned reputation for treating great films with great care.  Since it began releasing DVDs in 1998, Criterion has developed serious bona fides among cinephiles: The company was one of the first distributors to honor the original aspect ratios; its supplementary materials, unlike so many tossed off extras provided by other distributors, often provide actual insight into the context and history of the films they serve; and its film transfers are some of the best available. Five hundred DVD releases later, Criterion appears to be at the top of its game.

Which is why last week’s news—that the company had lost the rights to nearly 25 films to Lionsgate—comes as such a bummer. (Lionsgate is launching a high-end distribution arm, The StudioCanal Collection, in competition with Criterion.) One red flag is Lionsgate’s spotty preservational rep: Its releases have often been tarnished by poor-quality transfers (notably, the lackluster rerelease of John Huston’s The Dead), and the supplementary materials are simply not up to par.

Read More “Criterion Dejection: Why You Should Mourn Lionsgate’s Buyout of 25 Classic Films” »

Anyone who talks about a picture being worth a thousand words can stuff it. For “Call + Response,” Hamiltonian Gallery asked 16 visual artists to create responses to the poetry and prose of 16 writers. In many instances, the words surpass the visuals—as in Christian Howard’s “Spaghetti Western,” in which watching a cowboy flick on a hospital TV makes the writer contemplate mortality, and which is paired with an abstract, metallic print by Ian MacLean Davis. Likewise with Mike Scalise’s “Well, There’s Not Much We Can Do About That,” a vignette about an encounter with Mr. Rogers and an injured bird, which is met by Bryan Rojsuontikul’s tombstone epitaph, which does not explore the nuance of Scalise’s story. —Maura Judkis

Read the full City Lights pick here; exhibit details after the jump:

Read More “Now on View: “Call + Response” at Hamiltonian Gallery” »

Wale always seems to find himself embroiled in the lamest controversies. It would seem that the cost of claiming to put an entire city on your back means you’re gonna have the entire city on your back.

His latest video, “Pretty Girls,” debuted on BET earlier this week and recieved a lot of flack in blog comments and on Twitter for featuring a cast of almost exclusively light-skinned and white girls. Wale & Co. responded to the complaints by rushing the release of this Tabi Bonney-directed clip for the iTunes-only bonus track “My Sweetie,” which features ample dark-skinned girls. Crisis averted. Though I’m going to take this opportunity to suggest a Wale remake of Del’s “Dark Skin Girls,” to fully heal the wounds.

Read More “Wale Watch: Wale Makes Videos, People Complain” »

Believe it or not, there’s some culture going on tonight—that is, if you can get to it. If not? Put on a show! Totally simple: 1) Finish that one-act you’ve been working on (y’know, the one about the one-armed tightrope-walker); 2) cast your kids/roommates/visiting relatives in the bit parts; 3) obviously take the lead yourself; 4) and, um, I’ll take care of the sets and refreshments! Blocking begins at 3!

Failing that: Here’s what going on today, and what’s been canceled. Check back for updates.

THEATER: In the Red and Blue Water at the Studio Theatre, extended through Feb. 28, theater currently deciding whether show can go on tonight; Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center, is on; I Am My Own Wife at the Signature Theatre, canceled; Orestes, a Tragic Romp at Folger Shakespeare Library, canceled; Shakespeare Theatre Co.’s Henry V and ShakesPEERS, canceled; The Rivalry at Ford’s Theatre, is on, exchanges available for people who can’t attend; The Glass Menagerie at Rep Stage, canceled.

DANCE: Mariinsky Ballet at the Kennedy Center is on.

MOVIES: Everything’s on, unless it’s showing at a Smithsonian art musuem; they’re all closed.

MUSEUMS: Smithsonian is closed, except for Natural History and Air and Space; Phillips Collection is closed; Corcoran is closed.

MUSIC: Trey Anastasio at 9:30 Club is on; Andy Zipf at the Black Cat is on; Inlets at DC9 is canceled; Tom Williams at Blues Alley is on; Jane Birkin at La Maison Francaise is on; Up and Up open mic at Bohemian Caverns is on.

An occasional feature in which esteemed D.C. rapper Head-Roc shares what’s on his mind.

I have a question I want to ask all my friends, supporters, and patrons in the D.C. indie music and arts scene.

You attend music, theater, poetry, dance, visual art, and other forms of art events. You have your favorite local artist(s).  You’re on their e-mail lists. You might even travel a good distance to see them.  Well…

When you drop $5, $10, $15 at the door to support these artists, do you know how much, if any, of that money actually makes it to their pockets? Do you care? And finally, are you willing to ask a venue’s door staff, managers, and event promoters, “Hey, how much of what I’m paying here at the door will the artists receive?”

Well…

Read More “Head-Roc’s Mouth: Venues’ “Polling” Practice Is Some Bullshit” »

Morning, readers.

*The Berlin Film Festival is set to kick off on February 12. Roman Polanski, who will not be attending, will nonetheless submit The Ghost Writer for consideration. The Telegraph reports that Polanski was “delighted” with a recent screening at his chalet in Gstaad, where he is currently enjoying house arrest. Personally, I prefer the Independent’s headline.

*In the Guardian, Mark Lawson writes that with the death of J.D. Salinger, “an era in American literature is coming to a close.” Two things: 1) Tough argument to make, given that Salinger was a literary (and literal) nonentity for the past 40 years; and 2) Salinger died exactly one year after John Updike. Whoa.

*Not a big Sinatra guy, but this strikes even me as overkill: In the Philippines, you can get assassinated for delivering a karaoke rendition “My Way.” Seriously: People are calling them the “‘My Way’ Killings”; teenagers at family gatherings shy away from the song (and not for the usual reasons); bars have removed the selection from their karaoke books. Karaoke bloodshed, though, is not confined to the Philippines:

Read More “Arts Roundup: Roman Polanski, Huma Bhabha, and the “‘My Way’ Killings”” »

We got pounded with snow this weekend, and tomorrow it looks like we’ll be pounded again. That’s frankly OK: Now you can forget about digging out your car today and resume your normal schedule of consuming things via the Internet. Cue Title Tracks, Bluebrain, and Outputmessage, three D.C. acts who are releasing new—and in the case of the first two, debut—albums this week.

On It Was Easy, Title Tracks’ John Davis (Q and Not U, Georgie James) nails everything that makes record nerds drool for ’70s power-pop: the big hooks, the nervous yet sun-kissed vocals, and that certain adolescent strain of heartbreak. Check out our review in the print City Paper later this week.

Read More “A Flurry (Ahem) of Local Releases: New Albums from Title Tracks, Outputmessage, Bluebrain” »

Nothing beats a snow day, and nothing’s worse than going to work during one. However your Monday’s going, if you’re in the mood for some culture tonight, you’re in luck—well, maybe. Below, what’s going on early this week and what’s not. Check back for updates.

THEATER: In the Red and Blue Water at the Studio Theatre, back on Tuesday; Beauty of the Father at GALA, back on Thursday; all shows at the Kennedy Center, back on; I Am My Own Wife at the Signature Theatre, back on; Last Cargo Cult at Wooly Mammoth, back on this week; Folger Shakespeare Library, closed today; Shakespeare Theatre Co.’s Antony & Cleopatra and Henry V, back on beginning tomorrow; The Rivalry at Ford’s Theatre, back on tomorrow.

MOVIES: Everything’s on, unless it’s showing at a Smithsonian musuem; they’re all closed.

MUSIC: Galactic at the 9:30 Club, postponed back on; Gist, Kodiak at the Black Cat, postponed until 3/2; Sarah Massey’s 9th Annual 27th Birthday, a Yearly Ritual of Debauchery and Denial at Velvet Lounge is on, naturally; Azar Lawrence at Blues Alley is on; Mountains at Bossa is canceled.

ART: Smithsonian is closed; Corcoran’s Dressed to Dance program is canceled; the Phillips Collection is closed.

As an actor and director, Clint Eastwood has fixated for five decades on the theme of revenge, largely through the prism of masculinity. True, he didn’t invent the laconic, badass loner, but over the course of his career—particularly in Sergio Leone’s westerns and as “Dirty Harry” Callahan—he surely perfected the trope. For his directorial debut, the 1971 thriller Play Misty for Me, Eastwood inverted Psycho’s serial-killer plot and essentially invented the female-stalker genre. Starring somewhat strangely as a world-weary disc jockey, Eastwood inhabits his usual archetype, passive but tough-as-nails. But he receives most of the film’s violence, rather than doling it out.

Read the full City Lights pick here; screening details after the jump:

Read More “Tonight in Film: Play Misty for Me at the AFI Silver Theatre” »

“I promise not to kill him,” were the vows of Dana Ellyn as she wed her longtime partner in art and life, Matt Sesow, Friday evening. Facing them down from across the Long View Gallery was her painting, “Til Death Do Us Part,” which depicted a couple that closely resembled the couple, clinking glasses but hiding a knife and a vial of poison behind their backs. Nearby was “Institution of Marriage,” showing a straitjacketed couple, and “Letting Go of the Fairy Tale,” in which a bride flings a frog prince, rather than a bouquet, to her bridesmaids. Not your typical nuptials, for sure.

The couple of eight years has long held nothing sacred in its art, so why should the wedding have been any different? In a ceremony stripped of all tradition, and after a monthlong publicity blitz, Sesow, 43, and Ellyn, 38, wed before a crowd of friends and strangers at an opening of their latest show, also named “Til Death Do Us Part.” But the wedding was almost derailed by the monster snowstorm that swept through the region Friday night. Indeed, the event was one of few not canceled because of the pelting snow, which followed guests into the gallery, soaking the floors.

Read More “A Nice Day For a White Wedding” »