In this week's issue of the Washington City Paper, film critic Tricia Olszewski found herself charmed by Louder Than a Bomb, a documentary about a high-school poetry slam competition of the same name. Directors Jon Siskel and Greg Jacobs spent two years following the contest, which pits teenagers across Chicago in rhyming showdowns. The film tracks [...]

Maybe this reunion can keep going forever. Four days after the lineup for The Roots Picnic was announced when Questlove made good on his plan to get Travis Morrison and company to play his crew's annual one-day festival in Philadelphia on June 4, The Dismemberment Plan became one of the first acts announced for this year's [...]

There was some talk yesterday that the 30-second teaser for Transformers: Dark of the Moon show in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLV on Sunday night featured the Walter E. Washington Convention Center as a backdrop for one explosive shot. And while the film's week of D.C. shooting last October did venture near Mt. [...]

Volcanoes are emo. So is Gilbert Arenas. Obama is emo, but that's OK, because Andrew Jackson was an emo president, too. Even critically acclaimed NBC comedy Community is emo*.
Emo, as a term, becomes more convoluted with every passing year, now barely containing anything of the dynamic, cathartic post-hardcore sound that erupted out of D.C. in [...]

Far be it from Washington City Paper to spend a whole interview talking about some other town. But drummer Mike Reed is not only a Chicago musician: He's devoted an entire band project to exploring the Windy City's jazz legacy. Specifically, Reed's People, Places and Things quintet gives a free-jazz spin to the rarely trodden [...]

The word minimalism is used a lot to describe Disappears, the mezmerizing Chicago quartet that dropped its new album, Lux (Kranky), in April.
Yes, Disappears' music carries a sense of simplicity. Its sound is reminiscent of both '60s garage rock and '70s krautrock. And yes, Disappears' songs rarely stretch beyond the 3:30-minute mark.
But Disappears does not [...]

Architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham was instrumental in the design of the National Mall as we know it today. It's fitting, then, that the Mall is the site of the D.C. premiere of the Burnham documentary Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City.
The Archimedia Workshop film originally debuted last fall with [...]

Last night I went to the Big Shoulders Ball at the Black Cat. The show was tons of fun and without all the pomp and cheese cubes. The ball was "thrift store formal." And it was a benefit too. Highlights: Ted Leo covering Pete Seeger and Curtis Mayfield. Andrew Bird's wondrous violin plucking that he [...]