WaPo's fashion coverage seems to be flagging a bit in Givhan's wake.

Last night my colleague Jonathan L. Fischer checked out the Moombahton Massive 2 at U Street Music Hall, headlined by the genre's creator, Dave Nada. Nada, the subject of Fischer's cover story a few weeks ago, was back in town from L.A., where he moved last year. I can't guarantee any post-event coverage on the blog today, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Well, WaPo's certainly taking its time in its search to replace Robin Givhan. Its lead story on the Fashion & Beauty section is Givhan's two-month-old speculation about what Kate Middleton will wear for her wedding to Prince William. I guess it could be worse; say, a month-old roundup of the best holiday gifts. But still. Ouch.

As Ryan Kearney over at TBD reports, D.C. native Davis Guggenheim was nominated by the Directors Guild of America for one of the best documentaries of 2010 for his film Waiting for Superman. I'd love to hear our own Benjamin R. Freed's take on all the accolades the Michelle Rhee-venerating film has been receiving.

I'm still waiting for my February Vanity Fair, but I guess when I get it I'll see Rhianna as the subject of the My Stuff feature. Her favorite discovery and her favorite toothpaste, respectively? "My naughty toys! Wink," and "Whatever 9 out of 10 dentists recommend."

Photo: gvpedia.com

She may have been a contentious issue in the mayoral election, but yesterday former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee got one step closer to bringing the crew of Waiting for "Superman" an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences narrowed the field to a 15-title shortlist. Rhee was a featured player—perhaps even the titular superhero—in the two-hour treatise on education reform, charter schools, and breaking the will of teachers' unions.

Despite my best efforts, Waiting for "Superman" is in the hunt for the Oscar and if the track record of the team behind it is any measure, it'll most assuredly get a nomination and possibly the award itself. Paramount Vantage, Participant Media, and director Davis Guggenheim—he of the spoiler-free-but-politically-accusatory interview policy—won the 2006 prize for best documentary with An Inconvenient Truth, while Melissa Etheridge nabbed Best Original Song for "I Need to Wake Up," a smarmy, manipulative ballad about recycling and using CFL light bulbs. Oh yeah, Waiting for "Superman" had one of those too, courtesy of John Legend, a singer whose purpose I've never understood beyond existing chiefly to bridge the gap between Michael Bublé and will.i.am. If history repeats itself, Rhee may find herself name-dropped in a few acceptance speeches at the 83rd Academy Awards next February.

Director Davis Guggenheim, right, with John Legend, who supplied a song for the end credits of Waiting for "Superman"

In the run-up to its release, Waiting for "Superman”—which opens today at the Landmark E Street and Bethesda Row cinemas—has sparked an ongoing conversation about the state of public education in the United States. Its cast and crew have been profiled on Oprah and All Things Considered, the Newseum hosted a gala screening two weeks ago, and NBC News has devoted a considerable chunk of its airtime this week to the film and other education reformers in a package called "Education Nation."

Waiting for "Superman” devotes considerable time to Michelle Rhee, whose future in the D.C. public school system is still to be determined after Vincent Gray’s defeat of Mayor Adrian Fenty in last month’s Democratic primary. Davis Guggenheim, the director of Waiting for "Superman", paints the hard-charging Rhee as one of the documentary’s heroes in her attempts to fire underperforming teachers and go to war with the Washington Teachers Union over tenure and merit pay. If Guggenheim has a central thesis, it is that public schools need “great teachers” and reform-minded administrators like Rhee. We spoke by phone on Sept. 15, less than 24 hours after Fenty conceded to Gray and all but assured a change in leadership at D.C. Public Schools.

Washington City Paper: Your film showers a lot of praise on Michelle Rhee, but given Adrian Fenty’s defeat last night, it’s very likely that Rhee won’t be around much longer. Is it possible to reconcile the reforms that Rhee made with an incoming administration that promises to be more conciliatory toward teachers’ unions?

Davis Guggenheim: I know better than to discuss city politics, but I spent a lot of time in D.C. schools and I saw firsthand the effects she had on these schools. It’s transformative. I’m actually driving by her office right now.

CP: Was Rhee “Superman?” She says she doesn’t want to run another school district, so are you worried she might become another entry in the long list of hopeful educational reformers who were stopped short?

DG: I love how you’re lacing your questions with your opinions.

CP: I’m not. Is Rhee “Superman” or not?

DG: The title of the movie is going to be interpreted and is in the eye of the beholder. People will see the movie and figure out who is a “Superman” or “Superwoman.”

CP. I think everyone is going to consider the lottery sequence to be the emotional high point of your movie. When the prospective students are sitting in an audience waiting for their names to be called, what was going through those families’ heads?

DG: I didn’t know about the lottery. When I found out about it, to get their kid in a great school they need to enter a lottery, play bingo with their kids, I find that notion heartbreaking. And I find that un-American. The kids have big dreams like my kids do. You fall in love with these kids and you feel like they’re your kids. Your heart goes out to the winners and your heart goes out the losers. My heart shuttered just now when I said “loser” because there should be no losers.

Spoiler Alert: At this point in the interview, I asked Guggenheim for an on-the-record update on Anthony, the 5th-grade student who at the end of Waiting for "Superman” is accepted off the waitlist into the SEED School in Benning Ridge. Guggenheim demurred, insisting that answering this question would spoil the end of the movie. By the way, Snape killed Dumbledore.

CP: You keep saying during the film that the key to great education is great teachers, but let’s get specific. Assuming not all teachers are going to break off and start their own ventures like KIPP and that unions aren’t going away any time soon, what makes a great teacher?

DG: We’ve made it really complicated. We have to recruit from our best and brightest and we have to develop them and the ones that aren’t working we need to find them another line of work. Not every charter is doing a great job. Only one in five is doing spectacularly. We need to build more schools with great teachers, higher standards, longer hours, greater accountability. The problem is that we keep looking for the silver bullet. It’s not about whatever clever policy [is passed]. It’s about finding great people to build great schools.

CP: Back to Michelle Rhee. She was tremendously unpopular with teachers and parents alike, but now that Fenty is on his way out, what would you tell the incoming mayor?

DG: I would say just because the mayor changed doesn’t means the kids have changed. Those kids still need great schools and great teachers and they still need those reforms. I remember my mother talking about them being broken. That was in 1968. These schools have been broken for 40 years.

Will the 9:30 Club’s new quasi-record label prove successful? Did every media shop in town cover lone client Justin Jones’s invitation-only CD release party last night? Well, there’s your answer. You might recall club co-owner and Jones sugardaddy Seth Hurwitz telling City Paper this last month:

The goal of this has never been making money on the label. It’s about getting Justin’s music out there for people to hear. It’s about turning him into a live act.

Jones was tardy to his own party, according to one tweeting attendee, alias Karon. “Dear no name having your ep release at 930 – you were supposed to go on 37 minutes ago. Way to early in career to be a prima donna,” she furiously typed on a tiny computer that fits in her pocket. But Jones eventually won Karon over: “He may have started late but he put on a hell of a good show… I think @katyray & @mccanner would like.”

Will the rest of the world like? Time will tell.

MOVING ON:

The H Street Festival is tomorrow! Weather report says sunny and 83—perfect day to listen to live music, tour the Atlas Performing Arts Center, attend an art opening at Studio H, and stock up on Uncle Brutha’s hot sauce!

Here’s some other arts stuff going on this weekend! And here’s a shitload more for the rest of the fall!

If gorgeous street festivals aren’t your thing, you could always jump back a few letters to E Street go see that painfully fake Joaquin Phoenix-Casey Affleck mockumentary at Landmark. Or you could hold out for that painfully real Davis Guggenheim documentary about public schools, Waiting for Superman, which premiered here yesterday (question: are the Flaming Lips getting royalties on the title?). The director tacitly chided D.C. voters for effectively expelling Superwoman from the city government.

This one goes out to DCPS. Have a good weekend!

Photo courtesy of essgee51.

In the film, director Davis Guggenheim makes no attempt to veil his admiration for Rhee's hard-charging attempts to reform D.C. schools, repeatedly citing her outsider origins, shutting down of crumbling schools, and waging war with the Washington Teachers' Union. But with Fenty on the way out, the overwhelming conventional wisdom is that Rhee will be right behind him considering the Gray campaign's description of the Fenty-Rhee approach as "short-sighted, narrow, and clandestine."

I spoke with Guggenheim yesterday as the director made his way to the film's Washington premiere at the Newseum, where Rhee later called Gray's win "devastating for the schoolchildren of Washington, D.C." in a post-screening discussion. Guggenheim—who grew up attending the Potomac School and Sidwell Friends—was a bit more politically delicate in our discussion, but he didn't shy away from offering his hopes for a post-Fenty—and most likely post-Rhee — public school system.

"I know better than to discuss city politics, but I spent a lot of time in D.C. schools and I saw firsthand the effects she had on these schools," he said. "It’s transformative."

On what advice he would give the incoming mayor on selecting a schools chancellor, Guggenheim doubled down on Rhee's methods: "I would say just because the mayor changed doesn’t means the kids have changed. Those kids still need great schools and great teachers and they still need those reforms."

Jimmy Page has a stronghold on the '70s, The Edge has the '80s cornered, and Jack White holds the title of the 21st century's definitive guitar god? Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim's (An Inconvenient Truth) latest doc, It Might Get Loud, chronicles each musician's work and climaxes in a perfect storm of guitar masters on a Warner Bros. soundstage, shredding and talking shop. (Via RollingStone.com) The film, set to be released August 14, received a standing ovation at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 19.

I wasn't conscious for any of the '80s or much of the '90s, so I can't speak to the Edge's inclusion. But White? Now, I love everything about Jack White—his twist on Bo Diddley, the Stripes' dirty Detroit grooves, and most recently his backbeats for the Dead Weather. And after watching the film's trailer, I especially love the insouciant saltiness that the heretofore laconic axman lends the otherwise sappy nostalgiafest. Affirmations like "Technology is the big destroyer of emotion and truth" get my Twitterview-hating panties in a twist.

But is White really this generation's guitar god? The documentary exhibits White holding his own among the greats, but still...how did Guggenheim single out the sometime Stripe? According to Rolling Stone:

"You could find other guitarists that were virtuosos, and you could find other guitarists that are legends, but you may not find three that are all searchers," Guggenheim said of his subjects. "Each one of them is still searching and still trying to figure out what it means to make music."

Right, well then. I agree White is certainly searching for something with his various side projects. But there are also plenty of other guitarists toiling under a similar burden, without the help of constant trumpeting by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and now Guggenheim. Marnie Stern and PJ Harvey come to mind. And the fact that women are never honored with "Guitar God" status.

So, BPB readers, a modest appeal for an informal poll: Who do you consider this generation's guitar god? And why no love for the female virtuosos?