I thought I was pretty good at riding the Metro — until I met Carlos Pena. I was on a Yellow Line train with the 22-year-old last week when he indicated that we should turn ...

As the tens of longtime readers of this column know, I keep track of the movies I see each year using my office wall and Post-it notes. The Movie-Ranking Wall of Stickies (mot...

I’m not the target audience for PBS’ “Rough Cut: Woodworking with Tommy Mac” (locally at noon Fridays on WHUT). In seventh grade, I broke the saw blade so often in woo...

Someone get Michael Shannon a Webby — or whatever it is people get for outstanding achievements in Internet videos. The “Boardwalk Empire” actor’s reading of the insan...

My partner, Jaime, lost her dad on Holy Thursday. Her family lives in Los Angeles, and I’m writing this riding down the Pacific Coast Highway so we can put his ashes in the ...

Is there any advice you can give a financially struggling parent whose daughter was accepted to a top university but won’t be able to foot the $50,000-a-year tuition bill? I...

Good things have a nasty habit of not lasting all that long in Washington. Whether it’s bipartisan agreement on a political issue, or comfortable weather for a post-work jog...

I’m getting married again at the end of May. Since this is my second  marriage, as well as the groom’s, we’ve opted for an informal wedding with close family and a few ...

I am about to absolve you of something. Are you ready? It’s OK if you don’t like “To the Wonder.” The film, which opened last week, was directed by Terrence Malick, wh...

Mindy, you get better every week! “The Mindy Project” is the Fox sitcom in which actor/writer/producer Mindy Kaling plays a Big Apple doc obsessed with rom-coms and unluck...

Since “Portlandia” premiered in 2011, IFC has been reinventing itself as the home of off-beat original comedy. Last week, the network announced 11 concepts it’s consider...

Do you think it’s fair to have cigarette smoking as a deal-breaker in a relationship? I have given my boyfriend ultimatum after ultimatum, and he just won’t quit. He was s...

“Jurassic Park 3D” opened last week, 20 years after the flat version stomped into theaters. I will not be seeing it. Though 2-D-to-3-D conversion has gotten immeasurably b...

How people get to the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin is almost as much of a spectacle as those famous clouds of pink petals. As I marched over Wednesday afternoon, I j...

Every scene in the sixth-season premiere of “Mad Men” (AMC, Sundays, 10 p.m.) seemed to be symbolic of something. But … what? As an English major, I would like to propos...