FOR THE NEXT WEEK, get a little culture at Filmfest D.C.

Yes, film festivals have been a staple of hipster culture for long enough that they aren't cool anymore, but this year's Filmfest D.C. has a host of promising movies, including "Made in Jamaica," which is about reggae (if you couldn't guess; read our feature story here,) and "Basic Sanitation," about some do-gooders who make a horror movie to try to get their community to clean up the local river.

The festival's theme is "Latin American Cinema," and if you take your movie ticket to Ceviche or its sister restaurants, you'll get a free appetizer.

» Filmfest D.C., various theaters; $10, April 24 - May 4; 202-628-3456

Photo courtesy Lawrencepictures

SORRY, RED LINERS — those weekend delays you've been dealing with aren't quite over yet.

Now that complex platform rehabilitation work at the Metro Center station and switch replacement near the Medical Center station have concluded, a new project will soon be getting started at the Van Ness-UDC station and will take place over four upcoming weekends.

Van Ness is home to an interlocking switch that allows trains to travel from one track to another. The two nearest switches are located near the Dupont Circle and Friendship Heights stations, meaning that for inbound and outbound trains to proceed through the work zone, they'll have to share a track through the following stations: Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan, Cleveland Park, Van Ness-UDC, Tenleytown-AU and Friendship Heights. That's a pretty long stretch, meaning that there could be delays of 30 minutes.

The work will start Friday at 9 p.m. and wrap up by closing on Sunday — a pattern that will repeat during the weekends of Feb. 29-March 2, March 7-9 and March 14-16.

The service pattern goes as follows:

Continue Reading "With Van Ness Work, Red Line Delays to Continue" »

A SWITCH REPLACEMENT near the Medical Center station will slow Red Line trips over four upcoming weekends. Although trains will service the entire length of the Red Line, single tracking between the Friendship Heights and Grosvenor-Strathmore stations will lead to the following changes, starting on Friday night:

» During the work periods, trains will run every 18 minutes through the work zone and on to the Red Line's Shady Grove terminal.
» During the day, alternating trains running from Glenmont and downtown D.C. will terminate at the Friendship Heights station before returning to Glenmont. During that time, trains will run at nine-minute intervals between Friendship Heights and Glenmont.
» After 9 p.m., all Red Line trains will run at 18-minute intervals, meaning that weekend warriors on Fridays and Saturdays, and those out on Sunday nights, will likely experience longer wait times for the Red Line.

The work periods will be in effect for the following weekends:

» Friday, Jan. 11, 9 p.m. through midnight closing on Sunday, Jan. 13.
» Friday, Jan. 25, 9 p.m. through midnight closing on Sunday, Jan. 27.
» Friday, Feb. 1, 9 p.m. through midnight closing on Sunday, Feb. 3.
» Friday, Feb. 8, 9 p.m. through midnight closing on Sunday, Feb. 10.

Image courtesy WMATA

METROBUS' CROWDED 30-SERIES BUS LINE, which currently is comprised of the 30, 32, 34, 35 and 36 routes, is poised to get some new numbers: 31, 37 and 39. Those would be local and express routes designed to alleviate congestion and quicken the ride along one of Metrobus' most crowded and delay-plagued corridors. The plan came out of a series of public hearings held in recent months on the future of the bus line.

The proposed changes, which could go into effect by summer, are subject to public hearings, modifications and approval by Metro's board in the coming months, according to a timetable laid out in recent public presentations.

Here's what may be in store:

Continue Reading "Express Buses Eyed for Metro's Crowded 30 Line" »

MORE BAD NEWS for Metro's Red Line: Ultrasonic testing overnight turned up another set of flaws on a different part of the heavily traveled corridor, a development that will continue the slowdowns riders have been experiencing throughout the week.

The flaws were detected in sections of track at the Forest Glen, Takoma and Fort Totten stations, Metro says. Those flawed sections of track come in addition to the imperfections discovered earlier in the week between the Medical Center and Friendship Heights stations.

The transit agency says that track workers will be installing new sections of rail while the system is closed — work that's expected to be completed overnight and into the weekend. Until it's finished, though, trains will operate at a reduced speed — 35 miles per hour instead of the usual 44 — in the spots where track flaws were found as a safety precaution. Those speed restrictions have been in place all week between Friendship Heights and Medical Center.

Metro's cautioning riders to be on the lookout for minor delays.

» "Rail Flaws Continue to Cause Minor Delays Today on Parts of the Red Line" [WMATA]

MORNING METRORAIL COMMUTERS may have seen an advisory that trains have been traveling at reduced speeds on the Red Line. Why?

From a Metro announcement:

A special ultrasonic testing machine detected the flaws last night in a section of track between Medical Center and Friendship Heights stations. Trains have been traveling at reduced speeds in the area since this morning. They are moving at a maximum speed of 35 miles per hour, instead of 44 miles per hour, until repairs can be made overnight.

Track workers made temporary repairs last night and plan to install a new 39-foot section of rail between Medical Center and Friendship Heights stations tonight, once the rail system closes.

The defects were detected by a special machine operated by Sperry Rail Services. The machine rides the rails and uses ultrasonic testing to detect cracks or other flaws. This type of inspection is conducted fives times a year, which is more than double the number of inspections from three years ago. Track inspectors also visually inspect the rails twice a week to ensure the reliability and safety of the rail system.

Image courtesy WMATA

TOWARD THE END OF RENOVATIONS at the Friendship Heights bus terminal last year, construction crews took some measurements and were surprised to find out that newer, taller Metrobuses would be unable to fit within the clearance of the station's ceiling. Oops.

After two years of construction and a half-million dollars, The Post's Miranda S. Spivak reported at the time, there was talk of abandoning the terminal as options were limited to fix the problem that late in the game.

Now, starting today, Metro will begin two months' worth of work to raise the ceiling at an as yet undetermined cost. The station will remain open but with restrictions, so if you use the busy terminal at Wisconsin and Willard avenues, be aware that bus service may shift to a different location on site during the construction.

» "Ceiling Work to Start at Bus Station" [WaPo]
» EARLIER: "Newer Metrobuses Too Tall for Friendship Heights Station" [WaPo]

Photo by Robert A. Reeder/The Washington Post

JOIN IN THE FESTIVITIES celebrating the James Beard Foundation's 20th anniversary. High-rollers may want to book a seat at Vidalia for dinner on Sept. 28, during which past Beard award winners Ann Cashion of Johnny's Half Shell, Roberto Donna of Bebo Trattoria, Jeff Buben of Vidalia and Bistro Bis, Bob Kinkead of Kinkead's and Ris Lacoste, formerly of 1789, will cook with one of this year's award winners, R.J. Cooper, who shared the "Best Mid-Atlantic Chef" title with Palena's Frank Ruta, at right. Tickets are $250 and include wine pairings. Details here.

Sunday's free event, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., will be held at Mazza Gallerie's Williams Sonoma. Guests can sample locally made foods, meet past winners, and learn from cooking demonstrations throughout the day.

» Vidalia, 1900 M St. NW; 202-659-1900. (Farragut West)
» Williams Sonoma, Mazza Gallerie, 5300 Wisconsin Ave. NW; 202-237-1602. (Friendship Heights)

» A BOTTLE AND A SIX-PACK: Tuesday is the weekday to shop Del Ray's Planet Wine. From 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., the store offers tastings of a top-shelf vino, as well a 10 percent discount on the day's offering. Sample a 2004 Domaine Giraud Les Gallimardes or a Peter Howland Australian Shiraz, along with nibbles of the month's featured six-pack of cheeses to go ($35).
» Planet Wine and Gourmet, 2004 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria; 703-549-3444.

» A CRUDO WITH TEETH: Though barracuda isn't the fish that's most readily associated with super-fresh crudo, it's one of the offerings on the menu at Hook in Georgetown this season. "There's a ton of it in the waters off Tobago where it's caught," said chef Barton Seaver of the exotic fish. "It's amazingly good — sweet, tender and just assertive enough."

What about the fish's menacing reputation, both in the water and on the plate? Like grouper, barracuda can be harmful to eat. Hook asserts it is safe. "Where we're catching it, the waters are tested every two weeks to ensure it's free of toxins that build up in the fish that are harmful to people."

» Hook, 3241 M St. NW; 202-625-4488.

Photo courtesy Palena

"THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK: Bearing Witness to Genocide in Darfur," is as gripping and horrific as any title that will be published this year on the atrocities in Sudan. In it, author Brian Steidle recounts his evolution in Darfur, a region of western Sudan that is nearly as large as France and borders Libya, Chad and the Central African Republic.

Steidle, an ex-marine, starts out a happy adventurer with a year-long civilian contract to assist an African Union monitoring force in Sudan in 2004. But he becomes an increasingly agitated documentarian frustrated by his mission to monitor, not to prevent, atrocities. By his book's end, Steidle is an outraged activist back in the U.S.

"The Devil Came on Horseback" opens with a description of an infant orphan shot through the back and likely to die. The book subsequently grows more disturbing. Readers who take Steidle at his word will find "Devil" both an unflinching depiction of a 21st century genocide and a useful primer on the dizzyingly complex world of Sudanese politics.

Steidle's account of burned villages, mass graves and extreme deprivation in camps of "internally displaced persons" leaves little doubt that he witnessed massacres of civilian black Africans being carried out by both Arab militias (Janjaweed) and Sudanese government forces.

"The Devil Came on Horseback" — and the book's accompanying film of the same name — is a clear wake-up call to the conscience of its audience. The film will screen at the Avalon Theatre through Sept. 13, with guest experts on hand to answer questions after each day's final showing.

Express spoke with the activist author and Loudon Valley High and Virginia Tech alum about the latest news from Darfur, the relationship between Darfur and the Sudanese civil war, Sudan's role in the war on terror and more.

Continue Reading "Brian Steidle: Witness to Darfur's Apocalypse" »

"WHY'D YOU RUN AWAY?/Don't you like my style?/Why don't you come and play?/I guarantee a great big smile."

Thus runs the seductive invitation of a demon named Sweet (Hinton Battle) with the power to puppeteer a group of living and undead (and twice-dead and not-quite-human) twentysomethings into expressing their innermost fears and feelings through song and dance, and in the process, making for a centerpiece episode of the '90s' greatest contribution to popular culture: the WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

"Once More With Feeling," episode 107, was an emotionally shattering highlight of this complicated, snarky and ambitious show about life, death, family, friends, work, love, high school and the fact that the world is coming to an end.

And if you still know all the words to the numb opener for Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), "Going Through the Motions," the screwball Xander-Anya (Nicholas Brenden and Emma Caulfield) duet "I'll Never Tell" or the glittery love song "Under Your Spell" — sung by Tara (Amber Benson) to Willow (Allyson Hannigan) twice, the second time in a heartbreaking reprise — then prime your pipes for the Avalon Theatre's Buffy Musical Sing-Along. The immortal episode will play on the big screen while you and other citizens of Sunnydale belt out tunes along with Buffy, Spike, Giles, Dawn and the rest of the Scoobies.

The frivolity of the sing-along — a touring event that entices Buffyites in city after city — should not obscure the dramatic impact of this fine episode, an action-rich story in which almost every character reaches a crucial turning point.

That said, don't forget your kazoos, dry-cleaning bags, stuffed bunnies and vampire teeth. Oh, and shut up, Dawn.

» Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Ave. NW; Fri. & Sat., 11:30 p.m., $12; 202-966-6000. (Friendship Heights)

Photo courtesy UPN