WHEN THE CLASH sang "anger can be power," they probably didn't expect it to be wielded they way Lewis Black wields it. The Silver Spring native has made a stand-up career as a profanely angry everyman and keeps busy hosting Comedy Central's "Root of All Evil."

The premise: Judge Black hears testimony and rules which of two current objets d'hate is more evil. Recent "decisions" included Dick Cheney over Paris Hilton and Oprah over the Catholic Church.

"The great thing about the show is you can put up anything vs. anything," says a (fairly mellow) Black. "We had a board with a billion things, initially."

Black's prior trip home was not so mellow. His 2006 HBO special "Red, White, and Screwed" was moved to the Warner because the Kennedy Center objected to the profanity.

"It's not the [expletive] Jefferson Memorial; it's a performing arts center," he exclaims, noting the "giant chewing gum head of JFK" on display.

Continue Reading "Black to Basics: Lewis Black" »

YOUNG FILMMAKER AND screenwriter Harmony Korine has established himself as a grunge visionary with his films "Gummo" and "Julien Donkey-Boy." Cherished by art-house audiences but often leaving critics aghast, Korine's work has set itself up as antithetical to traditional notions of cinematic pleasure: pretty people, happy endings, moral redemption, plot.

It's a shame if audiences reject Korine's latest film out of hand on the assumption that it's as gristly a chew as "Gummo." "Mister Lonely" stars Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator hardly getting by in Paris. He meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) who tells him about a commune for their kind in the wilds of Scotland, where people who "live as," as the script delicately puts it, the famous can be free.

In between, a group of nuns in the South American jungle, under the tutelage of Werner Herzog — bear with us — attempt to jump out of airplanes, aloft on faith alone.

Korine found the image in his mind and it stayed. "I liked the image," he says. "I thought it was a test of faith."

Continue Reading "The Pitfalls of Faith: 'Mister Lonely'" »

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

THE ABC IMPROVISATIONAL-COMEDY SHOW "Whose Line is it Anyway?" may have ended its run, but Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood, two of the show's stars, are making sure its humor lives on.

"We've been doing the show with a lot of people, but we wanted to be onstage more," said Sherwood, the dark-haired, taller of the two, speaking of his and Mochrie's two-man stand-up setup. "Plus, we don't have to split the checks 10 ways."

Mochrie (the rubber-faced, less-haired) said the live show will feature many of the games "Whose Line?" fans have grown to love, and the audience will still get to participate in throwing out ideas for the fast-thinking comics.

"Whose Line?," the American successor of a wildly popular British show that featured such stellar participants as Stephen Fry and John Sessions, managed to find success among hundreds of improv troupes, something both Sherwood and Mochrie attributed to the show's format.

"'Whose Line?' came close to capturing the atmosphere of a small club," Mochrie said. "All the games were short, and every game was different. And we had the added benefit of being able to edit out the unfunny parts."

But this time around, there's no safety net for the performers.

Continue Reading "Thinking Fast: Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie" »

SPRING IS IN THE AIR, which means that it's shoe-shopping season! Though for Kelly, the Valley girl in Liam Sullivan's hilarious YouTube hit, "Shoes," every day is perfect for buying new kicks.

In the award-winning video, the awkward, headstrong Kelly argues with her disapproving parents and her indulged star-athlete twin brother, all portrayed by Sullivan.

Storming away from a birthday debacle, Kelly embarks on a shoe-shopping spree against a janky techno beat. The massively popular video transformed Sullivan from struggling stand-up to cyber-celebrity.

This weekend, Kelly appears in 3-D at the Warner Theatre as Sullivan opens for pal Margaret Cho's "Beautiful" tour.

Continue Reading "The Betch Is Back: Liam Sullivan" »

TWO DAYS after Sept. 11, 2001, Tomas Young enlisted in the Army. Ten months after President Bush stood before a banner that read ”Mission Accomplished,„ Young went to Iraq. Less than a week after getting there, a shot to the spine left him paralyzed.

Filmmakers Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, touched by Young’s story, created ”Body of War„ (playing at E Street), a documentary about homecoming, recovery, disability and activism.

Young balances potentially conflicting roles of veteran and peace activist beautifully, and the film’s startling honesty humanizes the casualties of the war in Iraq during a time of expansive anti-war sentiment.

THERE'S SOMETHING peculiarly indie about the buzz and hum of a downtuned guitar; the squeak of fingers on strings; the hoarse, hushed crack in the voice. Warps on a glossy surface are welcoming spaces in which our musical imaginations can roam.

This state of drifting thoughtfulness is caught impeccably in "Paranoid Park," Gus Van Sant's dreamlike adaptation of a young-adult novel about a skater boy absorbing the fact of his involvement in a security guard's grisly death.

Van Sant has become the cinematic poet of the dewy and inarticulate, male category, but "Paranoid Park," which had its well-received debut at the Cannes Film Festival last year, has much more going on under the surface than in the static "Last Days" or the fetishy "Elephant."

Continue Reading "Gus Van Sant: Paranoid Park" »

REMEMBER THAT BIG PROJECT to fix a sagging platform at the busy Metro Center station? It's ramping up again this President's Day weekend, which means riders should prepare for half-hour delays on the Red, Blue and Orange lines, the transit agency says.

The rehabilitation work, which Metro says is aimed to stabilize the platform that carries Red Line trains over the area that serves the Blue and Orange lines inside the Metro Center station, will begin at 10 p.m. on Friday and last until midnight on Monday. Crews will be making structural concrete repairs as well as replacing bearing pads that help support the bridge, among other things.

Here's how the construction will affect riders:

RED LINE:
» During the day, Red Line trains will start their journeys from Glenmont and Shady Grove every nine minutes. Trains will share a track between Farragut North and Judiciary Square, operating through that area every 18 minutes. Two trains traveling one direction, spaced two minutes apart, will move through the work zone, then two trains will be allowed to travel in the opposite direction.

» After 10 p.m. on Friday and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Red Line trains will leave the terminal stations 20 minutes apart.

Continue Reading "Get Ready for Delays: Metro Center Work to Resume" »

METRO CENTER is usually a hub of activity, but this holiday weekend, the busy transfer station will play host to improvement work that will impact much of the rail system.

Crews will be working to fix deteriorating bracing pads that cushion the beams, pictured at right, that hold up the Red Line's bridge over the Orange and Blue lines inside the station. But even riders on those lines who aren't heading through the downtown work zone are likely to experience delayed or crowded trains.

The work starts at 10 p.m. on Friday.

Red Line trains will be sharing the same track between the Farragut North and Judiciary Square stations, while Blue and Orange Line trains will share a track between the Farragut West and Smithsonian stations. Despite the major repair work, Metro Center will remain open, although parts of the station will be closed off to passengers.

Continue Reading "Reminder: Metro Center Work to Cause Delays" »

THE VIEW FROM THE PLATFORM at the Shady Grove station on the Red Line wouldn't give you any hint that something's amiss. But if you look at the platform edge from the trackbed, you'll see the metal jacks pictured here. They tell a different story.

As The Post's Lena H. Sun has noted, Shady Grove is one of 10 aboveground Metrorail stations that's suffering from significant concrete platform deterioration. It would cost about $6 million to make full repairs at each of those stations, but, so far, the transit agency said, there's only been enough money to fix the problems at the Deanwood and Minnesota Avenue stations on the Orange Line. So the temporary bracing pictured above is the only option available to keep the platform structurally sound.

While most commuters aren't going to see the platform problems at aboveground stations, it's not difficult to see that something's awry at Metro Center. This weekend, work crews will begin $1.3 million worth of repairs to deteriorating bearing pads that cushion the 70-foot concrete bridge supporting the trackbed and platforms for the Red Line, which sit a level above the area serviced by Orange Line and Blue Line trains.

At a press gathering this morning, Metro officials pointed out the problems and previewed the work that will be done over the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend and next month's Presidents Day weekend. While Metro Center will remain open to passengers, the repairs will cause big delays for trains heading through the station work zone.

Continue Reading "Across Rail System, Metro Confronts Its Age" »