Thursday, August 20, 2009

Hop on the 'Caravan'; Feel Good With Julie & Julia; DC Shorts, a Festival to Trust


Tell me why I do like Mondays. Okay. The Caravan of Thieves. This past Monday we were fortunate enough to catch their show at Iota in Clarendon, and it proved to be quite the goulash of fun, talent and Mercury rising. You are fortunate that they will be playing three more Mondays at Iota, Sept. 21, Oct. 19 and Nov. 16. A talented bass player and an amazing violinist bookend the handsome husband-and-wife, singer-songwriting, wine-making team of Fuzz and Carrie Sangiovanni (just kidding on the wine). They played songs from their new CD Bouquet mixed with an inventive repertoire of covers that includes an excellent Bohemian Rhapsody (get it? Freddie Mercury rising. Wow, first a Boomtown Rats reference and now Queen. It's British rocker day!)



I am very sold on the movie Julie and Julia (nnnn=). It takes two separate stories--Julia Child's culinary march to fame in Paris--and then, 50 years later, Queens (the place not the band) government worker Julie Powell's attempt to bake, brown and bone her way through Child's cookbook. You can't have two more excellent, likeable actresses than Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. (That reminds me of two more rentals: the wonderful Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 where Streep is shown in a photo as the college girlfriend of one of the players and Junebug. (I am going to make a separate list to post of all these great rentals I mention.) The film moves so humorously and intelligently from story to story that I was disappointed each time it went to the other. (Not so for Melinda and Melinda, though Gwyneth Paltrow did well with the two plots in Sliding Doors.) Go see it.

Last September, we watched about 10 creative, well-crafted short films at Landmark E Street and then went up to a rooftop soiree nearby. It was a beautiful night and food, drinks and live music plentifully wafted into the intellectually charged air. A French director of one of the films attracted many of the prettiest females, so he seemed a good guy to get to know. Well, guess what? It's back! Tickets for the DC Shorts Film Festival are now on sale! I got mine for the 7pm opening night at the E Street Cinema ($12). I believe that includes admission to the opening-night party (it did last year), but there is no mention of it. I sent an email asking for clarification, but no reply yet. Anyway, for that price, I think tickets will sell out fairly quickly.

September is already looking nuts with events. In particular, Sept 12 will find the Kennedy Center Open House, the Rosslyn Jazz Festival (yay, Frederic Yonnet, the jazz harmonica guy, is back!) and Arts on Foot. Yikes! Good thing I'm a cyclist.








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