Our Youth Voices series is produced by Deborah Bolling.

"Jim Henson's Fantastic World" will be at the Smithsonian International Gallery through October 5th. Jim Henson movies and rarely seen shorts are running at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring through August 24th.

Shops we visited:

Summer Delights 6939 Laurel Avenue, Takoma Park MD 20912 (301) 891-2880

The University of Maryland - The Dairy In Turner Hall facing Route 1. Featuring famous University of Maryland Dairy ice cream, made-to-order deli sandwiches, hamburgers, sandwiches, pizza, prepared wraps, salads, sushi, freshly prepared soups, French fries, and chicken tenders. (301) 314-7777

The Scoop Grill 110 King St., Alexandria, VA 22307 (703) 549-4527

Pop's Old Fashioned Ice Cream 109 King St., Alexandria, VA 22314 (703) 518-5374

The first time I tasted curry laksa, it was prepared by a Singaporean friend, who I watched cleave piles of dark meat into an enormous stew pot before putting in a number of different spices. What came out was a questionable, murky soup with spicy red oil floating on top. But wow, was it delicious.

Curry laksa is one of those beautiful fusion children of Malaysian cuisine with Thai coconut milk, Indian curry and Chinese-style egg noodles. It is finished with different types of meat, seafood, fried tofu, and vegetables. It sometimes has a gritty texture from belacan, a dried shrimp and chili paste, but the redolence of cinnamon, galangal, and lemongrass, plus the slight burn of chilies, make it worth overlooking.

My personal favorite is the curry laksa at Spices/Nooshi that allows you a choice between chicken or shrimp and includes both egg and vermicelli style noodles. This lighter version is topped off with fried tofu puffs, still-crisp green beans, and bean sprouts. Meanwhile, the Malaysia Kopitiam versions are nothing to balk at. Select from three types of noodles - egg, rice or vermicelli (get the egg). The flavorings are slightly more traditional with a muskier, denser flavor, but lacking the additional tofu and green beans accoutrements. You may also choose a variation that includes just those items, as well as selections that include pork rib and beef.

Small Bites
Sippin' on Gin and Juice
Chef John Wabeck previously announced he would be leaving New Heights to serve as a sommelier at Inox. According to one of New Heights' owners, Kavita Singh, they will be hosting a night to celebrate Wabeck's career change and to introduce their new chef. Though she would not disclose the name of the new chef, she mentioned that he had previously worked in D.C. and is now returning. The event will take place on August 9, starting at 6:30 p.m., and will feature a four-course menu paired with gin-based cocktails from current Komi general manager and Wabeck's former Firefly co-worker Derek Brown. The first two courses will be cooked by Wabeck, and the last two by the new chef. The cost is $85.

Also confirmed: the Heights' popular Gin Joint, whose collection was amassed under Wabeck, will continue to operate after his departure.

Bourdain D.C. Tour Roundup
Reports on local food blogs and boards have been accumulating Anthony Bourdain spottings across town over the past week. It appears that Bourdain packed in a tight schedule last weekend filming for his show. He was confirmed to have visited the Eamonn's A Dublin Chipper, Penn Quarter's farmers market, Cafe Atlantico and Jose Andres' other restaurants. Unconfirmed sightings include: Ben's Chili Bowl, Busboys and Poets, D.C. Central Kitchen, Chadwicks, PX (just above Eamonn's), Four Sisters (Eden Center, Falls Church) and El Pollo Rico (Arlington).

Bethesda Restaurant Week
Bethesda Restaurant Week runs during the week of July 28 - August 3. Check out DC Foodies for a compiled list of menus.

>> This is the final weekend of the Capital Fringe Festival. There is no more time to procrastinate. Consult our latest reviews, scour the schedule, and get cracking on the shows that remain.

>> Head over to Hillyer Art Space for the Barrelhouse Magazine Roller Derby Issue launch party, "License to Brawl". From 6 to 10 p.m. you can enjoy a giant mural by derby pop-art loving Cory Oberndorfer, presentations of derby-themed stories and poems, music, food and beer, and our favorite part: "A rare opportunity to arm wrestle an actual DC roller derby girl!" Sponsored by The Pink Line Project and Scion. $10.

>> Extraordinary jazz pianist Benito Gonzalez will be playing the historic Bohemian Caverns on Friday and Saturday. His group will feature talented saxophonist Azar Lawrence. Tickets to the 9 and 11 p.m. sets are $15.

>> Longtime area poet, fiction writer, publisher and editor Richard Peabody will be at Politics and Prose along with other contributors to talk about Stress City, a collection of short stories from “50 D.C. guys.” You know, in case the point of view of a lot of men who live in Washington has somehow eluded you for all these years. 7 p.m.

>> Atlanta's Anthony David has been garnering a great deal of acclaim lately, in part due to his work with neo-soul icon India.Aire. He's back in D.C. for a show with former Erykah Badu background singer and Dallas native N'Dambi at the Black Cat. $18, 9 p.m.

>> Solid local band The Vita Ruins return from a hiatus to the Rock and Roll Hotel, with The Jaguar Club and More Humans opening. $10, 8:30 p.m.

SATURDAY:

>> The Honfleur Gallery is hosting a free concert featuring The Red Vines, with opener (and three stars alum) The Beanstalk Library. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

>> Don't miss our film picks of the week, featuring a Stanley Kubrick double feature of Dr. Strangelove (1:30 p.m.) and Eyes Wide Shut (3:45 p.m.) at the National Gallery of Art's East Building Concourse Auditorium. Free.

>> Unbuckled 7 alums Motel will back rapper Cool Cee Brown at the Capital Hip-Hop and Soul Festival in Marvin Gaye Park in Northeast. 2 p.m. Free.

>> We chatted with Tilly & the Wall before their last stop in D.C. They're back, with all their tap-shoe-based percussion this weekend at the Black Cat. With The Ruby Suns & Exit Clov, $13, 9 p.m.

>> Nouveau Riche returns to DC9, this time with a gimmick that we have to admit sounds like a lot of fun: They've set up some sort of electronic drunk-texting system that will display your texts on the big screen on the dance floor upstairs. Take your Twitter obsession to the next level starting at 9 p.m., with free entry and free Sparks before 10 p.m. It costs $8 after 10.

SUNDAY:

>> The enormous Rock The Bells show at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. is probably worth the long trip: D.C.'s own Wale, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Rakim and the Pharcyde. $40-$183, 12 p.m.

Photo by AquaAmber

We had the chance to talk with Paul Ruppert of the Warehouse recently about his plans to open a new wine bar in Columbia Heights, at the corner of 11th and Lamont Street NW, in the old 11th Street Deli space (first reported by the Prince of Petworth). With 28 seats on an open-air patio and 15 seats inside, the casual bar will serve wine, desserts, cheese, and charcuterie, along with a few hot food items and basic espresso. Along with co-owners Dan Searing (Looking Glass Lounge manager), Ben Gilligan and Nick Pimental (Toolbox Design), Ruppert envisions the space to complement, rather than compete with, surrounding businesses such as RedRocks, Wonderland Ballroom, and Columbia Heights Coffee. Aussie chef Ben Gilligan will be in charge of savory foods and wine selection, while desserts will come from Lizzy Evelyn and Nichole Ferrigno at Paisley Fig. Wine prices are likely to run between $8 and $14 a glass. The planned opening date for the wine bar, which has yet to be named, is October 1. Sounds good to us.

Photo courtesy Prince of Petworth

Chad Cordero
The big news this week was GM Jim Bowden's announcement that the team was not going to offer closer Chad Cordero a contract, thus letting him become a free agent. The Nationals Farm Authority has a good explanation of team's thinking here. Basically, because of Chad's injuries and the nature of arbitration, the move makes sense and keeps the team from overpaying for the Chief. It doesn't mean that Chad is leaving -- at least, it didn't until Chad revealed how disrespectful he felt the whole process was. It is not clear how Bowden's handling of the announcement will affect the ability of the team to resign Chad, but it is clear that the Chief is not happy. Cordero has been one of the faces of the team since it came to Washington, and Bowden's handling of this process in not likely to win him, or the team, any fans.

Middle Infield
With 60 games left in the season, and a record of 38-64, the Nationals have already started thinking about next season. Their first move was to trade closer Jon Rauch to the Arizona Diamondbacks for second baseman Emilio Bonifacio. Bonifacio is a young, fast second baseman who the Nationals hope will become the team's future leadoff hitter. So far this year, he hit .217, slugging .261, and had an OBP of .333. Not exactly the numbers one wants from a leadoff hitter, but Bonifacio is still young, and the Nationals didn't have anyone in their system at second base. The team probably noticed that Felipe Lopez was still on their bench, and got a little desperate.

The team also signed All Star Christian Guzman to a two year, $16 million contract. Guzman currently leads the National League in hits, and is the only National batting above .300. Guzman wanted 3-4 years, but accepted 2 because he spent so much time injured. Many feel like this was a premature signing, and that the team overpaid for Guzman. Nats Triple Play has a good breakdown of the signing here. It comes down to the fact that the team doesn't have any shortstops in their system who are ready to play, so the 2-year contract basically gives them time to develop their future shortstop.

Game of the Week
The game of the week is Tuesday, July 29, when Colin Balester faces off against Phillie Brett Myers at Nationals Park. This game will provide an excellent chance for Nationals fans to watch the development of one of the team's future pitchers, and be harassed by fans from Philadelphia. Also, the first 10,000 fans get a free T-Shirt.

Briefly Noted: Johnny Estrada was released and looks "forward to playing against the Nationals." I assume he means in MLB 2K8... Party with Teddy Roosevelt!... In an effort to fill those seats behind home plate, the team has started a promotion where buying 5 weekend game tickets gets you 1 free Diamond Club ticket.

Meaningless Statistic of the Week: Tim Redding leads the National League in number of fly balls hit by a left handed batter when thrown by a right handed pitcher who was born in the '70s, with 90.

Photo by brianmka

Tehreema Mitha (pictured), a Pakistani native who came to the U.S. in 1998, received years of formal training in Bharatanatyam, the classical dance of South India. Purists may object to her goal, which is to combine the classic with the contemporary, but such risk-taking is necessary for artistic innovation. Last night's sparsely attended 50-minute show featured one piece from each genre of classical, contemporary, and a fusion of both. The dancers were expressive, skilled, and well-rehearsed, and though each of the three items had its merits, the classical and classical/contemporary pieces stood out.

The highlight of the evening was the concluding piece, "Face the Day (Uttho jago)," a dance which exemplifies Mitha's genre blending approach. The beginning of the performance is absolutely charming. Using traditional bharatanatyam movement, company members Radha Gholkar and Deepa Ponnappan enact the struggle many of us face to simply get out of bed in the morning. While the music might be a bit cheesy outside of this context, it tried to fuse traditional sounds with a pop-rock groove, and it worked in this setting. Once Mitha enters the stage, the story takes a darker turn, but wisely leaves questions unresolved, forcing the audience to contemplate what it has just seen.

Another strong point was the show's opening performance, which was done entirely in the classical Bharatanatyam style. Set to a complex 21-beat rhythmic cycle, "Igniting (Atish Angaiz)" depicted Fire, one of the four ancient elements. With costumes inspired by sculptures found in the grand temples of South India, the dancers showcased the essence of this particular style, though the piece also challenged convention by setting the South Indian dance to North Indian classical music.

Less successful, however, was Mitha's solo contemporary piece, titled "Running Out of Empty (Khala)." Telling what seemed to be the story of a woman's struggle through life, it culminated with the character committing suicide. While this is a topic certainly worthy of artistic expression, it was difficult to follow and achieve the emotional resonance that such a heavy topic requires, and seemed out of context with the other two pieces. However, "Running" did provide a showcase for Mitha's athleticism and artistry as a dancer. In another setting, it may be very effective.

South Asian American Dance had only one glaring weak point, one common to many Fringe productions, and that is an inattention to presentation. Between each piece were lengthy moments of silence where technicians set up the stage for the next number. Perhaps some music or other distraction would be appropriate, because these interruptions totally deflated the preceding performance and left no sense of anticipation for the subsequent piece. Despite this, the show has enough strong points that it is worth seeing, especially for those who are interested in dance and, in particular, South Asian dance.

South Asian American Dance is running at The Forum in the Shakespeare Theater, 610 F Street, NW, with performances tonight at 8:30 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday at 5 p.m. Tickets are $15.

OK, OK. You all keep sending in "tips" about the YouTube trailer Wonkette put up yesterday that seems like there could maybe be a scripted TV show in the works called DC Prep. You know, a fake documentary-style type thing where the main characters are all naughty, hot, and the children of powerful Washington politicos. Except that we can virtually guarantee this show is not real. It's a fine enough trailer put together by an amateur, but a) IMDb.com reveals no such show is in production, b) not a single actor in the trailer is someone anyone has ever seen before, meaning this cast as is would never be on network television, c) it contains some glaring and embarrassing typos, and d) it does not mention affiliation with any network, cable or otherwise. This trailer was surely put together by an aspiring director named Brian Lazzaro and minor actress Cameron Goodman (who has a small role in the upcoming film version of The Informers), as a means to pitch the concept of such a show to TV executives in L.A. And hey, maybe they'll bite. Stranger things have happened. But mark my words, this is not a show that currently exists.

Asylum director Coulmier personally welcomes you as you step into the septic green confines of the bathhouse at Charenton, silently congratulating yourself on the liberal Enlightenment values that have brought you here to watch Coulmier’s lunatics perform a history-play penned by his most notorious patient, Donatien Alphonse François de Sade. It’s therapy, for them and for him, this playacting. You’re most kind to join their audience. In the bad old days of the Monarchy, this sort of thing would have been unthinkable. Society’s unwanted were simply locked away and forgotten. Now we know better. After all, it’s 1808!

Such is the famous Chinese-boxes construction of Peter Weiss's The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, mercifully abbreviated as Marat/Sade.

Coulmier really did allow de Sade to write and stage his plays during the infamous libertine’s second stay at Charenton, this time at the invitation of Napoleon Bonaparte, who Gitmo'd his ass for writing the the obscene novels Justine and Juliet.

These productions were open to the public, and by all accounts, the dedicated followers of fashion flocked. We watch the performance with Coulmier and his wife and daughter. That he brings along his wife and daughter is either a comment on Coulmier's vanity or his heartfelt belief in the soundness of the progressive therapies he prescribed. (Steve Beall buries his usual manly brio to make Coulmier an ineffectual, if sincere, Enlightenment gentleman.)

Given their deliciously varied psychological infirmities, the inmate-actors sometimes have trouble staying in character and sometimes embrace their roles with violent ardor. Baton-wielding orderlies stand at alert and occasionally intervene. Coulmier becomes increasingly alarmed as it becomes clear the Marquis has not made the script revisions — deletions —Coulmier demanded as a condition of allowing the show to go forward. The lunatics have taken over the — well, you get the idea.

Charlotte Corday (Katy Carkuff) makes ready to dispatch Monsieur Marat (Danny Gavigan). Photo by Melissa Blackall.

Peter Weiss’s 1963 script is a thing of barely controlled chaos, more a pageant than a play, really, which didn't prevent it from taking home four Tony Awards when Peter Brooks staged it in New York in 1966. Michael Dove’s adept staging here is easily Forum Theatre’s most ambitious effort to date. Jesse Terrill, in addition to assaying the role of the Herald, composed original music for the show’s songs (the lyrics are in the script). His broken melodies do a lot to build the air of menace that pervades, though Weiss gives the songs a few demented reprises too many. Set and lighting designers Matt Soule and Andrew Griffin have made as convincing a facsimile of an sanitarium bathhouse as you'd be willing to set foot in -- easier in the black box that is the H Street Playhouse than it would be at, say, the Landsburgh, but still impressive.

But the songs and the set would all be for naught without the rich, multilayered performances turned in by every principal member of the large cast, starting with the Marquis himself. Jonathan Church is mesmerizing in the role, perfectly capturing the Marquis's manic delight in hearing his words spoken aloud (even by people who, intellectually, were as insects to him) and his struggle to confine his jeremiad -- as applicable to the new, postrevolutionary order as it was to the old -- within the permissive boundaries set by Coulmier. ("We only show those things that happened long ago," the Herald stammers feebly, after one of de Sade's rants reachers a particularly heated crescendo.)

The Marquis was 68 years old in July 1808, when Marat/Sade is set. Church plays him as maybe half that age, though this works as an artistic choice. Sade's family had already intervened to spare him the guillotine on a number of occasions, and it makes sense that he would be seized by youthful fury given any outlet for the polemical torrents of his mind. (For the pornographic torrents of his mind, you have to rent Quills.)

As Charlotte Corday, the woman who assassinated the powerful Jacobin revolutionary Marat in his bathtub in 1793, Katy Carkuff is frequently in a state of delirium, but she makes the torment real. Carkuff and Danny Gavigan, as the feverish, tubridden Marat, are both especially good at giving the awkward line-readings of the inmates-as-actors, but subtly moving to inhabit the characters their characters are playing as the story progresses. Parker Dixon is credibly unhinged as the inmate playing Corday's boyfriend, Duperret. That the Marquis would cast Dixon's crazed rapist in the role of Corday's lover seems appropriately perverse.

There's so much happening here that the business of the asylum and the action of the play-within-the-play often feel like they're competing with another, leaving the audience uncertain of where Weiss, or Dove, want to direct their eyes and their thoughts. But that's the genius of the thing. Weiss built a sprawling, unwieldy platform for sprawling, unwieldy questions of democracy and madness and the soul of a state permanently at war. Dove and his cast have brought Weiss's feverish vision to vivid, rank-breathed life.

Escapist it isn't. But exhilarating it is.

Marat/Sade (approximately two hours and 20 minutes, including one intermission) is at the H Street Playhouse through Sunday, Aug. 10. Tickets are available here.

Overheard of the Week

At Rice (14th & Q NW):

Group of 3 girls at dinner talking.
Girl #1: "You should do the ovary dance."
Girl #2: "What's the ovary dance?"
Girls #1 and 3 (incredulously): "You don't know the ovary dance????"

After the jump, sanitary habits, stupid bar questions, and a contest.

Keep sending the good stuff to overheardindc (at) gmail (dot) com.

Photo by techne

------

Draw your own conclusions

Two 20s girls and guys walking down 18th Street on Saturday afternoon:

Girl: "It was disgusting!"
Guy: "She didn't wipe??"

-----

Zing

On the staircase of The Reef in Adams Morgan:

Guy to bouncer: "Is the roof up there?" (points up)
Bouncer: "Well, we tried to put it in the basement."
Guy: "Oh... ok."

------

Sickly hilarious!

Overheard on a GUTS (Georgetown University shuttle) bus:

Preppy Georgetown student in an extremely agitated voice and (from context) referring to himself: "It's sick that a father would hire a private detective to track his own son!"

------

And they've been together to this day.

Two hip types in H&M:

Woman: "Well, and some women have big asses."
Man: "Actually, I like big asses. I don't see anything wrong with that."
Woman: "Really? "
Man: "Yeah."
Woman: "Yeah? You do? I have a big ass."

------

Hopefully not geography majors

Two high school boys on a Metrobus in Northern Virginia are talking about their futures:

Boy 1: "Boston is like that. They got all these colleges. Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern, Harvard .."
Boy 2: "Yale."
Boy 1: "Yale isn't in Boston!! It's in Jersey!!"

------

That's what he thought.

An overweight middle aged tourist couple going into the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Bldg:

He: "Wait up. Why are we going in here?"
She: "I want to see the bust."

------

Contest time: What would the Homer Simpson of attorneys do?

On the green line on the way to last Sunday's Nats game:

Guy in his late 20s: "I'm the Homer Simpson of attorneys."

Have plans for the weekend? How about taking advantage of one of D.C.'s public swimming pools? (Free for residents!) This swimming pool, captured by Flickr user akkleis is too serious. It's just begging for someone to come along and break the calm surface with a huge cannon ball. Last one in's a rotten egg!

The Parallax View

This week in Popcorn & Candy, what's old is new again. We've got Cold War satire that's just as appropriate now, a TV series that was at its best in the '90s reborn on the big screen, and ancient Rome through the lens of the mid-20th century. But topping the list is Alan Pakula's 1970s political thriller The Parallax View, which offered a diabolical view of corporate tinkering in national politics that has steadily gained popularity with the modern conspiracy theorist set. Not necessarily the specifics of the film's story, which centers on a massive plot by a mysterious corporation to systematically assassinate any politician or member of the media who might stand in the way of their goals. But the tone of justified paranoia and raw nerve terror in the face of a corporate culture with a Machiavellian lust for power is predicted with jarring prescience by the film.

Warren Beatty, who also co-produced, stars as a reporter attempting to investigate the link between the assassination of a presidential candidate (modeled on the RFK murder) and the Parallax Corporation. It stands out as one of his least marquee-idol performances, mostly because he lets Pakula and legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis go their own skewed way with the film. Their unusual compositions seem to keep the movie's characters constantly in the periphery, much as Beatty himself is never really fully aware of what is going on as he heads down the rabbit hole and infiltrates Parallax's assassin recruiting and brainwashing center. Central to that recruitment is a quick-cut still-and-text montage film, ostensibly prepared by Parallax to test its sociopathic soldiers, which can still be unnerving today, if you can manage to ignore how often you've seen poor imitations of it since. Most impressive is an ending that refuses to compromise the darkness that has preceded it, and one that you'd be hard-pressed to get a modern A-list actor to agree to film. The Parallax View is a discordant jumble of a movie, with a nervous rhythm that always seems just a hair out of sync. It may not always be as successful as Pakula's more popular follow-up, All the President's Men, but it's a far more daring film, and one that's a sight to behold, even if you'd do well to bring your anti-anxiety medication of choice to the theater with you.

View the trailer.
Today, Sunday, and Tuesday at the AFI as part of their Warren Beatty retrospective.

---

Stanley Kubrick: Two Views

Saturday's double feature at the National Gallery is kind of a gutsy one. To celebrate what would have been Stanley Kubrick's 80th birthday, the museum is screening one of the director's most flawless works alongside what many would argue to be his weakest. The real attraction here may be to see what two Kubrick scholars, Robert Kolker and James Naremore, have to say about Eyes Wide Shut
that might shed some light on the much maligned film's place in Kubrick's filmography. The place of the first film on the agenda, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is less in question. If you've watched (or, more likely, re-watched) the film recently, it quickly becomes clear just how timeless a piece of satire it is. Nearly a half century may have passed, and the enemies and means of combat may have changed, but war-mongering officials in lofty places in government and complete incompetence and selfishness behind the closed doors of power? Oh, those never go out of fashion. As for Eyes Wide Shut, most have probably taken more of a once-and-done approach to Kubrick's last film. But in hindsight, while the film is still a mess of pycho-sexual pseudo-intrigue, there's a thread of truly elegant menace that, on a recent viewing, actually made it work better than I'd remembered. Its merits may be debatable, but that's exactly what post-screening discussions are for.

View the trailers for Dr. Strangelove and Eyes Wide Shut.
Tomorrow at 1:30 (Strangelove) and 3:45 (Eyes Wide Shut) at the National Gallery of Art's East Building Concourse Auditorium. Free.

---

Fellini Satyricon

Blood. Guts. Sex. Disembowelment. Cannibalism. No, not the latest torture-core feature from Eli Roth. A 1969 film by one of European art cinema's most celebrated directors. Fellini closed out the 60s with an adaptation of one of the first pieces of literature to be considered a "novel," a first century Roman text that plays a little like a spears-and-sandals version of The Canterbury Tales, only less subtle about its debaucheries. The original work only exists in a fragmented and incomplete nature, and the director took this to heart, constructing a fissured narrative that might be maddening in its refusal to follow a straight path were the garden of earthly delights and horrors surrounding it not so riveting. Fellini finds a certain poetry in the baser elements of human nature. While the film is maybe not so elegant as much of his other '60s work, it works well as the unleashing of an unchecked directorial id only hinted at in his more controlled earlier films. As Fellini follows his protagonists on an episodic journey through pre-Christian Rome, what becomes clear is that this was certainly the world of the unchecked id, and not the slick Penthouse Letters version that Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione would later put together in Caligula, but in a far more elemental and visceral way. Not for the faint of heart or the easily offended, but a rewarding, dizzying piece of cinema.

View the (slighty NSFW) trailer.
Tonight at 7 p.m. at the Washington Studio School.

---

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

The biggest challenge facing the new X-Files movie, coming as it does a full decade after the previous cinematic installment, is whether Chris Carter, impresario of the improbable, can lure back all those fans of the show who finally threw up their arms in frustration during those final seasons of the show. Who can blame them? Carter's convoluted web of conspiracies became too laden with information to support itself, so many erstwhile fanboys and girls jumped ship. Not to worry, says Carter: the new film depends on the layer upon layer of mythology not one bit, and is akin to one of those "standalone" episodes that often served to provide a break from week after week of connecting the dots. The exact plot has been kept more secret than the function of Area 51, though with midnight screenings of the film last night at midnight, we're sure there's plenty of hyper-analytical blog posts timestamped between 3 and 4 a.m. that will provide more than enough detail. The plot is out there. Whether you want to believe or not will probably dictate whether you get another sequel.

View the trailer.
Now playing at theaters throughout the area.

---

Arsenic & Old Lace

For the oldest entry in this year's Screen on the Green lineup, they've chosen a Frank Capra classic that is probably the funniest film about mass murderers ever made. Capra's film, based on the play of the same name, stars Cary Grant as a bachelor who finally finds love with the proverbial girl next door, but when he goes back to visit his family at the old homestead, discovers that his sweet old aunts and raving loony of a brother have been quietly killing old bachelors who they figure are too lonely to go on living. For some reason, Grant can't seem to get the laughably inept local cops to do much of anything about it, and things take screwball turn after screwball turn, including the appearance of another brother who is an actual cold-blooded killer, though he has nothing to do with the (kind-hearted?) killings being committed by the rest of the family. A perfect film for the open air on a summer evening, to be enjoyed with a glass of sweet elderberry wine. Just be sure you pour your own glass.

View the trailer.
Monday night at Screen on the Green, on the Mall between 4th and 7th Streets, NW, beginning at dusk.

These last couple weeks have been rough on us, as the Caps and Werner have not yet agreed on a contract for the coming season. Over the two years of his entry level contract, Werner made great strides in his development as a player and thoroughly adjusted to the professional game. We were lucky enough to catch up with him for a few quick questions about his story so far and his hopes for the future.

Growing up around D.C., what did it take to get noticed by and drafted to the National Hockey League?

For me, it took going to the National USA Hockey festivals and playing against the best players across the country to get noticed. I was fortunate enough to make the U.S. under 17 team, which allowed me to play internationally, and then at the collegiate level. I got drafted after my freshman year at UMass.

That was in 2003. No one from the D.C. area had ever been drafted before, and the Capitals picked you in the third round. How did it feel?

I was really excited. I wanted the Caps to draft me and I figured that I would be going in either the 3rd or the 4th round, so it was just perfect. That was one of the best days of my life.

It was also a great day for hockey in Washington. After four years as a college superstar, you joined the Hershey Bears. What were the biggest adjustments?

It is a much different game in the American League than in college. There is a lot more thinking and a lot less running around, so in a way it is simpler. The players are better and bigger, but I felt comfortable in my first couple games and thought I played pretty well.

Last year your offense really took off in Springfield. Is something different about the Falcons' system or are you just coming into your own?

I think that even before I went to Springfield, when I played a few games in Hershey I was getting my offense going. I just wanted to play a regular shift with good players, and once I got that chance I was able to score some goals and have some offensive success.

It's good to see. What do you hope to achieve this coming season?

I want to establish myself as a top player in the American League and give myself a chance to play some NHL games.

Via ThinkProgress, we find that Novak's biggest detractors, Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, released a statement yesterday on the incident:

Our sympathies go out to the victim of Novak’s action. Once again Novak has demonstrated his callous disregard for the rights of others, as well as his chronic inability to accept responsibility for his actions.

We have long argued that responsible adults should take Novak’s typewriter away. The time has arrived for them to also take away the keys to his Corvette

As this rate, the Novak incident will spawn its own name (Novakgate), it's own advocacy group (Victims of Robert Novak's Corvette), an overblown congressional hearing ("Compassionate Conservatism and Pedestrian Deaths: Do Links Exist?") and TV ads ("Robert