Eric Althoff

Rob Corddry: ‘Hot Tub Time Machine 2’ film sequel even more fun

The pitch meeting must have elicited quizzical looks from Paramount Pictures executives: Four grown men in a hot tub in 2010 go back to the mid-1980s to try to do things better the second time around.

February 18, 2015

New rock music albums worth a listen

Now that everyone and their mother has a demo CD and/or a YouTube channel, it's hard to cut through the fog and find the quality music that's being released.

February 17, 2015

Charles Dutoit, Swiss maestro, Kennedy Center guest conductor for Orchestre Suisse de la Romande

Maestro Charles Dutoit will be the special guest conductor Saturday, when the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande returns to the Kennedy Center. He has programmed a concert featuring several of his influences, including Stravinsky, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

February 15, 2015

Escape Room Live DC: No mystery why it’s top fun, games attraction

Nine strangers enter a room with no idea what their purpose is, nor how to exit after the door locks behind them. A countdown begins: They have 45 minutes to "solve" the room and find the key to unlock door before the clock ticks zero.

February 12, 2015

Dana Fuchs: Janis Joplin voice, music energy draw comparisons

Dana Fuchs has been compared to Janis Joplin more times than she can count. Like the '60s blues rocker, Miss Fuchs belts out songs with an edgy, urgent alto that is as anguished as it is attention-getting.

February 11, 2015

Neil Diamond ‘Melody Road’ album tour next step in march of time

He has entertained legions of fans for decades, won Grammys and other accolades galore and sold millions of records, but one thing Neil Diamond will not be doing anytime soon is resting on his laurels.

February 8, 2015

Craig Ferguson takes comedy from late-night TV to live stage

Now free of America's late-night TV lineup and its censors, Scottish native Craig Ferguson is taking his acerbic humor around the U.S. in a standup comedy tour.

February 5, 2015

‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ voice actors deliver laughs to movie and TV audiences, each other

Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke have voiced characters on "SpongeBob SquarePants" for 15 years, on television and in two films. Mr. Kenny came from the world of standup comedy, while Mr. Fagerbakke was known primarily as an actor, appearing in such projects as the Craig T. Nelson sitcom "Coach."

February 4, 2015

Soja scores Grammy nomination for best reggae album with ‘Amid the Noise and Haste’

As a young man in Arlington, Virginia, in the late 1990s, Soja frontman Jacob Hemphill dreamed of traveling across the Potomac to play the reggae clubs in Washington, D.C.'s historic U Street corridor.

February 4, 2015

Gabe Polsky ‘Red Army’ film shows ‘Miracle on Ice’ from Soviet hockey side

The new documentary "Red Army," which opens in the District of Columbia on Friday, follows several members of the Soviet hockey team through the 1980s as they relate the unending training, the love of country and, most important, the artfulness of their style of play.

February 3, 2015

Christine McVie returns to Fleetwood Mac for ‘On With the Show’ tour

British-American pop rock band Fleetwood Mac, performing before a sold-out crowd Friday night at the Verizon Center in the District of Columbia, was in a celebratory mood for reaching a four-decade milestone and for the return of keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie to the lineup for the first time since 1998.

February 1, 2015

MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Black Sea’

There was a time in Hollywood where genre-bending was all the rage, and this year's first major entry in cinema hybrid comes in the form of "Black Sea," a combination submarine/heist thriller from Scottish helmer Kevin Macdonald, who directed the Oscar-winning "Last King of Scotland."

January 29, 2015

Reel Big Fish on tour to meet music business challenges

California ska/punk band Reel Big Fish has been entertaining audiences for two decades with their upbeat songs celebrating partying, drinking and slyly enjoying life — usually peppered with a rather colorful vocabulary. The band spends a good chunk of the year on the road, as most established bands must now do to turn a profit.

January 29, 2015

Jim Breuer comedy riffs on aging parents, teenage daughters, Goat Boy

While subjects like elderly parents afflicted with failing memories might ostensibly not seem all that humorous, Mr. Breuer is quick to point out that it's shared experiences like caring for an ailing parent that allow his audiences to laugh at life in all its shades.

January 28, 2015

Fort Collins beer crafts Colorado microbrewery tourist industry

If Denver is the Shangri-La for microbreweries, then nearby Fort Collins may as well be the official gates of paradise.

January 26, 2015

Jude Law in ‘Black Sea’ film portrays common man with heart for gold

When "Black Sea" director Kevin Macdonald found himself shooting footage for the new Jude Law thriller in Sevastopol, located on the Crimean Peninsula, there was no way to know that Russia would seize the disputed territory before the film ever bowed.

January 22, 2015

George Lopez film ‘Spare Parts’ casts true story of illegal immigrant teens

President's Obama amnesty for illegals has fired up the immigration debate like never before, with rhetoric on all sides laced with anger and misunderstanding. But the new film "Spare Parts" aims to put a human face onto the faceless "wave" of undocumented people living in the U.S.

January 18, 2015

‘American Sniper’: Bradley Cooper movie raises awareness of veterans’ struggles

He was known as the most deadly sniper in American history, but life after his tours of Iraq and Afghanistan proved to be an even more tragic battleground for Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, whose story is told in the film "American Sniper," starring Bradley Cooper, which opens nationwide Friday.

January 15, 2015

Julianne Moore Alzheimer’s movie ‘Still Alice’ confronts shock, despair of living with disease

Lisa Genova's book "Still Alice" is now a major motion picture starring Julianne Moore in her Golden Globe-winning role as a New York linguistics professor who, at the improbable age of 50, is handed the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

January 14, 2015

Golden Globes honor best in film, TV

With an open bar and a less formal atmosphere than the Oscars, the 72nd annual Golden Globes got under way from The Beverly Hilton in California Sunday. The annual honors are handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for excellence in film and TV.

January 11, 2015