artsPOST

Eric Hutchinson’s debut album, “Sounds Like This,” is perfect for a summer car cruise with the windows down. It’s catchy, light and fun. Unfortunately, it’s just as catchy, light and fun as any other album by an indie pop artist. Hutchinson has followed in the musical footsteps of Jason Mraz, Mat Kearney and Matt Nathanson. Inspiration has to come from somewhere. But “Sounds Like This” so perfectly mimics the sound and themes of other artists, that you wonder how much of Hutchinson is in his album.

By Elise Lundstrom

Have a day to see the National Mall? It’s a daunting task. There are more than museums, four monument and three government buildings on or adjacent to the Mall. How do you choose what to see? Here is a guide to six must-see museums and their highlights. This tour is designed to take from 10 a.m. to late afternoon. It is fit for all ages and all group sizes. With this guide you will see much of the culture, science and art the institutions on the Mall have to offer. These museums are easily accessible by Metro. Get off at the Smithsonian stop on the Blue Line and walk across the Mall to the first stop.

The best place to start off your whirlwind Mall experience is the National Museum of American History, full of exhibits, permanent and temporary, that will appeal to every person in your group. Highlights include: “The First Ladies at the Smithsonian,” “Within, These Walls,” “Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life,” and “National Treasures of Popular Culture.”

Can’t Miss: You literally can’t miss “The Star Spangled Banner” exhibit; it is right inside the entrance to the museum. Entering the exhibit, you will travel up a ramp, reading about the Fort McHenry and the Battle of Baltimore while audio is played to further illustrate the information on the panels and the videos…

To 3-D or not to 3-D? That was the question when I was on my way to see Disney and Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” over spring break this spring.

Art, as defined in Webster’s dictionary, is “the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions.” Reflecting the dreams, history and depressing reality of Lebanese culture after its civil war (1975-1990), Convergence: New Art from Lebanon is a gem of an exhibit showing in Washington.

For Jude Law, the dramatic and thought-provoking sci-fi genre is old news. That’s not to say that Law has moved beyond the genre, but rather that most would assume that at this point he knows how to do it well. Law excelled in his past performances in “Gattaca” and “Artificial Intelligence,” but his latest sci-fi endeavor “Repo Men” falls much shorter than its expectations and hype generated by the movie’s promoters. The director merely threw two talented actors, Forest Whitaker and Jude Law, into a disjointed story that never seems to quite understand its intended tone.

Released around the time of intense political debate over healthcare reform, what might seem “timely” for some is nothing more than empty social commentary (unlike the clear success of “Daybreakers” released only a few months earlier). The best part about the movie is the chemistry between Whitaker and Law’s characters as they laugh and slice their way through a futuristic dystopia based on sexual and violent excess.

Remy (Law) works in this morally questionable world as a repo man for The Union, a large, greedy corporation that produces artificial organs and body parts at a very high price to its customers.