You don't have to be a gabillionaire to maximize your philanthropic impact; and White House's favorite government contractor mistreating foreign workers in Iraq.

BY JIM HIGHTOWER

food

Food-o-File

The Capital Area Food Bank could use a hand; plus, ring in the season with events all over town

BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD

music

I'd Much Rather Be With the Girls

What a box set should be:'One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found'

BY MARGARET MOSER

Box Sets

Gift guide

TCB

Praying for Daniel Johnston, marveling at Townes Van Zandt, and wondering 'what hath Snoop Dogg wrought'?

BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Phases & Stages

The Rolling Stones, Ian McLagan & the Bump Band

The Rolling Stones
Ian McLagan & the Bump Band

Life and Work, Light and Dark

How the legacy of Townes Van Zandt more than met its match in 'some dumb New York girl'

BY ANNE S. LEWIS

Extra Special

The season's finest in DVD

Screens Reviews

Two From Truffaut

Criterion's 'Shoot the Piano Player' and 'Jules and Jim'

Film Reviews

Aeon Flux

Its heart is in the right place, but Aeon Flux's head is just a little too high to make much sense.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

This Chinese film presents an uncharacteristically romantic look at the Cultural Revolution.

Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt

Vivid yet impressionistic, this documentary tribute to the musician Townes Van Zandt brings the life and the music of this songwriter's songwriter into focus.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Fusillade No. 1 in Disney's presumed seven-film adaptation of C.S. Lewis' beloved children's tales is marred by dodgy CGI work and windy pacing.

Ellie Parker

This Naomi Watts performance showcase has been slipping into theatres that are presently readying themselves for the onslaught of King Kong, starring Watts as the woman who would be Fay Wray.

Juarez: Stages of Fear

This film is a passionate if clunky cri du coeur for the kidnapped and murdered women of Juarez, Mexico – a silent epidemic of as many as 450 crimes in the last 10 years.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

Spotty comedy delivers on its promise of Total Silverman, but that turns out to be not such a good thing after all.

One of the most uncompromising movies of the year, Syriana is like a living tableaux composed from all the stories that lurk just behind the news, the stories that put human faces on the demand for oil.

arts & culture

'Puerto Rico Mi Patria'

Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance's original 'obra,' 'Puerto Rico Mi Patria,' tells the story of how the islanders rose up to repel a British invasion in 1797

BY BARRY PINEO

Heydays (Again)

Creative Research Laboratory is inviting anyone with an itch to draw, paint, or otherwise make a creative mark to join in a 12-hour effort to transform a blank room at Flatbed World Headquarters into something rich and strange

BY ROBERT FAIRES

Ubu Ubu Ubu

A troupe of homeschooled students enrolled in Zach's Performing Arts School takes on the mad world of Alfred Jarry's 'Ubu,' 'pschittens' and all, and makes it a nonsensical delight

BY ROBERT FAIRES

Arts Reviews

Pale Idiot

The 10th-anniversary revival production of playwright Kirk Lynn's 'Pale Idiot' smartly unsnarls a taut knot of text and form

King Kong

If you can appreciate a mammoth moonstruck monkey with a tinny growl, you might stretch your ears in the direction of the Violet Crown Radio Players' King Kong