Going Downtown - Yesterday Jamie and I joined Brian and Jason to see a movie at the new E Street Cinemas at Metro Center. The opening of the theaters last week in downtown DC marks another milestone in the revival in the area's social life. Landmark Theaters, the art house chain owned my the Sam Goldwyn Company, chose to locate its second DC-metro multiplex in the basement of the Lincoln Building, a new office construction which - in the modern style of Washington - hides gleaming lawyers' offices behind an attractive façade of restored 19th century storefronts. The entertainment options complement a growing retail presence in the old city core, where H & M, "the Ikea of clothes," recently moved into one of the four spaces that have been carved out of the old Woodward & Lothrop department store. The renaissance helps me feel good about having bought a house in the District.

Our group saw the "timely" Battle of Algiers. A 1965 cinéma vérité depiction of Algierian resistance to colonialism, the "documentary" filmed by Italian communists in French and Arabic on the actual streets of Algiers has been reissued to much comment. The film's gritty and morally ambiguous protrayal of the vicious cycle of violence between resistance forces and an occupying power in the Middle East - especially the bloody assasinations and cafe bombings - is certainly haunting. Sound familiar? It is said that screenings have been mandatory over at the Pentagon.