DC Is Once Again a Wonderful, Magical Place

• It Is Back: Screen on the Green is back! DCers weredevastated when it was canceled.  There were riots in the streets, people were twittering like mad, there may have been hearings on Capitol Hill, and who knows what other displays of unnecessary emotion all due to the demise of an outdoor film festival, even though the entire economy IS ON THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE.  But all the bitching, complaining, and crying paid off, because IT'S BACK!All because the National Mall Trust, HBO and Comcast worked together for America .... and you thought Obama was the only way to get change around here! The fun begins again on July 20 with a screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind . Start mashing your potatoes now. [ Screen on the Green ]

• Monday, June 15 through Monday, June 22: TheSilverdocs Documentary Film Festival is back for another year, too, giving you the opportunity to see over 100 adequate documentary films from over 50 countries. Most of the films will suck, but luckily there are film critics (not us people, please) who have actually seen most the films. You can trust them to tell you what to see, so we'll simply repeat their recommendations as our own. Supposed must-sees include Convention, a film about the 2008 Democratic National Convention,   Afghan Star, a doc that looks at Kabul's version of American Idol, and My Neighbor, My Killer, a sobering film about the genocide in Rwanda.  Ticket prices vary. [ AFI ]

• Monday, June 15 through Monday, June 22: The Iraq war is THE war that everyone is talking about these days (at least since Colbert decided that we may want to pay attention to it again and we always do what the TV says). As a result, the playMother Courage, about profiteering, is particularly relevant.  Although it's set during the Thirty Years War, it shows how some things (unfortunately) never change, even if the President does. That is, when war breaks out people seem to always do some not so great things. [ Scena Theatre ]

• Tuesday, June 1 through Sunday, July 19: The long-anticipated and much-hypedKing Lear starts Tuesday at the Sidney Harman Hall. We studied literature, but all we can tell you based on what we remember from 5th period English is that there's going to be witty banter nobody actually understands, some love and maybe a little betrayal, things will rhyme, and you'll leave the theater thinking you're the smartest person in DC just because you sat through (or slept through) an entire Shakespeare play. [ Shakespeare Theater ]

• Closing Sunday, June 14: This weekend is your last chance to see plays about transsexuals ( Hedwig and the Angry Inch ), about women wishing that having kids didn't have to ruin their lives (  Legacy of Light ), about summer, love and fairies (  A Midsummer Night's Dream ), and a Tom Stoppard play about revolutions and music that will inevitably require a thorough reading of CliffsNotes to have any idea what the plot is about (  Rock 'n' Roll  ).