Cover Story
Custom car fans steer vehicles for change
Parked in front of a mobile car wash on Independence Boulevard, Rodney Beasley’s Chrysler 300 is photo-shoot fresh. The car is as blue as Jesus’ eyes — if Michelangelo is to be believed — with 28-inch chrome rims that spin when the wind hits just right, and so candy it’s hard to tell where the…
A look ahead at Bonnaroo 2013
My personal must-see top-five for the 2013 music festival.
R.I.P. Robert West, film curator, producer and former Charlottean
Creator of the sorely missed Charlotte Film & Video Festival has passed away in Wilmington.
Charlotte Talks about CGI and summer flicks
Local critics join Mike Collins to discuss this season’s blockbusters.
Seth Avett makes the (tabloid) headlines
Avett Brothers member gets caught up in divorce/Hollywood dating fodder.
Free Da Funk!
Observer should take legal action
HeroesCon 2013
The return of the annual Heroes Convention.
Today’s Top 5: Tuesday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
A Comic Love Letter: A look back at HeroesCon 2013
CL’s informal convention wrap, with tons of photos!
Not Just Coffee opens in Atherton Mill Market
Coffee shop celebrates the opening of its second location.
Catching one’s Breath in Phillip Kerr’s latest
When it comes to dark humor, Bernie Gunther wants to see it painted black. Consider this snippet of reflection, self-loathing and summary from the erstwhile German detective who, in his latest grim assignment, works for the Wehrmacht’s War Crimes Bureau and on behalf of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Gunther, a former Berlin policeman, hates Hitler…
Music and dance at Spoleto
Planners at Spoleto Festival USA weren’t caught off-guard when Charleston’s largest performing arts venue, Gaillard Auditorium, called in absent until renovations are complete for 2015. But it would have been surprising if the first year without the Gaillard went off entirely without a hitch. It didn’t. The Festival called the TD Arena into service, where…
Porn and facial recognition: Sorry glassholes, not today
Google takes the fun out of Google Glass faster than you can rub one out
Today’s Top 5: Monday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
At Fonda Las Cazeulas, tacos reign supreme
Move over Asia. Latino cuisine is reasserting itself as the national cuisine of the moment. And this is good for Charlotte, since the Latino community — the largest ethnic minority, comprising 13 percent of the population — offers a depth of culinary diversity, including scores of ex-pat-owned restaurants. Anyone who says Latino cuisine is new…
Weekend Film Reviews: The Internship; This Is the End; Love Is All You Need; and more
What’s new and covered in theaters.
Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (June 6)
SWEET GOOF: Some people are pretty ambitious when it comes to pranks. A 29-year-old woman was about to drive to work one morning last week before realizing someone had poured not only sugar but rice and candy into her gas tank. COCK-A-DOODLE-WHO?: A 42-year-old man woke up (probably late) to find that someone had stolen…
The Internship / This Is the End: Hip to be square
THE INTERNSHIP *** DIRECTED BY Shawn Levy STARS Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson THIS IS THE END **1/2 DIRECTED BY Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen STARS James Franco, Jonah Hill Just this past week, my wife forwarded me a pair of hilarious cartoon strips titled Patriarchal Action Movie and Patriarchal Action Movie 2. In the first,…
Love Is All You Need: More than porn
LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED *** DIRECTED BY Susanne Bier STARS Pierce Brosnan, Trine Dyrholm Let me go ahead and admit that I’m a sucker for porn. In this instance, I’m not referring to the X-rated variety, but rather the types of movies that feature what can be tagged “scenic porn” or “vacation porn.” Under…
Summer solo exhibits at Hidell Brooks
The new and improved Hidell Brooks Gallery just closed its 15 Year Anniversary Group show and is keeping the space occupied with three solo exhibits for the summer. Still-life paintings by artist Benjamin Shamback reflect natural items like flowers and shells, while Tony Hernandez creates carefree encaustic paintings out of oil pigments on birch panel…
Gastonia will soon feature (mostly) publicly funded live/work space for artists
The project will feature 35 to 40 studios, which artists can use as apartments or workspace
Today’s Top 5: Friday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
Question the Queen City: The story of a riverboat named Robert E. Lee
The popular tourist attraction once carried parties and church groups across Lake Norman
Charli XCX sees music in techno-color
When Charli XCX was working on her debut album, she wanted it to sound pink, gold and black. Now, two months after True Romance was released, the 20-year-old singer-songwriter thinks her synth-pop/new wave album is far more blue and purple. As a person with the neurological condition known as synesthesia, Charli XCX not only hears…
Opening Friday
What’s new in theaters this weekend.
Today’s Top 5: Thursday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
Live review: Ours, The Milestone (6/4/2013)
Jimmy Gnecco and company perform plenty of material from upcoming album.
Weekly horoscope (June 6-12)
Gemini The Twins (May 20-June 21): The “rules” and the world’s expectations have you tied up like a pretzel right now. If you relax on the control issues, the solution will surface. For All Signs: There is a significant pattern of planets in the sky that begins now and will last through mid-September. This is…
Raped: North Carolina bill would gut sex-ed
When I was 18, I went to a gathering at my friend’s house. It was just me and my core group of friends, and one of them had invited a co-worker. We drank vodka with reckless abandon, as young adults on summer vacation often do. We all went to sleep and later that night I…
This week’s concert listings (June 6-June 12)
** Bullet points indicate CL’s critics’ picks** Thursday, June 6 Blues/Roots/International Blues and More… (Wet Willie’s) Latin Thursdays (Dream Nightclub, Matthews) Classical/Jazz/Smooth Beats and Keys (Encore Bistro and Bar) Bill Hanna’s Vintage Dance Band (Grand Central Events) Country/Folk Alice Costanza (Comet Grill) *Emily Lynch, Finnegan Bell (Evening Muse) Open Mic (Hef’s Bar & Grill/Blonde Lounge)…
HeroesCon unites comic fans and pros
Fans and movie studios alike pine for big-budget superhero flicks, which have the power to not only revive actors’ careers — hardly anyone thought of Robert Downey Jr. before Iron Man — but also bring home some serious awards, like the Oscar The Dark Knight captured in 2009. But often the storylines aren’t birthed from…
Iceage gives a damn about its reputation
“I have to tell you,” Johan Surrballe Wieth tells me by phone from his home in Denmark, “most of the things we do are not conscious. It just happens.” For guitarist Wieth and his band Iceage — leading lights of Copenhagen’s current punk scene who play the Milestone on June 10 — that unconsciousness has…
Soulpop infused with wonder
PJ Morton started bringing Stevie Wonder home with him when he was in the 7th grade. “My dad would give me an allowance and I would buy a new Stevie Wonder record every week,” Morton says. Now, at age 32, Morton has fulfilled a lifelong dream by getting Wonder on his latest solo project, New…
This week’s SketchCrowd cartoon (June 5)
Hip-hop coroner’s report.
Upcoming: Taste of Charlotte
This festival is the most efficient way to try as much of what the city’s restaurants have to offer in the shortest amount of time.
N.C. Senate eliminates greenway funding
Hick-driven folly marches on
Today’s Top 5: Wednesday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
A former zombie model becomes editor
First of all, full disclosure. Yes, yes, I am the girl who posed as a ravaged, bloody zombie on the cover of Creative Loafing’s Best of Charlotte issue last year. Bet you didn’t recognize me with my skin intact. It’s nice to meet you, too. When I first moved to Charlotte, I expected to only…
The motorcycle daredevil next door premieres new show on SPEED
Journalist Neale Bayly has traveled through 65 countries — 45 on his motorcycle — in the past 35 years. He once bought a bike in Florida and rode up to Alaska. He then sold it for $400 and hitchhiked to California, flew to Asia to tour several countries, and then spent the last of his…
The Taming of the Shrew: Spittin’ and g-droppin’
No other comedy or tragedy in the Shakespearean canon questions the patriarchal presumptions of Elizabethan society as persistently as The Taming of the Shrew. Yet no other work by the Bard is so often assailed for its sexism. Several distortions are at work in bringing about the common misunderstanding of the comedy, and while the…
