Cover Story
Summer Guide 2014: Theater, film, visual arts, fashion, more
As you flip through this issue, you might feel a little overwhelmed. We don’t blame you. This year’s Summer Guide certainly isn’t skimpy (unlike some of the outfits we saw at Speed Street last month). From theater performances of Shakespeare’s early works and pioneer rappers rocking the mic to outdoorsy cultural festivals and obstacle challenges…
The Rover drifts
THE ROVER ** DIRECTED BY David Michôd STARS Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson Look, we all know that Guy Pearce can act; we’ve been privy to that fact for years, thanks to his work in such pictures as Memento and L.A. Confidential. No, the wild card in The Rover is Robert Pattinson, reviled in many circles…
CL’s signature hot dog is a hit!
Fans of the Frank ate 241 Fear and Loafing dogs in one week – setting the record for most dogs of the week sold!
DENR to Duke Energy: Submit plan to fix leaky coal ash pipes
Deadlines to fix the pipes, however, aren’t required.
Photos: Mint Museum’s Allure of Flowers After Hours
A peek into a fancy foodie fundraising event that incorporated flowers into, well, everything.
Photos: Azucar at Neighborhood Theatre, 6/13/2014
Festive event celebrates Caribbean and Latin American culture.
Now hiring: A lover of local beer who can write about it
Beer geeks with writing skills, apply within!
Today’s Top 5: Tuesday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
Now hiring: news bloggers and writers
Did you read the Cannon affidavit front to back? We have the gig for you.
#hashtaghungry: SouthPark Eats Alternative, Fall River Clambake, more
This week’s list of filter-friendly, tweetable, social media-shareable foodie events in and around the city.
19 of 25 charter schools approved in N.C. not ready to open this fall
And just two of the 10 approved for Charlotte are ready to open.
First notes (6/16/2014): Casey Kasem dead at 82
Plus, some parents named their newborn twins Ghostface and Raekwon.
Live review: Deniro Farrar, Tremont Music Hall (6/13/2014)
Well$ stands out among the opening acts.
First Drip (6/16/14): N.C. CEO pay on the rise, Starbucks offers tuition money to baristas, more
The news you need to know today.
Today’s Top 5: Monday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
Today’s Top 5: Sunday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (June 12)
Condiment condemnation: Medics and police responded to a local McDonald’s after two women came to blows over ketchup packets. The customer told officers that she began arguing with the drive-thru employee over how many ketchup packets she was given. When she came into the store to continue arguing, the employee supposedly bit her hand. The…
The Cheap List: Juneteenth, Brew Stash Bash, Vintage Charlotte Market
Festivals, beer tastings and shopping are options for this weekend’s list of cheap things to do in the Q.C.
Head down to 22 Jump Street
22 JUMP STREET *** DIRECTED BY Phil Lord & Christopher Miller STARS Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum There really wasn’t any reason to expect good things from 2012’s 21 Jump Street, since such TV-to-film adaptations as Starsky & Hutch, I Spy and Dark Shadows suggested that this wholesale mining of boob-tube nostalgia clearly has its limitations.…
Dating tips with Pillow Talk’s Joanne Spataro: Breaking up
Dating advice in 15 seconds or less.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 a smokin’ sequel
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 *** DIRECTED BY Dean DeBlois STARS Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett The inevitable sequel to the 2010 smash, How to Train Your Dragon 2 might be a bright and cheerful ‘toon flick for the whole family, but it also isn’t afraid to occasionally saunter over to the dark side. How…
Words and Pictures should be seen and heard
WORDS AND PICTURES *** DIRECTED BY Fred Schepisi STARS Clive Owen, Juliette Binoche The small-scale effort Words and Pictures casts Clive Owen as Jack Marcus, an English teacher at a prep school where the students are so engaged with social media that they’ve forgotten the beauty of the written word. Marcus himself has lost much…
Theater review: Love’s Labor’s Lost
Charlotte Shakespeare constructs a zany new version of Bard work.
Where to find the savory side of summer fruits
While strawberries are on their way out, blueberries make their appearance this weekend and peaches in a week or two.
Funk Fest announces Outkast as headliner
September event to be held at the Metrolina Expo.
Question the Queen City: Burn, baby, burn!
Fires of note in Charlotte’s past
First Drip (6/13/14): County commissioners pass budget, Hornets basketball operations president steps down, more
The news you need to know today.
Theater review: The Scarlet Pimpernel
CPCC’s version triumphantly vindicates my original A+ enthusiasm for The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Today’s Top 5: Friday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
The golden age of gaming
In 1975, Atari sold 150,000 Pong units across the country through a partnership with Sears. Atari used the profits to develop the next big thing, a high-performance, low-cost gaming console: The Atari Video Computer System, later renamed the Atari 2600. After its launch in 1977, the Atari 2600 struggled to find success. It took the…
Adjust Your Tracking, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The LEGO Movie among new home entertainment titles
(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray and DVD.) ADJUST YOUR TRACKING (2013). If vinyl can make a comeback, why not VHS? That’s the question posed by one of the participants in Adjust Your Tracking, an entertaining documentary that played Charlotte as part of the Back Alley Film…
Opening Friday
What’s new in theaters this weekend.
Live review: The Head and the Heart, The Fillmore (6/11/2014)
Show cut short after bomb threat made.
106.5’s 2014 Weenie Roast lineup announced
Weezer to headline the September concert.
Today’s Top 5: Thursday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
Divorcing teacher tenure
It’s a common complaint among married couples: Once they got hitched, their spouse stopped trying. Their husband stopped sending flowers, their wife stopped wearing sexy clothes. They were locked into the relationship, so why put forth the effort? The concept of teacher tenure is similar to a marriage. Teachers in North Carolina teach in a…
CD Review: Bubonik Funk’s Oddfish, Vol. One
Charlotte funk-rock quartet Bubonik Funk has been conjuring up vibes straight out of the 1960s and ’70s thanks to exploratory guitar riffs, slinky bass grooves, soulful vocals and drum beats that hold it all together. Together since 2006, Bubonik Funk has grown and matured over the years, culminating in the band’s first EP release in…
Weekly horoscope (June 12-18)
For All Signs: This week is the beginning of major challenges across the globe. The world stage is simply a mirror of what is happening inside of us individually. Mars, the warrior god, is in conflict with Pluto, the authoritarians. People’s revolutions might be started, but they cannot be sustained and will be almost immediately…
Photos: Education-themed Moral Monday (6/9/14)
As demonstrators lined up to march to the General Assembly building, CL stopped a few people in the crowd to talk.
The Pull List (6/11/14): Disney ride gets comic
Are more on the way?
Photos: Sizzle Showdown Semi-Finals at Macy’s, 6/7/2014
Chefs test their skills at cooking competition.
Photos: Let the Good Times Roll exhibit at Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two exhibit opens to showcase artful customs made to skateboards.
Today’s Top 5: Wednesday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
First Drip (6/11/14): County Commissioners propose raising sales tax, Berger meets with protesters, more
The news you need to know today.
Are you the Fancy Apartment Pool Dude?
When he’s not lounging shirtless at his South End luxury apartment pool or kipping at crossfit, this dude hits up all the big summer events with a tall boy in hand. There’s no shame in his foot game, as he’s usually seen on the weekend with his toes proudly exposed in flip-flops. Your summer plans…
Are you the Poppy Princess?
This girl loves to see and be seen. Top 40 hits are on constant rotation on her iPod while she’s walking the treadmill at the Dowd Y, and her favorite hangout spots include Bubble Lounge, Alive After 5 and 5Church. Your summer plans may include: Super Hero Bar Crawl Dress as your favorite super hero…
Nine to nibble on this summer
Summer brings tons of ways to keep your social calendar and tummy happy. If these picks leave you hungry for more, check me out as The Social Eater at www.EatMyCharlotte.com, to stay up to date on new events. #hashtaghungry. The Latin American Coalition’s signature event ¡Azúcar! A Caribbean Celebration celebrates all things Caribbean. Sample a…
Are you the Sexy Church Lady?
This is one classy woman. While she’ll show a little leg and isn’t scared to bear her arms, you’ll never see more skin than that. Oh, and heels are always a must. While the Sexy Church Lady is in the front pew every Sunday morning, she still makes an effort to support the local cultural…
The whipping girl
Porn. Pubic hair. Long Dong Silver. Senate Judiciary hearings never broached these topics in such prurient detail as they did in October 1991, when a young, attractive law professor from Oklahoma was subpoenaed to testify against her former boss, then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill’s testimony outraged, titillated and illuminated Americans on the problem…
Summer Guide: The concerts (June-August)
** Bullet points indicate CL’s critics’ picks** June Blues/Roots/International Proverbial, Queen City Dub (6/12, Double Door) *Azucar: 5th Annual Caribbean Celebration Ola Fresca (6/13, Neighborhood Theatre) *Peter Karp & Sue Foley (6/13, Double Door Inn) Kate & Corey (6/14, Crown Station Pub) Jarekus Singleton (6/19, Evening Muse) Reggae Don (6/19, Comet Grill) *Tab Benoit, Jonathan…
Agents of change
James Tyson often wears worn-out jeans, T-shirts and lets his long blonde hair hang loose down his back. As a member of Charlotte Environmental Action, he is regularly disregarded as an “unkempt activist.” But recent events prove Tyson and others like him have been the smartest people in the room for years. In February, a…
Level up
Last week, Bar-B-Q King announced that after almost 55 years in business, the westside staple is finally taking credit and debit cards. For those of us who frequent this old-fashioned drive-in that’s only taken cash for decades, the upgrade is just an added bonus. You go for the savory pork or fried chicken anyway. That’s…
This summer, consider solar
In this time of coal ash spills, increased air pollution and climate change, the environmental problems we’re facing can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, there’s a solution of infinite possibilities. Solar energy is an abundant natural resource that we are only beginning to take advantage of as a country, and North Carolina has huge solar potential waiting…
A (seasonal) work in progress
With several weeks of summer already behind us, it’s now time to take a look at what’s heading our way before the season comes to a close over Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately, it appears that some of the more interesting films are limited releases, movies that will be opening in New York, Los Angeles and…
Music History 101
For all the arguments and discussions about the poor quality of musicianship today, it’s always good to get a bit of an education of how it used to be. Sure, we can’t resurrect some of the legendary greats from times gone by (we’re looking at you, hologram), but you can still hear plenty of musicians…
Making a splash
The ocean. Both majestic and mysterious, it’s no wonder that countless films have been set on it, in it, or alongside it. From fact-based dramas (Titanic) to creature features (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms) to those beach blanket bingo flicks, the ocean has often proven to be as integral a movie character as all the…
Soulshine tour fuses music, yoga
Given the current popularity of yoga and its integration into music festivals, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to take that combination on the road. This summer, the Soulshine Tour, which stops by the Uptown Amphitheatre on July 27, will combine an afternoon yoga session with acoustic music, followed by a…
Yes — All Women
The scar on my back that I got the beautiful fall afternoon I involuntarily lost my virginity has faded over the past 44 years, but not the memory. We met at the diner where I had my first after-school job; he was smitten by the short white uniform the owner insisted all of his “girls”…
Die Antwoord is Zef till Def
Chances are you didn’t hear Die Antwoord the first time you thought you heard them. You saw them and remembered them for their sometimes hilarious, sometimes haunting videos. Consider the video for “Pitbull Terrier,” the latest single from the South African rave-rap trio’s early June release Donker Mag. Ninja, Die Antwoord’s male emcee, wears a…
CD REVIEW: Woods’ With Light and With Love
The arc of the psychedelic music universe is long, but it bends toward songcraft. That’s certainly been the catalog trajectory of Brooklyn’s psilocybin warriors Woods, whose initial lo-fi psych folk — Fleet Foxes as done by Sebadoh — evolved into full-bloom psychedelia on 2010’s Echo Lake and 2011’s Sun and Shade. But with their superb…
Get Picky: Five regional foods you should eat this summer
Whether you prefer to go to a farm to pick your own with friends and family or rise early on a Saturday morning to discover your local farmers market treasures, nothing beats the taste of summer produce from area farms and orchards. Here are some native foods you must try. Rabbiteye Blueberries One of the…
Four of the best margaritas in Charlotte
Diving into a margarita is like a trip to the beach without the sand in your suit. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of having sand in your suit. Absolutely nothing can shake you when you have a goblet of tequila in your hand. To help you attain this salty satisfaction, we’ve compiled a short…
Tosco Music Party celebrates 25 years
Music teacher John Tosco just wants music to be enjoyable — throw your inhibitions out the window, sing along if you know the words and, most of all, have fun. It’s an attitude that started with musicians getting together for jam sessions in his living room, and one that continues today with the Tosco Music…
Charlotte Squawks talks about Charlotte
The gloves didn’t come off for a while when Charlotte Squawks started out as a WTVI fundraiser 10 seasons ago. It was in an exploratory mode during its early editions, toothless and clawless in its satire. “There was a hesitancy at first to be as direct or as biting,” says Brian Kahn, who has written…
Are you the Festival Fanatic?
This boho-chic chick is adventurous yet chill and down to earth. Her style choices often boil down to comfort, texture and color — no dry-cleaning-only pieces are allowed in her closet. Regular hangouts include Snug Harbor (multiple nights a week), Common Market and the Matthews Community Farmers Market on Saturday mornings. Your summer plans may…
