Oct 14-20, 2015

Oct 14-20, 2015 / Vol. 29 / No. 34

Cover Story

It’s up to you to enforce coal ash regulations

A couple days after Duke Energy’s Feb. 2014 Dan River coal-ash spill in Eden, North Carolina, I received an unsigned email. The subject line read simply, “Cancer.” A few weeks later, a frail, nearly bald woman welcomed a cameraman and me into her living room. I asked why she contacted me. “It’s the only way…

Rhiannon Fionn

Finders Keepers worth discovering

FINDERS KEEPERS *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Bryan Carberry & J. Clay Tweel STARS John Wood, Shannon Whisnant It’s the best new release of the week, and it’s not even playing in Charlotte. Because while Queen City movie theaters are welcoming the comparatively underwhelming trio of Bridge of Spies, Crimson Peak and Goosebumps with…

Matt Brunson

Kid Stuff: Goosebumps and Pan

GOOSEBUMPS **1/2 (out of four) DIRECTED BY Rob Letterman STARS Jack Black, Dylan Minnette PAN ** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Joe Wright STARS Hugh Jackman, Levi Miller Two new PG confections may offer gee-whiz thrills for the kids, but only one has any real chance of appealing to the attendant adults. That would be…

Matt Brunson

Bridge of Spies: Chilly to the touch

BRIDGE OF SPIES **1/2 (out of four) DIRECTED BY Steven Spielberg STARS Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance “Christ, I miss the Cold War,” grumbles M (Judi Dench) at one point during the 2006 James Bond entry Casino Royale. Cinematically speaking, so do I. Even more than with the World War II flicks Hollywood made while that…

Matt Brunson

Crimson Peak: Seeing red

CRIMSON PEAK ** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Guillermo Del Toro STARS Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston Until the arrival of writer-director Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak on the cinema scene, I don’t believe I have ever seen a supernatural flick in which the ghosts are wholly insignificant and absolutely irrelevant. In fact, take all of…

Matt Brunson

Weekly horoscope (Oct. 15-21)

For All Signs: The red planet, Mars, was known to the ancients as the symbol of the warrior. “He” represents that aspect of our human nature that protects our boundaries or takes fresh territory. Mars’ position by sign in an individual’s horoscope offers a symbol of the style he/she uses when initiative, courage and action…

Vivian Carol

Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (Oct. 15)

Swift Punishment: Just because the police have their suspect in handcuffs, doesn’t always mean the drama is over. Police thought they had the situation under control last week when they arrested a teenage boy they had witnessed punch another boy in the face. While the suspect was lying on the ground handcuffed, however, his mother…

Ryan Pitkin

Aladdin, The Brood, Spartacus among new home entertainment titles

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.) ALADDIN (1992). One of the early entries in the late-20th-century resurgence of the Disney animated feature (following 1989’s The Little Mermaid and 1991’s Beauty and the Beast), Aladdin finally makes its long-awaited Blu-ray…

Matt Brunson

How some healthy foods can hurt you

One would think that, as research on diet and health continues to pile up, we might start inching toward consensus about what is good to eat, and what isn’t. But in many cases the opposite is happening. We can’t even agree on the essential goodness or badness of basic macronutrients like fat or carbohydrates, with…

Ari LeVaux

Chef Kev Winston’s got game

Chef Kev Winston was thrown into the culinary turf. He grew up with a family who worked at a Kansas City barbecue joint and he couldn’t shake his love for food — he went on to enroll at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, Calif. Winston, who lived in Los Angeles prior to moving to Charlotte…

Anita Overcash

CD review: Kurt Cobain, Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 21 years since the death of Kurt Cobain, and almost harder to believe they’ve found enough “solo” material to put together a 31-track album, but here it is. Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings is being released in coordination with the DVD release of the documentary/portrait Montage of…

Jeff Hahne

CD review: Alberta Cross’ Alberta Cross

With the departure of one-half of the duo, Alberta Cross offers a fresh beginning for the band and the lone original member. While the band’s first two full-length efforts were soaked in Southern rock and soared along on vocals reminiscent of Neil Young, this new album breaks into uncharted territory for the band — and…

Jeff Hahne

Rapper Shane grows with the game

It’s been almost a year since local rapper Stranger Day shed that moniker and began going by the more personal-sounding Rapper Shane. The change was simple enough, but it’s also coincided with a broader progression in his music, moving on from the normal head-bobbing hardcore beats and lyrics that characterized his 2014 album Graves, the…

Ryan Pitkin

Into the wild with Anne Lemanski’s Simulacra

Here in Charlotte, artist Romare Bearden is a household name. We claim the artist, who was born in the Q.C. but lived elsewhere for most of his life, as one of our own. But this story isn’t about Bearden, whose collage work pushed civil boundaries by touching on the growing rights of African-Americans and Southern…

Anita Overcash

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