Apr 22-28, 2015

Apr 22-28, 2015 / Vol. 29 / No. 9

Cover Story

How to build a brewery

OCT. 28, 2014 – Jason Alexander is already on site at the future home of Free Range Brewing, meeting with an agent who helped find the space. I wander around to take pictures of the not-that-much-here-yet. A new concrete pad has been poured for the brewhouse area, with a drainage trench slicing through it. The…

Jonathan Wells

Ex Machina: Computer blues

EX MACHINA***1/2DIRECTED BY Alex GarlandSTARS Domhnall Gleason, Oscar Isaac They say that God is in the details, but he’s conspicuously missing from the title of the new movie Ex Machina. Those two words are almost always employed in the term deus ex machina, yet the omission immediately signals that writer-director Alex Garland is armed and…

Matt Brunson

The Age of Adaline needs more maturation

THE AGE OF ADALINE**1/2DIRECTED BY Lee Toland KriegerSTARS Blake Lively, Harrison Ford It was probably taken for granted that the most radical concept ever to involve one of Ellen Burstyn’s screen characters would remain the monstrous, anthropomorphic refrigerator that terrorized her in Darren Aronofsky’s brilliant Requiem for a Dream. But now here’s The Age of…

Matt Brunson

The Water Diviner: Russell’s brand

THE WATER DIVINER**1/2DIRECTED BY Russell CroweSTARS Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko Taking a page or 12 from the playbooks of Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner and other A-list actors who decided to try their hand at directing on an epic scale, Russell Crowe makes his own feature-film debut with The Water Diviner, a sincere if dramatically shaky…

Matt Brunson

Weekly horoscope (April 23-29)

For All Signs: Mercury, ancient messenger god, is busy this week. This suggests that most of us will be preoccupied with communication of one form or another. There may be many phone calls, messages, letters, quick conversations, rapid decisions, and/or papers to write. The period is favorable for probing into causes and finding the bottom…

Vivian Carol

Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (April 23)

Kid-on-Kid Theft: A 13-year-old and 15-year-old reported that they were walking down the street in Sedgefield when three juvenile males came up behind them, pick-pocketed them and ran off. Among the items taken were an iPod 5, an LG phone with a cracked screen, $74 and a pack of mint gum. I wish I had…

Jeff Hahne

Reginald Bell Jr. is coaching from the couch

When it comes to relationships, there’s plenty of reason to be cynical. We’re taught at an early age to aspire to find our “soul mate,” but, once thrown into the dating pool, we splash, we choke and — after countless dates and relationships gone wrong — we sometimes even sink. Luckily, we have endless self-help,…

Anita Overcash

Charlotte Ballet production merges dance with a live DJ

A Bach concerto’s classical tones help paint a rhythm for the nearly dozen twisting and twirling men and women. Slowly, a Beyoncé beat comes over the top, merging the symphonic with R&B. Choreographer Dwight Rhoden takes it all in, watching the bodies find their flow as the music fills the warehouse space up to the…

Jeff Hahne

Brandy Clark steps into the spotlight

Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow,” Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart” and The Band Perry’s “Better Dig Two” have more in common than being award-nominated country music songs. They were also all co-written by Brandy Clark. Clark has written for countless other country music stars, as well — Reba McEntire, Darius Rucker, Gretchen Wilson, Keith Urban,…

Jeff Hahne

CD review: Sawyer Sessions (various artists)

Released on Record Store Day last weekend, Sawyer Sessions is a collection of 12 songs recorded “somewhere” in Hillsborough, North Carolina, in the last year. Since relocating to the small town, Yep Roc has tried to bring a bit of the label’s soul to the area, having artists perform at restaurants, galleries and homes. The…

Jeff Hahne

CD review: Solar Cat’s Tales from the Savage Land

This Charlotte-based rock duo takes a light-hearted approach to its music. Not that the music itself is silly, but the lyrical content focuses on comic book characters with themes of magic and science intertwined … oh yeah, and there’s dinosaurs and cats. First listen to the band, comprised of singer/guitarist Chris Rigo and singer/drummer Sara…

Jeff Hahne

Rusty Rabbit, Jackalope Jack owners planned for development

The rain hinders the neighborhood’s residents from enjoying the outdoor seating this Thursday morning. Inside the small Starbucks, I manage to snag a seat at one of the tall tables and turn to survey the crowd. For mid-morning, when you’d expect most folks to be toiling away at their bank jobs, it’s still a good…

Kimberly Lawson

The big, gay awkward wedding

I did not expect to see gay marriage legalized, at least in the South, for a very long time. But on Oct. 10, 2014, Federal U.S. District Court Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. overturned North Carolina’s historic ban on same-sex marriage. So color me amused that I recently went from never attending a gay wedding…

Charles Easley

Finding religion’s open arms

It’s been at least four years since I cracked open my Bible. Please don’t tell my mom. I’ve been thinking about my religious upbringing a lot lately. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was proposed in North Carolina (two versions, actually), which would supposedly protect individuals against laws…

Kimberly Lawson

Charlotte Symphony brings it to the streets with Plazacast

Emceeing A Night in New York, the latest in Charlotte Symphony’s series of KnightSounds concerts, musical director Christopher Warren-Green wasn’t the only big man in the orchestra. Thanks to a big-screen Plazacast at the intersection of South Tryon Street and Levine Avenue of the Arts, all the Symphony musicians playing in Knight Theater were bigger…

Perry Tannenbaum

Waiting for the bus is boring

For Tom Warshauer, who works for the city’s Neighborhood and Business Services department as a community engagement manager, porch swings are awesome for kicking back. That’s why when he heard about the Knight Cities Challenge, a national competition seeking ideas for ways to improve Charlotte and other cities across the U.S. — he decided to…

Anita Overcash

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