Film Clips
NEW RELEASES BETTER LUCK TOMORROW Just as the recent City of God seemed to transfer the GoodFellas formula to the Brazilian slums, here’s a strong effort from writer-director Justin Lin that places Asian-American high school students in a similar scenario. Lin starts with the stereotype of the Asian-American kid as clean-cut, hard-working and industrious and…
Stargazer
For All Signs Mercury turns retrograde on Saturday this week. The Mercury retrograde is intended to be a time of quiet thinking and reflection, gathering (but not acting upon) information, and finishing old or forgotten projects. Most of us have a hard time making final decisions during these periods because we know instinctively that conclusions…
Drivel, Sex and Marketing!
Ellen, the bitchy drama queen, tearfully shrieks to Dan, the flamboyant gay guy, that Puck, the crazy white boy, threatened to kick her ass, as Aneesa, the angry black chick, strolls in topless. It’s just one moment among so many others that illustrates the big ol’ crap factory that is MTV. The particular gem described…
Spinning Out of Control
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, nicknamed Baghdad Bob, The Persian Rush Limbaugh, and Comical Ali, developed a reputation for his eccentric spin on the Iraqi war. A website devoted to his brand of verbal lunacy became so popular, it had to be shut down. But his notoriety reached new heights last week when website…
Howard bucks the odds
Howard Deans campaign for president depends on obstinacy. Damn the polls. Damn the trends. Damn conventional wisdom. Here’s a guy planning to wage what amounts to a straight-talkin’ populist campaign when the “People vs. Powerful” theme has supposedly gone the way of parachute pants. He promises balanced budgets at the same time he opposed war…
Lush, Lusty Landscapes
Woodsongs is a show of paintings by Brian Rutenberg at the Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte through May 10. Rutenberg is a Carolina native, born and raised in the coastal low country between Pawley’s Island and Charleston, SC. The salt marshes, muck and silt air of that curious geography run through Rutenberg’s paintings like a…
Sheriff Refuses Request For Info
The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office has refused to disclose information relating to the alleged beatings of inmates in the county jail system. Creative Loafing requested that the Sheriff turn over copies of any beating or excessive force complaints inmates had filed against detention officers who work at the county’s jails, as well as the number…
Battle for Balance
On December 7, 1988, Floyd Skloot settled into his hotel room after an exhausting cross-country flight from Oregon to DC and gratefully went to bed. He awakened the next day for his morning run to find that the simple act of dressing himself had become a baffling spatial conundrum.He pulled his blue wristband over his…
Pig Out
The radical animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has learned that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian, and if it weren’t for censorship by Charlotte-area billboard companies, they’d have been able to tell you all about it in time to stop you from consuming a ham dinner for Easter. The group,…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Abbey Chorus Spring Concert Featuring a variety of works from around the world. Sat., April 26, 8 p.m. Free. Belmont Abbey Basilica, 100 Belmont-Mount Holly Rd., Belmont. 704-825-6890. Brahms’ Double Concerto Guest conductor Grant Llewellyn leads the Charlotte Symphony as they welcome two soloists, Julian Rachlin and Han-Na Chang. May 2-3, 8 p.m.…
King of the Spill
Over the past 10 months, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities has blamed heavy rains for several hundred sewer spills that dumped millions of gallons of raw sewage into the county’s creeks and streams. The official word from the city utilities department and the bureaucrats at the Mecklenburg County Water Quality Program (MCWQP) who are supposed be overseeing the…
Inca Gold
Think Peru. There’s Macha Picchu, the Incas, llamas, exiled ex-president Alberto Fujimori, and Arequipa, Charlotte’s sister city. But Peruvian cuisine?”Peruvian food is famous in most of the world,” says restaurateur Aldo Sevillano, a native of Lima, Peru, and owner of the 150-seat Inka Grill, Peruvian and Latin American Cuisine, which opened two months ago. Then…
What Would MLK Do?
Martin Luther King Jr. once had a dream of racial equality. But never in his wildest dreams could he have foreseen the bizarre fashion in which that dream would play itself out in modern-day Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Back in King’s day, the goals of equality were clearcut and it was a lot easier to tell who was…
Santa Cruz on My Mind
Among the clutter in the world, it’s comforting to know there are still wineries with soul. After seeing the gigantic chateaus emerge from the expensive dirt, and experiencing the grueling Napa traffic, I’d begun to think Northern California’s wine country had morphed into one giant, overcrowded suburb. Then I discovered dreamy Santa Cruz. Its elegant…
Defections from the Dinosaurs
As you read this, the war is fading from memory and we’re back to mowing the lawn, enjoying a green April, and eating the leftover Peeps. With our national attention span as long as the average kindergartner’s, the troops have rolled through Baghdad and we, too, are moving on.But in the post-mortems on television coverage…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. All locations have different owners. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd.…
Letters
Terrorists With Bulldozers According to Arnold Weinstein (“Not Murder, Just An Accident,” Letter to the Editor, Apr. 9), Rachel Corrie’s death was an accident. Let’s see. A young woman in a bright fluorescent coat sits waving her arms and yelling into a megaphone as a bulldozer some 50 feet away begins moving toward her. When…
The Best of the Fest
Let’s begin with what we know about Charlotte music festivals. They’re not as diverse — now or ever — as similar ones held in Atlanta and Columbia, SC. Secondly, there have been serious location concerns in the past, with the festivals being held on unbearably hot asphalt and even gravel, as well as concerns over…
The Blotter
Aged Opportunist: After a patient in a group home ran away, another man in the home stole the runaway’s shoes. Family Love Nest: A woman called police after her aunt approached her and accused her of having an affair with her boyfriend. The aunt became increasingly agitated until she struck the woman in the head…
Seminars, Showcases and Celebrations
The Nashville Chapter of the Recording Academy will present The Art & Business of Music, a GRAMMY Professional Development Program, on Thursday, May 1, at the Great Aunt Stella Center. The program will consist of an in-depth panel discussion addressing issues surrounding the climate of today’s music industry. Following the panel/Q&A session will be a…
News of the Weird
DOWSE THIS: Two American Legion posts and two other veterans’ groups in Pleasanton, Calif., sponsored a class on dowsing in March to study whether domestic terrorists could be identified by pointing sticks at suspicious people to see if the sticks move. One of the veterans’ leaders (who vouched that “the government” and oil and mining…
CD Disc-overies
Atom And His Package Attention! Blah Blah Blah Hopeless Atom and His Package is exactly the sort of thing that would’ve irritated the shit out of me back when I was first getting into underground music but still had no tolerance for smart people being cleverly stupid (Dead Milkmen, anyone?). And apparently, I haven’t evolved…
See & Do
APRIL23 WEDNESDAY At Ovens Auditorium through Sunday, a traveling version of Jesus Christ Superstar continues with Carl Anderson as Judas and Eric Kunze as Jesus, replacing former Skid Row lead singer Sebastian Bach. It’s hard to believe this musical was so controversial when it debuted in the 1970s — now it’s like an old standard,…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 4.23 Don Dixon Band — The former Arrogance bassist and singer is no stranger to these parts, having both played (with Arrogance, and with wife Marti Jones) and recorded others (R.E.M., David Childers, Snagglepuss). Two of the man’s records belong in any album collection worth its salt: the delightfully named Most Of The Girls…
Eddie and the Anti-Eddie
Regular readers (irregular readers — eat more fiber) know by now that I’m not a fan of concerts held anyplace that can be referred to as a “shed.” Be that as it may, bands like Pearl Jam aren’t going to be appearing at, say, Puckett’s Farm Equipment anytime soon. So last Wednesday found me making…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Apr. 23 Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Comet Grill Anamcara Double Door Inn Don Dixon Band w/ Kyle Davis The Evening Muse pH Balance Fairwinds Coffee Co., Cornelius Lena Mars Fat City Rosa Believe Fishbone Grille Ansel Cach Graduate, Gastonia Simplified Jocks & Jills, UNCC Backyard Green Mama Mia Too at the Holbrook…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I’ve been dating a wonderful boy. He’s articulate, charming, passionate and very sexy. Our love-making is spontaneous and passionate. But, lately I’ve been talking dirty to other boys online. I enjoy the excitement and naughtiness. I’ve toyed with the idea of infidelity, but would never go that far. In fact, the dirty…
Con Heir
Neil Jordan’s jazzy new film The Good Thief may officially be a remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1955 Bob le Flambeur, but its title character, a boozy American expatriate who’s equal parts idealist and cynic, stirs memories of an even more famous motion picture. Had Humphrey Bogart’s Casablanca character Rick Blaine been a heroin addict, he…
Beef n’ Bottle: Still standing
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the rule in play at George Fine’s Beef “n Bottle. Even the name reflects the era in which this restaurant was born. In the North Carolina of 1978, if you wanted alcohol, including wine, you had to bring a bottle into a restaurant that held a “brown…
Bank On It
After checking out Neil Jordan’s The Good Thief (see lead review), here are five other caper films that are worth a look. All are available on video. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) / The Killing (1956). It’s impossible to separate these two terrific heist flicks, both of which largely set the template for every similar picture…
