Chemistry Exam
The first wave of reviews for Gigli have been so scathing — perhaps not since Battlefield Earth have the majority of critics so gleefully trashed a single motion picture — that it almost seems necessary to come to the movie’s defense. Gigli is not the worst movie of all time, as one overzealous blurbmeister for…
See & Do
AUGUST 6 – WEDNESDAY If you haven’t seen the terrific New South, Old South, Somewhere In Between exhibit at the Levine Museum of the New South, you have exactly two days — today and tomorrow — to catch it before it’s taken down. A display of artwork, memorabilia and impressions of Southern history, New South.…
Sets Appeal
While such pictures as Birth of a Nation and The Gold Rush vie for the honor of the most famous silent picture ever made, it’s probably safe to say that, with the possible exception of Battleship Potemkin, Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis ( out of four) ranks as the most famous foreign silent film to still…
Ask The Advice Goddess
If The Shrew Fits … Every woman I know complains about fighting with her boyfriend. The battles range from irritated bickering to terrible screaming matches. I’m worried because my boyfriend and I have been together a year, and we’ve never had an argument, big or small. In fact, we seem to be the happy couple…
Home Theater
CASABLANCA (1943). Bogart. Bergman. “As Time Goes By.” “Here’s looking at you, kid.” You know the rest. So round up the usual accolades for one of the all-time greats, which premiered on DVD a few years ago in an OK package but has now been given the deluxe, two-disc treatment. Among the more interesting features:…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I’m stuck trying to figure out whether to contact a longtime friend of mine. I’m a new mom (with a 6-month-old son) and I’m severely sleep deprived. So when my birthday came recently, I got a babysitter and resolved to get out and do my thang. I invited two of my girlfriends…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES AMERICAN WEDDING Comparing this third picture in the American Pie series to the Marx Brothers canon is probably grounds for dismissal, but it has to be noted that the Marx’s frequent modus operandi of building a comedy sequence frame by frame so that it reaches an actual crescendo (best exemplified by the stateroom…
Stargazer
For All Signs The full moon of Aug. 12th occurs in the sign of Aquarius. It symbolizes the need to commit to the expansion of our global awareness. As individuals, we are invited to evaluate what beliefs we hold that promote prejudicial attitudes. In the world arena tensions concerning economic and resource issues press us…
Ultra Extreme Best Of Charlotte 2003
This year, we’re going all out. We’re over the top, we’re taking it to the next level, we’re pushing the envelope till it rips, we’re. . .well, you get the picture. In keeping with American culture’s frenzied state, we’re not just giving you the regular, plain old Best of Charlotte — here’s the Ultra Extreme…
Family Affairs
Mac Wellman has been an Off-Broadway mainstay for 20 years, producing a steady stream of poetic plays that joyously joust with language, impishly flirt with American mass culture, and triumphantly elude all meaning. Description Beggared, currently running in the cozy Black Box studio theater in the catacombs of Children’s Theatre, is wedded to songs composed…
Fire On The Mountain
Pick any 10 serious music hounds in Charlotte and ask them to name their favorite radio stations; it’s a sure bet at least half of them will say “WNCW.” Charlotteans unaccustomed to much more than Clear Channel stations’ limited commercial playlists may say, “Who?” but WNCW — a publicly funded station operating on the campus…
Blessed are the Cheesemakers
Writing a complex novel is like juggling: You’ve got to keep all the balls in motion, and you’ve got to make sure you don’t drop any — especially when you’ve got an audience.Reading The Mammoth Cheese was a lot like watching an expert juggler. In this solid, contemporary novel, author Sheri Holman masterfully juggles three…
Ridden Out On A Rail
You come up with a good enough reason to bash Charlotte’s government, and I’ll be there with bells on, piling on well after the whistle blows. For the Hart-Witzen gallery, the whistle they’ll always associate with the old three-story building they used to call home will be a train whistle. In the name of “improving”…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music American Guild of Organists Recitals sponsored by Guild. August 10: Kenneth Brown, Belmont Abbey, 100 Belmont-Mt. Holly Rd; August 17: Les Ackerman, Myers Park United Methodist Church, 1020 Providence Rd.; August 24: Robert McDermitt, Westminster Presbyterian Church, 101 Colville Rd. All at 8pm. Free. 704-333-9071. Brightstar Music Festival Chamber Music Series featuring Johannes…
Letters To The Editor
Happy Now, Tara? Hyperhypocrite Tara Servatius wants us old folks to feel sorry that she may break her back paying for our Social Security, Medicare and potential new drug benefit (“Robbing Us Blind,” July 30). I don’t. Not long ago we had an administration that tried to solve that problem by running budget surpluses and…
What A Friend We Have In Cheeses
Move over medium sharp cheddar, American singles, and Cheese Whiz. Manchego, Livarot, Abondance, Morbier, and Magtag Blue are muscling their way onto grocery store shelves.Cheese will prove to be in this decade what wine was to the 1990s. Remember when wine was classified as red and white? Now you can find more wine tastings than…
You Bet Their Lives
Say what you will about the Bush Administration’s War Against Terror posse, they are Can-Do players. Take for instance Retired Rear Admiral John Poindexter, head of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The aptly named Poindexter came up with an idea he called FutureMAP, or “Futures Markets Applied to Prediction.” It would have…
Pinot Envy
PPinots are beautiful things… big ones, small ones and nice, smooth round ones. They are long on flavor, coming fruity, dusty and even smoky, and I haven’t met many I didn’t like. With their wide variety of flavors, Blanc, Noir and Gris, all bearing the first name of Pinot [PEE no], provide a family versatile…
Protecting Us From Ourselves
The radical gays and the Jesus freaks are at each other’s throats again, and that should scare anyone with an intelligence quotient above room temperature. For the past three years, only the Supreme Court has stood between them and the rest of us, and it has defended the American way of life well. In the…
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.…
Another Man’s Junk
Each summer brings with it a pleasant reminder of childhood — at least for me. I see the cardboard signs stapled to telephone poles, letters sloppily formed with markers: YARD SALE SATURDAY! and I’m inevitably tempted by the promise.As a child, the pleasures of yard sales were boundless. You’d show up with maybe a dollar…
The RIAA is a Bunch of Damn Idiots
The trees that are willing to bend with the winds of time are always the strongest. This is common knowledge. If you’re an old stiff tree — a Jack Webb of a tree — you die before your time of broken limbs, or maybe a broken heart.If you’re in business, you just go broke. Those…
The Blotter
While you were out: An unknown number of vandals entered a residence and attempted to fill the bathtub and the kitchen sink to overflowing. One of the vandals, however, turned off the running water and left a note for the resident. What a package!: A storeowner stated that a man came into his store, concealed…
Jem And The Tonics Get Warped
Jem Crossland & The Hypertonics and Skracht Apple were among the four North Carolina acts selected to play at the Vans Warped Tour at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre last week as part of the Monster Energy/Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands 7. The After Life Kids from Cape Fear and 5-Finger Discount out of Asheville filled…
News of the Weird
Slavercise for Christ?: Toning up one’s body is apparently a need that unites diverse soldiers in America’s so-called culture war. In July, USA Today profiled the Lord’s Gym in the West Palm Beach suburb of Greenacres, catering to devout Christians (sales pitch: “Your body is a temple for Christ”), where mothers say they can bring…
Southern Maverick
Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, who played a pivotal role in the birth of rock & roll in the 1950s, died last week in Memphis at the age of 80. Phillips was a guy who, the usual post-mortem praises notwithstanding, wasn’t particularly well-liked by a lot of folks in the music business. A lot of…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 8.6 Chris Smither — A round of applause, please, for singer/songwriters still delivering their signature tunes three decades down the road from their initial debut, and still sounding good. Smither’s voice has aged like a cherished vintage and the blues-folk is delivered much of the time during his live performances with feet tapping giving…
Soundboard
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 6 Baoding Robert Fernandez Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Casco Bay Todd Joseph & Cito Giulini Comet Grill Pervis & Sonya Lee Cuvee Wine & Art Gallery Trio 21 Double Door Inn Tyre Fyre The Evening Muse Chris Smither w/ Mike Strauss Founders Hall Justin Mychals (Noon) Gateway Village Rachel Garcia Band…
