Dec 17-23, 2014

Dec 17-23, 2014 / Vol. 28 / No. 43

Cover Story

Filtered II: The Photography Issue

Sometimes all it takes is the right motivation. Juan Ossa once saw an advertisement with an image of refracted gears inside a glass. He knew he wanted to try something similar one day, but hadn’t given it much thought until he saw Creative Loafing’s photo contest announcement online. This year marks the second edition of…

How to do holiday work partying right

Picture it: The posh ballroom of the four-diamond Omni hotel in Uptown Charlotte. Soft lighting, crystal chandeliers, and the red, jiggling buttocks of a Fortune 500 executive screwing his wife behind a pair of floor-to-ceiling drapes. It happened to a firm so big, legal won’t allow me to print the name, but incidents like this…

Emiene Wright

Wild: The nature of things

WILD***1/2DIRECTED BY Jean-Marc ValléeSTARS Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern Ever since its August debut at the Telluride Film Festival — and through its tireless relay race over the course of two dozen more fests — Wild has been positioned first and foremost as a showcase for star Reese Witherspoon, creating the impression that the rest of…

Matt Brunson

Foxcatcher: Wrestling with tragedy

FOXCATCHER***1/2DIRECTED BY Bennett MillerSTARS Steve carell, Channing Tatum With a tip of the hat in the direction of Langston Hughes, let it be noted that Foxcatcher isn’t so much a study of a dream deferred but of the American Dream deferred. Director Bennett Miller and writer Dan Futterman, who previously worked together on Capote, reteam…

Matt Brunson

Annie: A class act

ANNIE***DIRECTED BY Will GluckSTARS Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhané Wallis Here’s the thing about Annie, the little orphan girl created for the comics by Harold Gray and later brought to stage, screen and television: She’s never been defined by her race but her class. A child of the Great Depression, she found herself enjoying the good life…

Matt Brunson

Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (Dec. 18)

Blame the boobs: A 31-year-old male contacted law enforcement after losing his cell phone and headphones at a south Charlotte strip club. We’re guessing he also “lost” a number of $1 bills … and probably a bit of his dignity. Better Than a Banana in the Tailpipe: $1,500 in damage was reported after someone poured…

Jeff Hahne

For Better or For Worse

“Honey, come into the kitchen with Mommy,” I say to my daughter Savannah over the sound of my husband moaning and throwing up. Shit. I just changed those sheets. “Savannah, come here. Daddy is really sick right now and needs to be alone.” My phone is wedged between my shoulder and ear while I wring…

Kehaunani Hubbard

Weekly horoscope (Dec. 18-24)

For All Signs: This is a busy week in the sky. Today Hanukkah begins and on Sunday the winter solstice is exact, followed immediately by the new Moon in Capricorn. Hanukkah annually falls on the 25th day of the third lunar month (Kislev) in the Jewish calendar. This is in the dark of the Moon,…

Vivian Carol

Theater reviews: The Story of the Little Gentleman, Nutcracker and more

Comparing kiddie theatricals with their adult counterparts, you’ll often find very few visual differences. Plugging in the sound and cuing up the verbiage usually introduces a wide world of obstacles for either the young or the old. So it’s interesting to watch how the world premiere Children’s Theatre production of The Story of the Little…

Perry Tannenbaum

Christmas comes early for banking corporations

Hey there, taxpayer! Crossed Wells Fargo and Bank of America off of your gifts list yet? Actually, you have, and you’re not going to be happy when you get the bill. This weekend the Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill that glided through the House last week with little to no debate, despite its…

Emiene Wright

Latinos, we must check our biases too

These last few weeks, since grand juries in Ferguson and New York refused to indict police officers in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, respectively, have been a time for grief, anger, reflection and blocking people on Facebook. Yes, this time around, I chose not to engage with the folks who are refusing…

Ailen Arreaza

Brew in Review

There are a few things you can count on happening at the end of every year — getting burned out on Christmas music, eating too much, making resolutions for the new year and reading summaries about the previous year’s goings-on. So put on “Jingle Bells,” fix yourself a snack, make plans to start hitting the…

Jonathan Wells

Let hipsters eat whatever they want

While we all might crack jokes about hipsters, the negative chatter has reached a fever pitch in the last few months. High-profile publications like U.S. News and World Report and The New York Times both published anti-hipster screeds directed at their diet recently. I may not be a hipster, but I believe in their right…

Ari LeVaux

I Speak Machine’s Calculated Collaboration

Surrounded by a handful of synthesizers and keyboards, musician Tara Busch sits on stage at the 2013 Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit in Asheville, performing a carefully timed sonic backdrop full of electronic waves and eerie, choral crooning. The sounds sync perfectly with the movie rolling on a screen behind her. The sci-fi/horror flick The…

Jeff Hahne

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