Feb 11-17, 2015

Feb 11-17, 2015 / Vol. 28 / No. 51

Cover Story

Pro-lifers have a new weapon: Tenderness

Bullhorns, pamphlets and full-color posters the size of flat-screen TVs depicting dead fetuses — that’s how pro-life groups commemorated the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade in Charlotte. About 20 volunteers for Cities4Life, along with members of Christ Fellowship Church and other anti-abortion activists, converged on Trade and Tryon streets on Jan. 22 to protest…

Emiene Wright

Fifty Shades of Grey: Vanilla Ice

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY*DIRECTED BY Sam Taylor-JohnsonSTARS Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan Where to begin in tackling a movie as awful as Fifty Shades of Grey? Let’s be fair and consider that it was hardly a doomed project from the start. After all, Robert James Waller’s The Bridges of Madison County was one of the most…

Matt Brunson

Kingsman: The Secret Service: The spy who came in from the old

KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE***1/2DIRECTED BY Matthew VaughnSTARS Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson Kingsman: The Secret Service is crammed with so many references to classic spy stories of film and television that it’s only appropriate to begin this review in like fashion. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to catch this grandly entertaining…

Matt Brunson

Still Alice: Moore, Moore, Moore

STILL ALICE***DIRECTED BY Richard Glatzer & Wash WestmorelandSTARS Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin An absolutely devastating disease, Alzheimer’s has been at the center of three films for which the top-billed star handily nabbed an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Judi Dench (Iris) and Julie Christie (Away from Her) lost their bids, but here’s banking on…

Matt Brunson

Weekly horoscope (Feb. 12-18)

For All Signs: Mercury, planetary symbol of communications and travel, has been in apparent retrograde motion since Jan. 21st. It changes to direct motion on Feb. 11th. This phenomenon occurs about three times per year, at varying intervals. Astrologers have long observed that during Mercury’s retrograde periods, schedules are changed, routine communications become confused or…

Vivian Carol

Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (Feb. 11)

Things That Go Bump In The Night: A 23-year-old woman called police to her Mallad Creek-area residence after an unknown male entered her apartment at 3 a.m. one week earlier. The intrusion was described as accidental and without criminal intent. Apartment complex staff changed the locks on the front door, but was also described as…

Jeff Hahne

Part 2: New York City reviews

If you’re plugged in to the national arts scene, you’ve read all about it: the Met’s GM Peter Gelb wrangling with unions before the season started, pleas to singers to reduce their fees, angry demonstrations against The Death of Klinghoffer, and protests directed against pro-Putin superstars Valéry Gergiev and Anna Netrebko. This year, the Metropolitan…

Perry Tannenbaum

Thinking outside the box (of chocolates)

You’ve decided to take your significant other out for Valentine’s Day. But due to the thousands of other drivers on the road with the same idea, you’re late for your reservation to the hot new chi-chi restaurant. No matter, they’ve truncated their menu and crammed twice the number of two-seater tables in the dining room.…

Emiene Wright

Charlotte Jewish Film Festival goes beyond religion

Hot soups. Pastrami sandwiches. Sauerkraut. Tender corned beef. These are just a few things that make a great Jewish deli. Filmmaker Erik Greenberg Anjou explores these tastes and more in his documentary Deli Man, which looks at the joys and struggles of keeping the booming deli scene of the ’30s and ’40s alive. It’s just…

Sara Workman

J. Cole inspires with latest venture

All the single ladies … who have kids, North Carolina rapper J. Cole wants you to live in his childhood home. Last month, he announced his intention to turn the split-level home at 2014 Forest Hills Drive in Fayetteville into a unique shelter-of-sorts. Single mothers and their children can live there rent-free for two years.…

Erin Tracy-Blackwood

Album Review: Dead Man’s Guns’ Dead Man’s Guns

Looking back, that December 2012 End of the World party at the Neighborhood Theatre was more of an End of the Band party. That’s the last time Charlotte hip-hop outfit Eyes of the Elders performed as a group. Solo albums by Ricky Radar and BearCat were released around the same time, but all’s been quiet…

Jeff Hahne

LATIBAH Collard Green Museum tells the whole story

For many people, it is an enormous undertaking to consider African-American history in its totality. It’s brutal, scary, infuriating, and one that should never, ever be forgotten. And as adults, we have the additional task of sharing this complex history with our youth. For a long time, I couldn’t quite figure out how to best…

Alexzenia Davis

Thom Tillis’ dumb take on regulations, more

Has enough time passed now for you to have stopped laughing at Sen. Thom Tillis’ first memorable contribution to the national discourse last week? You know, the one where he suggested it wouldn’t be a big deal if we eliminated the regulation in which restaurants are required to post a note in the bathroom telling…

Jerry Klein

Mansplainers Anonymous

At a dinner party several years ago, my friend Whitney was excitedly describing a memoir I’d recently edited about Anna Yegorova, a badass Russian airwoman who flew dozens of combat missions for the Red Air Force during World War II. Anna won tons of medals, Whitney told the group. She was shot down and captured,…

Kim Green

What local chefs are reading for fresh ideas in food

Everybody needs a little inspiration in the kitchen now and then. When you’ve eaten kale every way you can think of, a favorite cookbook can refresh your approach to dinner. Now imagine that you have to serve up kale for months on end, to a discerning audience forking out good money for the pleasure. While…

Alison Leininger

What you need to know about real chocolate

While the uncertainty of life, as described by Forrest Gump’s mom, may be like a box of chocolates, if you buy a box of chocolates from The Secret Chocolatier, Charlotte’s preeminent chocolatiers, you will know exactly what you are going to get: a mouthful of luscious deliciousness. February is a busy month for The Secret…

Tricia Childress

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