A United Kingdom: Love Trumps Hate
A UNITED KINGDOM *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Amma Asante STARS David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike The sort of formidable true story that nevertheless doesn’t generally make it into the textbooks handed out during history classes, A United Kingdom centers on the difficulties encountered by a loving couple whose different skin colors meant they had…
The Red Turtle: Happy Together
THE RED TURTLE *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Michael Dudok de Wit The Red Turtle (aka La tortue rouge) stands as the first Studio Ghibli movie that isn’t primarily a Japanese production. Instead, the outfit behind such hits as My Neighbor Totoro and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away put its faith in Dutch animator Michael…
Hacksaw Ridge, Manchester by the Sea, Nocturnal Animals among new home entertainment titles
(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, DVD and Streaming. Ratings are on a four-star scale.) BAD SANTA 2 (2016). The 2003 Yuletide hit Bad Santa remains one of those holiday movies, like It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story, that’s impossible not to watch over and…
Weekly horoscope (Feb. 23 – March 1)
For All Signs This week we encounter the second eclipse in a series of two. The New Moon in Pisces is eclipsed on Monday, Feb. 26. New Moon eclipses occur at the time of the month in which we can’t see the Moon. The meaning is related to a new seed being planted, probably under…
The Blotter: Watch the Car, Bro
Frat Bros Police responded after two men agreed to fight each other in an apartment complex and — surprise — things got out of hand in University last week. The 20-year-old and 23-year-old “equally agreed” to participate in the fight at an apartment complex near the UNC Charlotte campus, and carried that fight out in…
Federal Harassment, Increase in Arrests Puts Immigrant Community on Edge
On Feb. 7, the arrest of two men in a work van at a QuikTrip gas station in east Charlotte began what would be a week of paralyzing fear for the city’s immigrant community. In the coming days, word spread on social media that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had begun staging raids and even…
John Elderkin Picks Up David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust 45 Years On
The cosmos has contacted John Elderkin with an urgent dispatch from David Bowie’s alien alter ego Ziggy Stardust. It’s a message so earth-shattering that Elderkin is compelled to share it. Once he broadcasts it via giant megaphone from the surface of the moon, an age of universal understanding will ensue. Or something like that. [Image-1]…
New Levine Exhibit Revisits Charlotte Uprising Months After the Fact
Local photographer Alvin C. Jacobs, Jr., flashed a humble-but-knowing grin at staff historian Brenda Tindal of Levine Museum of the New South when she introduced him as “a modern-day Gordon Parks” at a recent preview for the museum’s new K(NO)W Justice K(NO)W Peace exhibit. Jacobs, 42, admitted that when he was in his late teens,…
CIAA 2017 Is Officially Upon the Queen City
The entirety of last week was spent preparing for the weekend and Monday. Why, you may ask. Waking up every morning with, “Do I really need a job?” on my mind and still going to work every day would drive anyone mad. But every so often, the good little worker receives his or her just…
Local Tech Entrepreneur Shaun Andrews Speaks on Mental Health, #BLKTECHCLT and Being Black in the App World
When Shaun Andrews was working in the corporate offices of a well-known railroad company seven years ago, he had the stable job and steady paycheck he had always aspired for, but happiness eluded him. Every day, Andrews would wake up and search the web for motivational messages to get him through the day. The process…
Charlotte Rapper Black Linen Don’t Pay to Play No More
Solomon Tetteh and his buddy Oba Amitabha are walking along a narrow path in a small wooded area, pausing briefly to marvel at an already-blooming purple magnolia and other exotic flora — a coral bark Japanese maple, Portugal laurel rose, a Korean dwarf boxwood shrub. Near a bench at the side of the trail, Amitabha…
Can Charlotteans Stand With Immigrants As We Did For Women?
When More than 7,000 immigrants descended on Marshall Park in Charlotte on Friday, Feb. 17, and marched into Uptown to express their frustration and fears about being targeted and harassed by the current presidential administration, it was a little disappointing to see so few non-brown faces in the crowd. After all, just a month earlier,…
Refugee Charlotte Hosts Benefit Featuring Radio Lola, Modern Primitives
When Donald Trump signed his infamous anti-immigration executive order on Jan. 27, which initially blocked refugees and visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States, it not only threw airports around the world into a state of chaos, it put refugee organizations into a state of confusion. Reporters…
Candice Credle’s Got the Juice
Former New Yorker Candice Credle has found a sweet way to combine juicing with music at Juice Now, which opened Feb. 11 in south Charlotte. The cool, green-and-orange bar serves fresh, locally sourced juices with flavors and names that will make you want to sing. And you can sing. We sat down with Credle to…
Soul Food Sessions Showcase Charlotte’s African-American Culinary Talent
On Monday, February 27, six local chefs and two mixologists will present an upscale, eight-course dinner in one of the Queen City’s top-tier restaurants. Nothing unusual there. Charlotte hosts dinner events like this almost every week. But there is one key difference in this night of swanky indulgence: the folks behind the elevated cuisine and…
WATCH: Rapper Black Linen Talks About Working with LeAnna Eden
During our interview last week for this week’s music feature, Charlotte rapper Black Linen talked about his life, his music, and his commitment to bringing artists of all kinds together. In this clip, he talks about how he got together with singer-songwriter Le Anna Eden, one of the many artists on Black Linen II. Related…
WATCH: Rapper Black Linen Talks about Pay to Play and the Creative Process
Charlotte rapper Black Linen talked to CL about the creatively stifling practice of Pay to Play. When he’d had enough of paying clubs to “allow” him to perform, he stopped and began a creative five-volume series of homemade albums called Fuck Money Get Free, or FMGF. His latest album, Black Linen II, is his second…
