Jul 15-21, 2015

Jul 15-21, 2015 / Vol. 29 / No. 21

Cover Story

Prime country in Charlotte

Whether it’s Kenny Chesney or Brad Paisley; Willie Nelson or Kacey Musgraves; Sturgill Simpson or Miranda Lambert, country music artists have never had a big problem drawing a crowd to music venues of all sizes in Charlotte. Yet for all that stereotypical love of pickup trucks, cowboy boots and trailer park tales, the Queen City…

Jeff Hahne

Mr. Holmes: Sheer Sherlock

MR. HOLMES ***1/2 (out of four) DIRECTED BY Bill Condon STARS Ian McKellen, Laura Linney Being thoroughly unfamiliar with Mitch Cullen’s 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, I approached its film adaptation, Mr. Holmes, expecting to see a slight and sprightly murder-mystery in which a retired Sherlock Holmes noodles about the countryside solving…

Matt Brunson

Trainwreck: Amy’s coming-out party

TRAINWRECK *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Judd Apatow STARS Amy Schumer, Bill Hader Here’s a line from a Box Office Mojo article that caught my eye: “Trainwreck, at 2 hours, 5 mins, comes closer to [Judd Apatow’s] leaner hits, Knocked Up (2 hrs., 9 mins) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (1 hr., 56 mins), than…

Matt Brunson

Ant-Man: Size doesn’t matter

ANT-MAN *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Peyton Reed STARS Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas After the overkill of Avengers: Age of Ultron, it’s nice to see Marvel return to a comparatively small-scale effort — in more ways than one. The diminutive superhero at the center of Ant-Man may not be a marquee name among the…

Matt Brunson

Weekly horoscope (July 16-22)

For All Signs: Venus, goddess of love, will turn retrograde on July 25. She is in the pre-shadow now and you may sense it coming. Her message when in retrograde: Give careful thought to your values and don’t misplace your love energy. The priority in relationship to others is to love oneself deeply enough to…

Vivian Carol

Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (July 16)

Prince Was Here: A woman called the cops after reporting her door had been vandalized, or labeled, depending on how you look at it. The woman said that someone had used purple fingernail polish to write “Purple Room” on the back of her bedroom door. Monkeying Around: A person left their mark at the Aloft…

Riley Turner

The Black Stallion, Howling II among new home entertainment titles

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.) ALL THE KING’S MEN (2006). Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from 1946 centered on boisterous, larger-than-life governor Willie Stark, but really it was just a thinly disguised look at the career of…

Matt Brunson

The Lion in Winter approaches from the comedic angle

After watching the wrangling and intriguing of King Henry II, striving to bend his competing heirs and rival queens to his will, people are unlikely to think of The Lion in Winter as anything but a drama — particularly when his chief adversary is the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine. Energies and passions between family members,…

Perry Tannenbaum

Drought offers a trial by fire

Have you noticed the heat this summer? Scuttling from air-conditioned house to car to climate-controlled workplace, most of us avoid exposing ourselves to the sun’s baking rays. As city dwellers, weeks of hot dry weather create more concern about watering restrictions than heatstroke. Ringing the city, however, is a strong network of workers responsible for…

Alison Leininger

Three questions for Jay Bradish, owner of Red Clay Ciderworks

Cider wasn’t always the apple of Jay Bradish’s eye. Before he was introduced to the tantalizing and sometimes tart world of cider, he took up wine making. This was when he was in the U.S. Navy and stationed in Italy, where wine reigns supreme. But after returning to his home turf in Michigan, his attention…

Anita Overcash

Taylor Centers could put Charlotte on the map

If I had a nickel for every time I was asked, “Who are some good local bands?” I would have retired long ago. The Charlotte area oozes with talent from every genre with new artists coming out of the woodwork on a seemingly weekly basis. If you read this week’s cover story, you’ll see that…

Jeff Hahne

Good Grief

My dad died. Then two of my friends’ dads died. And a couple friends’ moms. And lots of other awful shit has happened to numerous people I’m close to. But still, the sting of that first death — my first real experience with someone I love dying — is strong enough to take me out…

Laura Hutson

Feds step in at crime-ridden strip mall in Charlotte

The federal government has gotten involved in a fight to reduce crime at a west Charlotte strip mall, threatening to seize the property altogether. The strip mall, at the intersection of LaSalle Street and Beatties Ford Road, houses a multitude of businesses and has been known by police to be a hotbed for drug activity.…

Ryan Pitkin

It’s time law enforcement got its priorities straight

Last March, 94-year-old Douglas Ponischil had his door broken down and home raided by CMPD. He was arrested and charged with felony drug possession. He had no prior criminal record. According to his attorney, Chris Connelly, “This arrest occurred several weeks after marijuana had been mailed to his home on someone else’s behalf. Instead of…

Erin Tracy-Blackwood

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