Cover Story
‘Bloom: Revolution’ Ignites Charlotte’s Performing Arts Scene
FOR TWO SULTRY July nights and one afternoon, a small army of performing artists will converge on the McColl Center, where they will dance, swing from the rafters and spit fire in an event that resembles a mash-up of Carnival in Venice, the garden of earthly delights and a (sort of) family-friendly bacchanalia. But for…
Atomic Blonde: Blonde ambition
ATOMIC BLONDE *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY David Leitch STARS Charlize Theron, James McAvoy The logical companion piece to the summer hit Baby Driver, Atomic Blonde is another movie largely defined by its cool-as-ice characters, its action-packed set-pieces, and its awesome mix tape of classic tunes readily available for iTunes download. But whereas Baby…
A Ghost Story: Ethereal experience
A GHOST STORY *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY David Leitch STARS Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara If the minds behind The Guinness Book of World Records ever elect to add a category called “Most Walkouts For A Single Movie,” then I expect writer-director David Lowery’s A Ghost Story might have a shot at grabbing the…
Ghost in the Shell, Tom Sawyer, Bob Hope comedies 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.) BOB HOPE COMEDIES (1947-1952). Regarded in many camps as the greatest all-around entertainer of the 20th century (and he has the record-setting number of awards to back that claim), Bob Hope found…
Listen Up: Travis Phillips of Modern Primitives Talks Old Cars, New Music
In this week’s episode of Local Vibes, Travis Phillips, guitarist and lead singer with Modern Primitives, kicks it over some PBRs and discusses vintage cars and vinyl records while Mark and Ryan decide that he’s about 60 years old at heart. You can also check out our iTunes page, where this episode should be up…
The Blotter: Drive Thru
For Wendy Customers at a Wendy’s on Charlottetowne Avenue got more than they bargained for when they went for a late-night snack at the Elizabeth fast food joint last week. Employees would later tell police that there was an intoxicated man there causing a disturbance and he was eventually told to leave and not come…
Local Film Fest Founder Tre McGriff Lost It at the Movies
Growing up, Tre McGriff always loved the old Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire-type films like Stormy Weather. “Anything with music,” says McGriff, the founder of Charlotte’s CineOdyssey Film Festival. But the one thing McGriff didn’t see a lot of in those films were people who looked like him, telling stories he could relate to. Now, he’s…
Dupp&Swat Is the Most Recent Arts Business Pushed Out of NoDa
[Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series on the role of the artist in gentrification. Click here to read part one.] The concept of artists moving into low-income neighborhoods for affordable housing, or to find older houses with interesting architecture, is not unique to Charlotte; think New York’s East Village in the…
Catch Psych-Rockers Shadowgraphs Before They Blast Off
The first thing you should know about Charlotte psych-rockers Shadowgraphs is that the band’s two core members — guitarist and vocalists Bryan Olson and Charles “Wils” Glade — are like an old married couple. They finish each other’s sentences — even when they’re talking about finishing each other’s sentences. Glade: “When I first ran into…
The Sudden Firing of Dave Gettleman Leaves the Panthers in a Tight Spot
When it comes to firing your general manager, conventional wisdom says to do it at the end of the season, not nine days before you open training camp. The Carolina Panthers clearly don’t believe in conventional wisdom. On the morning of July 17, all was quiet on the corner of Mint and Morehead streets —…
Who Run the World? Girls
Picture it: Jada Pinkett Smith holding tacky denim vests with rhinestones all over them trying to convince her besties that they should wear them in their mid-forties on a trip to New Orleans. The response? “You should be bedazzling some d*ck.” If I didn’t laugh at anything else, that line alone would have been worth…
Will Charlotte Ever Confront Out-of-Control Gentrification?
While sitting on the back patio of the Irish pub Workman’s Friend in Plaza Midwood, talking with two members of the band Shadowgraphs for this week’s music feature, my mind kept wandering back to when the pub was a No Grease, part of the legendary Charlotte-area African-American barbershop chain and a staple of the neighborhood…
The Mad Greek Family Is All Smiles After 25 Years
I tried to warn Peyton Limberakis that I’m no food critic, but he didn’t want to listen. When I went to visit Limberakis at The Mad Greek on South Boulevard, I told him I was there to tell the story of the restaurant, not to review the food. Nevertheless, five minutes into our interview, the…
