Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2013

Jul 31 - Aug 6, 2013 / Vol. 27 / No. 23

Cover Story

Look! Up On The Screen!: The best and worst superhero films of all time

In retrospect, it seems pretty hard to believe. Excluding old-time serials and made-for-TV projects, the first theatrical motion picture based on a Marvel Comics superhero title wasn’t a film featuring Spider-Man or Captain America or any of the other animated A-listers. Instead, it was 1986’s Howard the Duck, the critical and commercial disaster (executive produced…

Matt Brunson

Adjust Your Tracking worth tracking down

ADJUST YOUR TRACKING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE VHS COLLECTOR *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Dan Kinem & Levi Peretic STARS Lloyd Kaufman, Mike Raso If vinyl can make a comeback, why not VHS? That’s the question posed by one of the participants in Adjust Your Tracking, an entertaining documentary that’s hitting town as…

Matt Brunson

Live review: The Black Lillies, The Evening Muse (8/4/2013)

The Black LilliesThe Evening MuseAug. 4, 2013 Country music has never been my cup of tea. As a genre – full of many talented musicians and bands which I’m still able to recognize and appreciate – I just don’t find myself listening enough. Until, now, that is. I can thank the Knoxville-based band The Black…

Anita Overcash

Having a laugh with Leonard Cohen

It was a day that felt like a Leonard Cohen song — empty, gray and seemed twice as long and hopeless as it needed to be. I was working in Manhattan then, a city where Cohen had set some of his best work: “Chelsea Hotel #2,” say, and “Famous Blue Raincoat.” Tunes so bleak and…

Peter Gerstenzang

Album review: Pity Sex’s Feast of Love

Blending guy/girl vocal trade-offs with an instrumental channeling of shoegaze-meets-early, raw pop, Pity Sex’s debut album, Feast of Love, comes as a revival to the slow-dying world of angsty teenage rock. Following the release of their EP, Dark World, and some national touring alongside Dads, the Ann Arbor, Mich. natives have begun to make a…

Chelsea Rutledge

Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of Carolina rum

Rum has been inextricably linked to North Carolina, the South and the Caribbean since pre-Colonial days. Before mojitos, daiquiris and rum punches muscled into beach-front bars, rum was the spirit of choice along the lengthy Southern coastline. In the spirits world, though, rum is a relative newcomer — only 400 years old. This New World…

Tricia Childress

Summertime on Broadway

There are plenty of good reasons to like New York in June, particularly when the weather is fine and your air conditioner hasn’t run low on Freon. My wife Sue and I found ourselves up in Gotham barely a week after the 2013 Tony Award winners were announced — with what seemed to be about…

Perry Tannenbaum

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte’s police files (Aug. 1)

Withdrawal: An employee at a local bank alerted police after receiving a note from a customer telling her to do so. When officers arrived, they found a man who was scared for his life — and probably quite high. The man told the cops that he had been caught smoking crack that wasn’t his earlier…

Ryan Pitkin

Gone Fishin’

There were several incidents that led to my reluctant decision to go on a group date. There was that time I accidentally made out with the engaged guy. (Seriously, if women have to wear engagement rings, so should men.) And the time I accidentally hooked up with my former co-worker’s son. (He was legal, I…

Abby White

Locals open arms for hugging documentary

Have you ever stopped to wonder what a better place the world would be if we all took the time to hug one another? To be honest, I can’t say that I have. I’m what you might call a conservative hugger, wrapping my arms around folks who I know on a personal level. But local…

Anita Overcash

K-Dubb represents the Q.C. at comedy competition

Miller Lite is once again on the hunt for something more humorous than the quality of its beer. Stand Up. It’s Miller Time, the brewery’s national comedy competition, came to the Q.C. for a semi-final round last week at McGlohan Theater. There, comedian K-Dubb was selected from multiple local victors as the region’s representative for…

Bo McMillan

Skate show decks out the walls of Twenty-Two

The fourth iteration of Charlotte’s wildly successful show Let the Good Times Roll (Side note: It picked up a Reader’s Choice Award in Creative Loafing’s Best Of Charlotte 2012) continues to bring together skateboarding and art enthusiasts. The exhibit, which opens today at Twenty-Two, features the work of established artists alongside skateboarders, car detailers, bartenders…

Grace Cote

Artist Josh Brown turns Selwyn gallery into zoo

Animals have been an ongoing source of inspiration for artists throughout the centuries. French artist Rosa Bonheur painted realistic scenes of animals among vast natural landscapes; American artist John Henry Dolph used his brush to produce playful images of puppies and kittens; Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, another American artist, replaced humans with canines in his now-ubiquitous…

Anita Overcash

Japanese festival returns to Uptown

Thanks to the Japanese, we know there are more sophisticated (and complicated) ways of drinking tea. The culture’s tea ceremonies go beyond brewing with extensive procedures for preparing and presenting the popular powdered green tea. The hope is, not only to warm hearts and fill the bladder, but to create a relaxed atmosphere that is…

Anita Overcash

This week’s SketchCrowd (Aug. 1)

SketchCrowd is the world’s first crowd-sourced comic strip – that is, one created using submission by anyone and everyone. It runs weekly in Charlotte Creative Loafing, The Chattanooga Pulse and Augusta Metro Spirit. Artists can submit their own ideas and review others at www.sketchcrowd.com.

Kimberly Lawson

Kacey Musgraves follows her arrow

I’m not quite sure how Kacey Musgraves got labeled a “rebel” in country music. Country music has always had rebels — Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Miranda Lambert. The list goes on, yet publications like the New York Times and Dallas Voice continue to throw around the tag “rebel” when referring to the 24-year-old…

Jeff Hahne

Left and right join to stop NSA

Last week, something incredible happened in the U.S. House of Representatives: a bipartisan coalition formed around an important issue. That’s how Congress has conducted business during most of its 224-year history, but we all know that hasn’t been the case in quite some time. Yet last week, an uncommon alliance of Tea Partiers and liberal…

John Grooms

Weekly horoscope (Aug. 1-7)

Leo The Lion (July 22-Aug. 22): Aspects from your sign this week favor all of the following: travel, tech, the Internet, those from other cultures, church activities, the law, education, and publishing. Surprise and changeability (all positive) are qualities prominent during the week. Play and enjoy your days. For All Signs: In June, I wrote…

Vivian Carol

Unmasked: More Picks of the Best and Worst Superhero Films

To see the main article, Creative Loafing film critic Matt Brunson’s lists of the best and worst superhero films ever made, go here. DEANNA COOPER & STEVE WRIGHT (Cosplayer and comic convention sales; comic convention retail) The 10 Best 1. MAN OF STEEL (2013). Yes, it came out recently, but it’s a great origin story…

Jessica Heinz grassroots support foundation gains traction

It’s a seemingly throwaway fact: More than 28 percent of North Carolinians claimed a charitable deduction on their tax returns in 2011, making us the 15th most charitable state in the Union. Or maybe giving is so tightly woven into our thread, we barely take note of the stitching anymore. I didn’t until I had…

Ryan Pitkin

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