Film Clips
NEW RELEASES WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF May I please go ahead and openly declare my unwavering adoration for Shirley Henderson? She’s the new Helena Bonham-Carter, a pale-faced, dark-browed Brit with an off-kilter beauty and enough acting chops to waylay a dozen Hollywood starlets in one fell swoop. Terrific in such diverse projects as Topsy-Turvy,…
Barrel of Laughs
For a nation of pioneers, we’re not very good at coping with the curves everyday life tosses our way. Priding ourselves on embracing new challenges and extolling our American birthright of liberty, we’re not particularly tolerant when we stumble unexpectedly on deviant behavior. With those qualifications, Cass Harris and Lois Coleman are the two all-American…
A Killer Summer
What’s the difference between the summer movie season and the Christmas movie season? No, this isn’t a trick question, nor a joke whose punchline will involve a wino or a bear (or both). It’s merely meant to bring attention to the fact that the industry approaches its two most lucrative seasons in different ways. The…
Baseball Like It Should Be
Baseball, like Indiana Jones on an archaeology expedition, is forever escaping its temple of doom. Just as a strike almost felled it a decade ago, Cal Ripken Jr.’s Iron Man streak came to the rescue. When Michael Jordan and the NBA seemed to be flying past the national game, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire delivered…
Flag-draped Memories
Three months after the war began, a New York newspaper bitterly attacked the administration’s handling of unpleasant military news. “Their “information’ is treacle for children,” thundered the angry editorialist, who compared the military’s growing information control to the work of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Other publications agreed that war news was being “dry-cleaned” by the…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Instruments of Praise A spring choral concert presented by Nova Voce, an all female ensemble. Sat., May 8, 8 p.m. $8-12. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 115 W. 7th St. 704-577-6273. The Piedmont Choral Society The 50-member volunteer choir will perform sections of Handel’s Messiah, accompanied by orchestra and professional soloists. Saint James Lutheran…
Letters
Million Lemmings March What kind of history was being made in Washington, DC, last week has yet to be seen (“Largest in History,” Apr. 28). The way Creative Loafing and Allison Stevens reported it, we should want to “shout for joy” for all the women and men who exploited the media to express their views.…
Gentle Bên
One of the top tourist sights in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is the large Ben Thành market, which has been a source for fresh foods and negotiated prices since the 1800s. In March, owner Cuong Duong opened Bên Thành Vietnamese Restaurant on a small strip of Central Avenue real estate (around the 4900 block)…
Cowboys and Indians
In keeping with the Bush doctrine of running America like a business, coalition forces in Iraq have been discreetly outsourcing security jobs guarding oil wells, refineries, food convoys and the like to former Indian soldiers. Aside from freeing American personnel of these duties, there is also apparently less chance of Indian security guards being attacked…
The French Connection
Even though we’ve been making wine for a hundred years or so, the American wine industry, compared to Europe, still totters in infancy. The grown-up French have spent centuries ranking every square inch of land from good to better to best for grape growing, and we’re just beginning to play in our dirt. Beginning in…
You like us! You like us!
With Charlotte contributing an Apprentice finalist, Jeopardy contestants, (kind-of) an American Idol runner-up, and a recent Extreme Makeover subject, it seems the Queen City is getting on the do-list for national TV production companies as a new place to shoot. Other recent shows shot here have been over a dozen episodes of Discovery Channel’s Surprise…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. All locations have different owners. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd.…
Same Old System
If you brought in a cartographer from Alaska who knew nothing about local politics and showed him last year’s maps of where Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools planned to build and renovate schools in the next decade, he’d be baffled. The colorful dots representing the new schools CMS has now built, or planned to build or renovate at…
CrackerVanBeethovenCamper
David Lowery is parked in a van — more on vans in a moment — in front of Richmond, VA’s only entertainment accountant (it’s April 14th). He’s on the phone doing a press interview, greeting the passing musicians who bother to file tax returns, and conducting on-going detente with his two young sons who are…
Democracy Disdained
Democracy depends on details. It matters in even the smallest instance. While we often define our political system in terms of great struggles in national and international arenas, local examples and actions can reinforce our values or erode their credibility as a means of progressive government. Compared with the Sisyphean tragedy being played out in…
BEN THÀNH VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT
Gentle Bên Simple decor, complex food One of the top tourist sights in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is the large Ben Thành market, which has been a source for fresh foods and negotiated prices since the 1800s. In March, owner Cuong Duong opened Bên Thành Vietnamese Restaurant on a small strip of Central Avenue…
News of the Weird
Racing to dance: In April, choreographer Jenefer Davies Mansfield staged her NASCAR Ballet production at the Roanoke (Va.) Ballet Theatre. It featured 20 colorfully unitard-clad dancers wearing corporate patches of the theater’s sponsors, prancing and leaping around a banked-racetrack stage (to New Age music and the sounds of revving engines), “racing” but occasionally crashing into…
Bum Rush the Show
At past CityFest concerts — a festival, after all, for our whole city, at least in name — there have been a few noticeable omissions. Like, say, black people. The only person of color you were likely to see was Mr. CityFest himself, Darius Rucker, whose recorded output with his band Hootie and the Blowfish…
Homeschool Horror
You know how there are terrorist cells embedded throughout the world? Well, in my neighborhood we have numerous “homeschool” cells humming in the cul-de-sacs. They’re almost as scary as the terrorist ones in some ways — and they definitely have some traits in common with them. When we first moved to Charlotte, the houses next…
Sit & Spin
Loretta Lynn Van Lear Rose Interscope Tired of seeing veteran artists he enjoyed relegated to also-ran status by their labels, American Records head Rick Rubin eagerly inked artists like Donovan and Johnny Cash to his label, surrounded them with younger musicians not yet old enough to develop a “style,” (i.e., a formula), and basically told…
Matters of Taste
The Taste of Charlotte Festival was held last weekend downtown, which was a boon to all those folks like yours truly who still had tokens left over from last year’s event. Each year, no matter how well I try to plan it, I’m always left with a few of the silver dollar-sized slugs, which I…
Music Menu
THURSDAY 5.6 Dromedary & Jonathan Byrd CD Release — Andrew Reissiger and Rob McMaken, the duo known as Dromedary, evoke images of faraway lands using acoustic instruments such as mandolin, classical guitar and charango. You’ve probably heard bits of their flowing sound on NPR, and Jonathan Byrd is a rising star on the singer/songwriter front.…
Tiger on the Prowl
Trevor Finch Valet Parking Specialist “I’m just hoping he comes by one night for a bite to eat. Then again, he’ll probably just hire a limo. We don’t get jack in tips with a limo.” Janice Carlson Bank Teller “He’s a famous athlete, right? The only time I see any golf is when my hubby…
Soundboard
Wednesday, May. 5 Amos’ Southend Shock Opera Back Alley Music Hall, Concord Open Mic w/ Jon Teague Blue Melinda Hansen, Royce Guin, Korey Dudley & Rob Knox Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Cecil’s Robin Rogers Band Charleston Chops, Cornelius Michelle Smith w/ Bill & Ray Double Door Inn Mile…
The Blotter
LAWN ORDER: After a brief car chase, police managed to force a man driving a stolen car off the road into someone’s front yard. After the car thief gave himself up and the police arrested him, they decided to also charge him with damaging the person’s lawn. HOMEMADE TAX RELIEF: Someone broke into a man’s…
You Go, Girls
Could the bland poster for Mean Girls be any less indicative of the movie’s potent content? Here’s teenager Lindsay Lohan, relatively unknown to anyone over the age of 18, looking over her shoulder at three human Barbie dolls whose skirts are so short that they threaten to turn a PG-13 image into an NC-17 no-no.…
See & Do
MAY 5 – WEDNESDAY Author John Feinstein, perhaps best known as the lightning rod for college basketball coach Bobby Knight’s wrath while writing A Season on the Brink, will sign books from 5-7pm today at the Arboretum Barnes & Noble. In addition to Brink, Feinstein has also penned the bestsellers A Good Walk Spoiled, A…
The Other Summer Movies
If swords and superheroes aren’t your thing, then the Charlotte Film Society is once again prepared to offer an alternative to the summer blockbusters. The group recently announced its slate for June, July and August, and the lineup includes this year’s Academy Award winner for Best Foreign-Language Film, Canada’s The Barbarian Invasions, the Oscar-nominated documentary…
Ask the Advice Goddess
The Inundating Game Two months ago, I met an awesome guy at a party. There was a mix-up when we exchanged phone numbers, so I only got his number last week. I called him, and last weekend we went on the best date of my life. The next day, he called to say he’d had…
View From The Couch
THE COOLER (2003). It’s not necessarily the sign of a good movie, but it is an indication of an effective one. It’s that moment when you realize you’ve grown so attached to the central protagonists, you’d almost rather see the movie take some less-than-credible swerves than allow any harm to come to them. That’s certainly…
Stargazer
For All Signs Mercury watchers will be glad to know that this planet turned direct on April 30. Now that it is in direct motion, people will be more willing and able to make decisions, keep appointments, and settle long-standing issues. Those who work in occupations related to travel or communications of any type will…
