Scaring Up Laughs
Ever since it was announced that next year’s Oscar ceremony would be the first to include the newly formed Best Animated Feature category, it was generally agreed that, sight unseen, the only serious challengers for the statue would be DreamWorks’ summer smash Shrek and Disney’s latest offering, Monsters, Inc. Months later, that perception still holds.…
8 Days A Week
WEDNESDAY 7 Dinner with Friends will be presented by Charlotte Repertory Theatre tonight through November 18 in the Booth Playhouse at the Performing Arts Center. Showtimes are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, Sunday November 10 at 2 and 7:30pm, and Sunday November 17 at 2pm only. Tickets range from $19-$26.50.…
Raising Cain
Myopic moviegoers who refuse to see black-and-white films should be required to check out the Coen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There, since one look at this b&w feature should shatter all preconceived notions about the unattractiveness of color-deprived motion pictures. Ace cinematographer Roger Deakins, who has shot the last six Coen flicks, has managed…
Stargazer
For All Signs I have written about the opposition of Saturn and Pluto in our zodiac in recent months. This is a symbol of forced change which began in late May, became exact in August, is now exact a second time and has one more pass in May. What I am seeing among individuals everywhere…
Charlotte Seen
The city of Charlotte has had its fair share of dalliances with the big screen, the low point being the 1990 Tom Cruise stinker Days of Thunder, in which the words “Charlotte, North Carolina” were transposed over a dilapidated barn from which emerged a man drinking out of a Mason jar. World-class, indeed. The 1994…
Cotton Pickin’ Culture
If you tumbled into this city and asked yourself, “Where am I?” the Levine Museum of the New South would be an excellent place to begin finding an answer. Following a 17-month renovation, the Museum of the New South has reopened its doors, continuing Charlotte’s penchant for continually reinventing herself. The museum first and foremost…
Pump & Circumstance
The air is filled with the peculiar and not particularly pleasant combination of Pam, Baby Oil and tan-in-a-bottle liquids. They’re what the competitors use to accentuate every hard-earned curve and muscle, and they really slather it on. The girls, pretty and lithe with shiny white teeth and impeccably teased hair, are excitable and talkative. The…
Spooks in the Attic
Unless you’ve carefully scrutinized the credits of the old Columbo TV show — and retained the information for a pathologically long time — you’ve probably never heard of playwright Jeffrey Hatcher. But the folks at BareBones Theatre Group have not only heard of the man, they seem to have been mightily impressed. Back in April,…
Overlooked Long Enough
A battle may be brewing that pits uptown interests against those of stagnating, traditionally African-American areas on Charlotte’s West Side. For years, both the city and the county have given lip service to — and many slide presentations on — the need to redevelop abandoned strip malls and create other development along the Freedom Drive…
Complications of Love
Alice Munro’s magic is in the details, and in this, her 10th collection of stories, she proves to be the adept sorceress. In a style that relishes examining the small irrelevancies of life, Munro quells reader expectation, delivering instead that little bit of truth in one’s life that reveals connections both huge and important, even…
New Housing Vouchers Delayed
Last week, Monica Phils got the same answer most people now get when they call the Charlotte Housing Authority(CHA) seeking Section 8 vouchers. She said she was told by the operator that the agency would no longer be giving them out. That may be puzzling to some, since the agency received an additional $2.8 million…
Arts Agenda
ARTS/RELATED AFRO-AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER 401 N. Myers St. Ongoing through December 9: “HBCU Football: North Carolina Legacies.” Returning for an indefinite run: “Juke Joint,” Willie Little’s exhibition of childhood memories. For more information, call 704-374-1565. APPLEWOOD GALLERY 3920 Park Rd. On display through November 30: the works of Terry Thirlon, mixed media paintings; the works…
Building Bridges
The North Carolina Writers’ Network returns to Charlotte this year for their annual Fall Conference on November 16-18. The theme for the 17th annual event will be Bridges, Not Boundaries. Keynote speaker on Friday night, November 16, will be American Book Award winner Gloria Naylor. Naylor is the author of the acclaimed novels The Women…
Cuba Libre
A Charlotte physician, a Cuban native, told me that the “colorful language” he overheard in a restaurant’s kitchen was Cuban. He then surmised that if the employees’ expletives were authentic, the restaurant’s food would probably be authentic as well. This turned out to be great advice. Cuban native Marcelino Fernandez opened the 92-seat Siboney Cuban…
They’re Here, They’re Queer, They’re On Billboards
Bank of America recently got a warning letter from a Charlotte gay youth organization. Time Out Youth, which the bank sponsors financially, wrote to warn the bank that it would be kicking off a potentially controversial monthlong billboard campaign to reach out to gay youth. Time Out Youth’s strategy to reach out to lesbian, gay,…
Deciphering French Whites
Location, location, location. It applies to land deals and French wine alike. In the 1930s, a prescient French government organization called Appellation d’Origine Controllee (AOC — “area of controlled origin”) proclaimed certain areas better to grow grapes worthy of praise. Only 15 percent of French wines deserve this designation, and rigorous rules apply. The grapes…
Citizen Servatius: They’re So Dense
Call me an urban refugee. I know what it’s like to live an urban planner’s dream, and believe me, I fully understand why many urban planners return to their suburban homes at night. After a month of listening to clueless council candidates rail on about the evils of sprawl — which no one ever really…
THE WINE LIST
8TH ANNUAL BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU WINE TASTING AT BISTRO 100 100 N. Tryon St. November 15 at Founders Hall in the Bank of America Corporate Center from 5-8:30pm. Guests will taste six different Beaujolais wines while enjoying light hors d’oeuvres, music and drawings for door prizes in a traditional French Ambiance. Passports to the celebration are…
Beer 2day, Deadline 2morrow
Fire it up! Tempers were ablaze — and so was an abundant amount of marijuana — when the Family Values Tour rolled in to Cricket Arena last Tuesday. A total of five bands stomped, swaggered and strutted across the stage, giving the relatively small but enthusiastic crowd over four hours of loud (and mostly aggressive)…
Good Eats
ALL AROUND TOWN ANNTONY’S CARIBBEAN 2001 E. 7th, 704-342-0749; 145 Brevard Court, 704-339-0303; 20910 Torrence Chapel Road, Cornelius, 704-894-0280. A fun, change-of-pace restaurant for a casual lunch or dinner. Limited menu features rotisserie-cooked barbecued meats, what else, Caribbean style. $ BRUEGGER’S BAGEL BAKERY All over town. Chewy bagels, crisp on the outside, and served with…
Media: Getting Back To Normal
We’re supposed to get back to normal, the government tells us. Shop! Fly! Go to the mailbox, but wash your hands afterwards. Live your life, but be on high alert. So this week, I’m hunched over a strange computer bringing this to you after a 10-hour day on the job, far from Charlotte. What I…
Big Top Debauchery
The circus ain’t what it used to be. In the first half of the last century, carnivals traveled the countryside, bringing daredevil trapeze artists, bizarre human oddities and mysterious feats of animal mastery to small-town America, thereby pitching a permanent tent in our collective unconscious. The circus once inhabited a dark corner of the American…
David Walters
Luton is an unlikely place for revolution. Most Americans have never heard of it. English people know it mainly as the home of an average soccer team and the nearest town to London’s third airport. Yet it was from neat and tidy semi-detached houses on quiet suburban streets in this prosperous part of southern England,…
CD Disc-overies
R.L. Burnside — Burnside On Burnside (Fat Possum/Epitaph) It must be downright cool being a 74-year-old alternative music star, but considering it did take former sharecropper R.L. Burnside nearly 50 years to gain the respect he rightfully deserves, you could say he’s paid his dues… and then some. Despite being introduced to the masses by…
Lucy Perkins
I need to preface what I have to say with a couple of statements about Rush Limbaugh’s recently publicized medical condition. (In case you’re oblivious, Limbaugh has a very rare and very weird type of deafness that has set in quickly and for unknown reasons.) One, I actually have listened to Limbaugh’s radio program, so…
Music Menu
Babyshaker So, the debut CD release party is finally here and the glam/slam rockers move up several notches on the region’s top rockin’ outfits. The aforementioned new E.P., The Best of (Madam Epiphany), has the band sounding tightly wound and spewing out seven crunchy numbers. No ballads here, bro, just raw rock ranging from NY…
Letters to the Editor
Don’t Stereotype Muslims To The Editors: In response to Ben Williams’ letter (“Where Is Muslim Outrage?” October 24) bemoaning the lack of public outcry from Muslim leaders after the September 11 attacks: Is he reading the same news as me? The “deafening silence of Muslim religious and political leaders” is a pure fabrication. Even the…
Soundboard
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7 BAYOU KITCHEN Bill Noonan CAJUN QUEEN 7th Street Gator Band CAJUN QUEEN, PINEVILLE 7th Street Gator Band II CAT’S CRADLE, CARRBORO Fishbone CHARLIE BROWN’S, CHARLOTTE Rob & Rob COMEDY ZONE Mike Wilson & Mo Alexander DILWORTH COFFEE HOUSE Open Mic w/ Bert Wray DOUBLE DOOR Bonedaddy THE EVENING MUSE Eva Gael FAT…
The Blotter
* For quite some time, a woman has been looking for her cat which, she has now deduced, was stolen by “some people” who lived down the street. She called the police to tell them she’s been trying to locate her cat since 1997. * A man lost his check card; the last time he…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES CHARLOTTE FILM SOCIETY SECOND WEEK SERIES This month’s offerings begin this Friday at the Manor and continue the following Friday at Movies at Birkdale. Call 414-2355 for more info. * ABERDEEN A successful businesswoman (Lena Headey), upon learning that her mother (Charlotte Rampling) is ill, agrees to go fetch her father (Stellan Skarsgard),…
Cuba Libre
A Charlotte physician, a Cuban native, told me that the “colorful language” he overheard in a restaurant’s kitchen was Cuban. He then surmised that if the employees’ expletives were authentic, the restaurant’s food would probably be authentic as well. This turned out to be great advice. Cuban native Marcelino Fernandez opened the 92-seat Siboney Cuban…
