Sound Board
Wednesday, Nov. 27 Amos’ Southend ZOSO Boardwalk Billy’s, Crown Point Wax Gurus Charleston Chops, Cornelius Kent Steel Coach’s Sports Bar Brandon O’Brien Double Door Inn Bellglide w/ Filmschool Fat City David Childers, Dave Rhames & The Westchesters, Eric Lovell The Gin Mill Carey & Stacey Graduate, Lake Norman Robin Brown w/ Andy Seets JB’Z The…
New Art: Does Art Matter?
Does art still matter …after 9/11? Did art still matter after Hitler’s Luftwaffe blew apart the Spanish town of Guernica? Picasso’s huge, agonized masterpiece that commemorates this murder from the skies is a beacon of 20th century art. A major difference between Guernica and the attack on the World Trade Center is that the Spanish…
Star Man
George Clooneyreally puts his ass on the line in Solaris — literally as well as figuratively. A pensive meditation on life, love and predestination, the futuristic drama (opening today) marks his third collaboration with director Steven Soderbergh, who previously cast the actor in Out of Sight and Ocean’s Eleven, and with whom Clooney recently formed…
See & Do
NOV 27 – WEDNESDAY The Eros Negras exhibit at the Afro-Am Cultural Center will be wrapping up its run this Saturday. The exquisite collection of images representing the African Diaspora that explores the “sexuality of black women from a socio-political perspective” will be open to the public during regular gallery hours until Saturday at 6pm.…
40 Into 007
It’s somewhat appropriate that Die Another Day emerges as the most enjoyable James Bond movie in eons (see FilmClips for a review), since the ever-popular agent with a license to kill has two reasons to celebrate in 2002. Die Another Day is not only the 20th picture in the double-oh-series, but it also marks the…
Techno-Gab
This week, our holiday season look at silly gifts takes us to the surreal land of talking products. In a world where, at any moment, an estimated three to four billion people are yapping at the same time, you’d think folks would have their fill of human voices. But no. Every year, more and more…
DVD Domain
Roman Holiday / Sunset Boulevard This week, Paramount Home Entertainment has seen fit to release two classic films in special edition DVDs. William Wyler’s 1953 Roman Holiday showcases Audrey Hepburn in her star-making, Oscar-winning performance as a princess who falls in love with an American journalist (Gregory Peck), while Billy Wilder’s legendary 1950 Sunset Boulevard…
The Bitter End
Come on ladies, we’ve all been there. Eventually we all find a man who has an ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, ex-lover, ex-fiancee, ex-whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-her — and she just can’t seem to let go. If there’s one thing I had to learn the hard way in life, it’s this: You can never talk your way back into a relationship.…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES DIE ANOTHER DAY Just as it took Roger Moore a couple of movies to grow into the part of James Bond, so too has it taken Pierce Brosnan a while to satisfactorily pull off the role at the center of the most successful franchise in film history. His newfound conviction (he’s become less…
Stargazer
For All SignsThe Thanksgiving holiday is surrounded by neutral energies, so this will probably be an uneventful celebration for many. Hanukkah begins on November 30 and aspects are favorable. Hanukkah is a time of self-reflection about relationships and encourages the healing of old rifts. It annually falls on the 25th day of the third lunar…
Thanks!
It’s Thanksgiving and our all-American holiday hasn’t felt as welcome in years. After the horrors of the past 15 months, we’re more aware than ever of how much those of us in the USA have to be thankful for — even while we’re still griping about the things that bug us. So we decided this…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser:What do you do when a friend has a habit that annoys you? My good friend Kim does something that I think deserves punishment just shy of decapitation. She gives away movie endings. We see a lot of movies together and almost every time Kim will lean over to me halfway through and…
Loafing Corruption Exposed
There’s one thing you can say for certain about Alan Beal. Wherever he goes, a colorful assortment of oddball characters seems to follow. Over the course of his jihad against the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services on behalf of the Stratton family — if you don’t know who they are, tune in to WBT…
History Flipflops In Anti-War Chorale
Like all professionals who survive and flourish amid the shifting currents of history, great artists change with the times. But as last week’s Charlotte premiere of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem powerfully demonstrated, finished artworks can possess their own ability to transform — to speak to us in new, meaningful ways unanticipated by their creators or…
Confusion Over Whitewater Park
An article about a proposed whitewater park, published last Tuesday in the Charlotte Observer, took some county commissioners and Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Director Wayne Weston by surprise. “I read the paper the other morning and it took me half an hour to scrape myself off the ceiling,” said Weston. Then the calls from…
Body of Knowledge
Elizabeth Eaves isn’t a journalist who went undercover as a stripper, nor a writer who interviewed a group of women who stripped for a living. No, for years she stripped for the money, plain and simple, not with an eye on an eventual book contract. Only later, after she’d become a professional journalist with a…
Cars, Cats & The King
There are worse things than getting stuck waiting in a record store. One could be left in the lurch at, say, a sewage treatment plant or something. Perhaps a City Council meeting. But wait I did Thursday evening, safely ensconced in the warm, capitalistic arms of Manifest Discs, who was holding an in-store appearance of…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Benefit Concert Featuring Armand & Angelina. All proceeds benefit the Voices of the Children foundation. Tickets may be purchased in advance or at the door. Sat., Nov. 30, 7:15 p.m. $12 for ages 16 and up. Unity of Charlotte, 1000 Woodlawn Ave. 1-800-704-0265. Chamber Music at St. Peter’s This First Tuesday at Noon…
Letters to The Editor
We welcome your letters to the editor. Please send your letters to: The Editors, Creative Loafing, PO Box 241988, Charlotte, NC 28224. Or write us via the Internet at the following address: backtalk@creativeloafing.com. Please note that this e-mail address is for letters to the editors only. Please limit your letters to 300 words or less.…
The Waiting Game
“Reservations?” asked the woman holding a clip board, standing immediately inside the front door in the bar area. “No? Hmmmm. That’ll be a 60 to 70 minute wait.” She thrust a restaurant pager into my hand and then began addressing the family behind me. Some patrons waited in the 70-seat bar area of the 6,500…
Falling Idols
What is it about being an American Idol that turns the most talented among us into freaks, addicts, or worst of all, has-beens? Before you think I’m talking about Justin Guarini, the Fox TV show runner-up, think again. I’m talking about an actual American Idol, the disintegrating “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson. Smell the Elvis…
The Turkey Wars
Juicy, tender, white meat turkey; tangy, acidic cranberry fruit explosion; warm, cornbread stuffing bathing in salty giblet gravy. Mmmm, all these flavors equal sheer, home-cooked Thanksgiving bliss, but the same comforting flavors wage war with wine. What to drink when so many flavors are mingling on your tongue? Well, anything you want if you plan…
Feed Willy
The editors of the New York Times will never forget Willy Stern. Stern’s Business Week story about how two consultants bought their way onto the NYT bestseller list disgraced the paper before the entire nation. Because of Stern’s no-holds-barred investigative reporting, the Times changed how it compiled the list. When he wrote for Forbes, Stern…
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.…
Mandate Schmandate
Republicans, local, state and national, have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Through almost no effort of their own, they managed to sweep offices from the US Senate to our own county commission. I’m not downplaying any of the candidates (well, perhaps a few of them), but we all have to face the fact…
Flying Solo
“My body’s weak but my mind is strong and I am tired for I have come a long way…” sings Chris Robinson on “Silver Car” from his first solo effort, New Earth Mud. And let it be known that the former lead singer of the long running group the Black Crowes sings the truth, especially…
The Blotter
Babysitter Gone Bad: After a night out, two parents returned to find that over $520 was missing from their home. There was no sign of forced entry and the only person with access to the money was the babysitter. The cash was taken from “the top of the sofa in the dining room” — kind…
A Little Night Music
Throughout the 90s, First Night On Earth’s Wes Grasty had pursued his love of atmospheric, post-shoegaze rock. Formerly the lead singer of Laburnum, a band that forever hovered right below the cusp of getting signed, Grasty left that band to pursue his own muse, resulting in a few one-off electronic tracks. After a long hiatus,…
News of the Weird
Decaf, please: Even with a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez is having trouble attracting pancreatic-cancer patients for his Columbia University study (only 25 of 90 slots filled), perhaps because the treatment’s most prominent component is twice-a-day coffee enemas. A Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center doctor called the regimen “ludicrous,” but…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 11.27 Bellglide / Filmschool — The Bellglide crew recently sent a nice little four-song live EP that shows the band continuing to improve as a live act, nicely balancing vocalist Slappy’s high moan with a bubbling rhythm section. The sound could perhaps use a bit more grease on occasion, but the meat is there.…
