In Full Bloom
If the screen version of White Oleander was an Olympic event, it’s hard to tell which of the movie’s four actresses would end up winning the gold. A powerfully performed drama that steadily works its way toward a satisfying wrap-up, this adaptation of Janet Fitch’s best-selling novel offers complex roles to its quartet of leading…
Sex in The Queen City
Men have always had a reputation for fearing commitment. They cringe when a longtime love wants to venture through the jewelry stores to look at diamond rings, and they get nauseous when they see their partners staring longingly at every baby carriage that wheels past in SouthPark on a Saturday.Men also ferociously refer to themselves…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES BROWN SUGAR As far as I’m concerned, Brown Sugar is nothing if not aptly titled, seeing as how my review for director Rick Famuyiwa’s previous film, 1999’s The Wood, dismissed it as “a movie so light and sugary that it could easily be mistaken for an artificial sweetener.” His follow-up feature is equally…
Stargazer
For All Signs Venus, goddess of love, is retrograding through November 20. Many of us will be pressured to encounter ourselves and our personal behavior within the framework of our relationships. Those in shaky attachments may withdraw altogether. Dormant issues may resurface for attention. We have a tendency to “go back” to previous relationships or…
The Amazing Story of the Fabulous Moolah
I drive through a big open gate and pull in next to a monstrous blue Cadillac. Beyond the main residence is a pond with small rental properties dotting the shoreline, along with milling clusters of geese and ducks. A tire swing drifts back and forth in the warm breeze. The expansive, 40-acre estate in a…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: You know what I do for fun? I like to walk along the sidewalk and if I happen upon a parking ticket that someone has stupidly thrown away, I write a nasty note to the traffic court and drop it in a convenient mailbox. What do ya think of that idea?– Isle…
City Sports Building Scorecard
When it comes to minor league baseball for Charlotte, the questions are these: who is willing to step up to bat, and when they’ll be willing to play. Ask people in the know whether the Charlotte Knights will play in a new stadium in Charlotte and you’ll get a lot of different answers. Questions remain…
Angels In Laramie
Last Saturday, exactly four years after Matthew Shepard breathed his last, Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte presented the most moving — and disturbing — of tributes to the slain U of Wyoming student, Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project. In a town where feathers were so absurdly ruffled over Angels in America, you couldn’t find a more…
Franklin Freeman Autopsy Released
After Franklin Freeman tangled with an off-duty vice officer in January, the events surrounding his life got increasingly bizarre. The circumstances of his June murder, which occurred just five days before he was scheduled to testify at a suspension hearing for a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer, are no exception.Last week, Freeman’s autopsy was finally released by…
Rushdie Triumphant
For Salman Rushdie, a death sentence liberates the tongue and the pen, eliciting verses upon verses, satanic and otherwise. Consider his opinion of organized religions. “They may,” he writes, “at some point cease to feel like the texts in which human beings have tried to solve a great mystery and feel, instead, like the pretexts…
Avoiding Smelly Creeks
There was a time when Mecklenburg County residents were the last to know if there was raw sewage in the creeks and streams in their neighborhoods.Now, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities (CMU), when a spill occurs, residents won’t have to go further than their front doors to learn about it. CMU will begin notifying county residents…
Lost In Space
The best part of The World of Regional Latin American Visual Artists, currently on view at Spirit Square, is almost lost amid a sea of white paper in a display case against a far wall. This series of pieces of jewelry by Claudia Gonzalez-Griffin, crafted of garnet and peridot, citrine, amethyst, silver and gold, is…
Tyler And The Ta-Ta’s
Last Tuesday, Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre was packed and stacked with nearly 20,000 rock fans, young and old, who’d come to check out Aerosmith and Kid Rock. And with it being a capacity crowd, you know what that meant: lines — everywhere you freakin’ turned, if you could in fact turn around. Put it this way,…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music The Charlotte Symphony Pops with Linda Eder Eder returns for her second performance with the Charlotte Symphony Pops. Conductor Albert-George Schram will lead the concerts, which will feature an evening of standards, Broadway hits and selections from Eder’s most recent recordings. Oct. 25-26, 8 p.m. $15-64. Ovens Auditorium, 2700 E. Independence Blvd. 704-372-3600.…
Channel 9 keeps it local
This I know is true. If a newsroom actually cheers when a new boss is announced, it’s a rare thing, but that’s exactly what happened recently, when longtime staffer Robin Whitmeyer was promoted to news director at top-rated WSOC-TV. Whitmeyer is also unusual because she’s been there for 20 years, and has worked her way…
Cape Mart
Eating Monkey Gland sauce may sound like a challenge in Fear Factor. But this popular South African sauce is completely vegetarian, a fruity “bone suckin'” style barbecue sauce. This is not to say that South Africa does not have food components that lend to the scary. A dish known as Mashonzha has the Mopani caterpillar…
Letters to the editor
Left-Brained Town Thank you very much for the article (“Be Creative or Die,” October 9) and for Tara Servatius (a treasure). I better understand now why I am so much more fired up about an outdoor whitewater park than most of the other “innovations” in our fair city. It’s different, and exciting, and it’s cool.…
Wine Frenzy
If you’ve ever wandered around any wine country, you’ve noticed grapes happily grow just about anywhere — in a plot next to a smoggy highway or in a crevice on a steep mountainside. But how do grapes end up as a “good” bottle of wine? Their naissance and maintenance are assuredly critical, almost as much…
Swept Away
Picture this. You’re driving across the Mecklenburg county line for the first time and you see a sign sporting the Olympic logo. It reads “Charlotte Whitewater Park, International Olympic Training Center.” Of course, you’ve seen stories about Olympic athletes living and training in Charlotte on television and read about the 300-acre park, now the heart…
Good Eats
Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th, 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. (Gastonia), 704-866-7574. A favorite…
Bowling or Doling?
The November elections are fast approaching, and, like a good citizen, I’ve been paying strict attention to the campaigning going on for Jesse Helms’ Senate seat. Not that I’ve been able to help paying strict attention. They run those radio and television spots with obnoxious frequency, so often that I find myself reciting the commercials…
The Peanut Man Goes Home
“Lord, if we had worn those jockstraps, or done half of those things we’ve been accused of, we’d all be in jail somewhere… and we never once in all those years, have used the “F” word onstage.” — Doug Clark, 1996 Doug Clark passed away last month. For 47 years, he led the infamous band,…
The Blotter
Mail-icious Act: Last week, a Charlotte woman arrived home to discover that her mail had been dumped out of her mailbox and onto the street. Upon further inspection, the woman also found a single piece of her mishandled mail torn into little pieces and strewn about. The tampering didn’t end there — the vandals also…
Idol Worship
Fox Charlotte/WCCB-TV will hold open auditions for the second American Idol series at its studios on Sunday, October 20, from 8am to 4pm. Like the first American Idol winner, Kelly Clarkson, the next winner will also win a national recording contract. Auditions are open to legal US residents between the ages of 16 and 24.…
News of the Weird
Death becomes him: England’s Mentorn production company announced in September that it was finalizing a deal with Channel 4 TV in London for a series in which a terminally ill man would volunteer for what Mentorn called the “ultimate makeover” (the postmortem reconstruction of his body in “plastination,” to demonstrate how changes could have improved…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 10.16 Jeffrey Foucault — Raised on a Wisconsin farm, Foucault is a folksy folkie. OK, that may be redundant but quite applicable for this singer who uses his rich voice and acoustic guitar to weave stories of the heartland. Townes Van Zandt obviously figures heavy in his idol dept. and Foucault has lyrical panache…
See & Do
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER16 Creative Loafing Carolina Writers Night has earned a reputation as one of the best parts of the Novello Festival. The reasons: we present some of the best writers in the Carolinas, and it’s free. This year’s lineup is one of the best yet. Lee Smith holds a rare place in the ranks of…
Sound Board
Wednesday, Oct. 16 Bankers Raw Bar 24-Jam-22 Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Cajun Queen, Pineville 7th Street Gator Band II Charleston Chops, Cornelius Kent Steel Double Door Inn Willie Brown & The Bail Jumpers The Evening Muse Jeffrey Foucault Fat City Christopher Robin & Brian Doyle JB’Z The Sweaty Head Band Lynn’s Mike Brantley…
Ghost World
Why hasn’t every single animated movie ever made blown us out of our collective seats? If there’s a film genre that qualifies as an open invitation for moviemakers to let it all artistically hang out, it would be the animated field, where writers and directors don’t have to worry about special effects proving too costly…
