Oct 19-26, 2016

Oct 19-26, 2016 / Vol. 30 / No. 35

Jack Reacher: Never Go See It

JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK *1/2 DIRECTED BY Edward Zwick STARS Tom Cruise, Colbie Smulders It’s a shame Popstar arrived in theaters first, because a better title for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back would have been Jack Reacher: Never Stop Never Stopping. Here’s Tom Cruise once again showing he has no intention of issuing a…

Matt Brunson

Keeping Up with the Joneses: Actors outpace plot

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES **1/2 DIRECTED BY Greg Mottola STARS Zach Galifianakis, Jon Hamm So is the new comedy Keeping Up with the Joneses unwatchable because it cruelly wastes the efforts of a solid cast, or is it watchable because a solid cast blessedly saves it from itself? That’s the question du jour when…

Matt Brunson

Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (Oct. 20)

Election Season 2016 A 30-year-old man from the Cotswold area suffered every ride-share customer’s worst nightmare last week when he got into an Uber car with someone who was rearing to talk a little politics. The man later told police that his Uber ride was rolling along E. 7th Street when he and the driver…

Ryan Pitkin

Farmer Fare

We’ve now entered peak food season, when the diversity of produce from the garden or farmers market is at its greatest. With just a few exceptions, all of the summer produce is still available, while the fall bounty has begun to appear. The fridge is full of fresh veggies and possibility, and the kitchen is…

Ari LeVaux

Not your same old vampire

When J. Sheridan Le Fanu serialized Carmilla in 1871-72, Count Dracula wasn’t even a gleam in Bram Stoker’s eye. Yet a quarter of a century later, when Dracula became the paradigm for modern vampire literature, Stoker himself acknowledged that Le Fanu’s most famous novella was a part of that gleam. So after a steady sprinkling…

Perry Tannenbaum

Shonen Knife stays sharp after decades of rock

In 1981, three female office workers in Osaka, Japan, inspired by the punk rock sounds rumbling out of Britain and America, started their own band. Over buzz-saw guitars, pumping bass and ricocheting drums, Shonen Knife — consisting of Naoko Yamano, her younger sister Atsuko and Michie Nakatani — burst on the indie-music scene, singing with…

Pat Moran

Matt Hylom’s My Own Anxieties EP

Local musician Matt Hylom (who we covered in more lengthy detail in our July edition) has finally released his debut EP. It’s a soothing pop, electronic and acoustic medley that’s solid over the course of five tracks. The album opens with “Look to the Stars,” a track that mixes electronics and acoustics, as well as…

Anita Overcash

Weekly horoscope (Oct. 20-26)

For All Signs: Warning! This is an election preview. If you are sick of politics, then move on to your Sun sign below. I have studied the horoscopes of the primary candidates for President. (I am not offering a personal choice, but merely reporting the astrological symbols.) It amazes me that one of the important…

Vivian Carol

How will we define leadership in Charlotte following the Charlotte Uprising?

I wasn’t in Charlotte in late September, when the protests began. Like so many whose op-eds made the next day’s news — and the next day, and the day after that — I could only offer words, tweets, opinions and prayers to help give an ailing city some semblance of solidarity. The dissent and turmoil…

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