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Monday, June 27, 2011
Film / Film News / News Beginners trailer
Posted By Laura Camilo on Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 2:00 PM
Director Mike Millis took the inspiration for this plot from his own life. The film tells the story of Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and his relationships, especially the one with his dying, recently out-of-the-closet father (Christopher Plummer). Opens this Friday, July 1.
Boomer with Attitude House Speaker Tillis lampooned in new 'movie'
Posted By John Grooms on Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 1:18 PM
Here’s one of the coolest things we’ve seen lately. OK, it's cool for political geeks, but hey ... It’s a movie – or, rather, a “movie” — made by James Protzman of the BlueNC website, using a text-to-movie site. In the video, a semi-robotic sounding guy who says his name is Thom Tillis, Speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives, “explains” the three main goals of the recently ended, GOP-dominated session of the state General Assembly. Watch it for your own amusement, but our favorite Tillis "explanation" is about Republican goals as they relate to their big cuts in education spending: “As we look to the future, school performance will eventually get so shitty that you all will finally go along with my plan to privatize education completely.” It’s simple, really, isn’t it? Here’s the video:
Film / Film News / News Opening This Week
Posted By Matt Brunson on Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 12:52 PM
Tuesday:
Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Shia LaBeouf, Frances McDormand
Friday:
Larry Crowne - Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts
Monte Carlo - Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester
Arts / Today's Top Five Today's Top 5: Monday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 9:45 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, June 27, 2011 — as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
• Cult Movie Monday: Screening of Shock Treatment at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte
• Find Your Muse open mic at The Evening Muse
• Borgone at Neighborhood Theatre
• Trivia Night at Mellow Mushroom
• Chubby's Karaoke at Dixie's Tavern
Friday, June 24, 2011
Arts 3 in 1 theater reviews
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 4:58 PM
Just when I wanted to throw up my hands in despair, CPCC Summer Theatre has recovered its old pizzazz with The Will Rogers Follies. With our Tech of the Year Bob Croghan back on the job, they’ve remembered how to design and build a set. With triple-threat Theaterperson of the Year Billy Ensley portraying the beloved Cherokee-rancher-philosopher-comedian, CP is back to doing what they do best, filling the stage with dancers and tapping their fool heads off. Better than that, they’ve even managed to exorcise the gremlins from their sound system.
The Peter Stone book is more than a little weird. Building on Rogers’ fame as a key cog in the Ziegfeld Follies, he creates a Follies show telling the story of the superstar’s life with Rogers himself returning from the grave to play the title role. Florenz Ziegfeld is up in the soundbooth, occasionally chipping in with stage directions, and famed transatlantic pilot Wiley Post is in a balcony box, periodically inviting Will to go flying with him. We learn fairly early, if we didn’t know already, that the two flying buddies perished together in a crash up in Alaska.
Film / Film Reviews Bad Teacher: Cameron Diaz's class act
Rating: **1/2
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 3:33 PM
By Matt Brunson
BAD TEACHER
**1/2
DIRECTED BY Jake Kasdan
STARS Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake
It's no Bad Santa, but Bad Teacher brings just enough naughty behavior to the table to make it a decent watch for viewers tired of PG-13 timidity.
Film / Film Reviews Cars 2: License to thrive
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 3:33 PM
By Matt Brunson
CARS 2
***
DIRECTED BY John Lasseter
STARS Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy
Think of Pixar as a person instead of a studio. Imagine it as Clint Eastwood.
Film / Film Reviews / News Incendies: Fiery Canadian drama
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 3:32 PM
By Matt Brunson
INCENDIES
***
DIRECTED BY Denis Villeneuve
STARS Lubna Azabal, Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin
Of the four 2010 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominees to have played Charlotte — the fifth, Algeria's Outside the Law, seems unlikely to reach our city at this point — Canada's Incendies ranks as the only one remotely worthy of the prize (the actual winner was Denmark's so-so In a Better World).
Boomer with Attitude / News Bravo to Gov. Perdue for Voter ID veto
Posted By John Grooms on Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 3:27 PM
Hooray, congratulations, kudos, thank you and thumbs-up to Gov. Bev Perdue for vetoing the egregious, unneeded, invasive and anti-democratic Voter ID bill passed by the New Bosses in the state legislature. The law would have required all N.C. voters to produce a photo ID before being allowed to vote. The main problem with the Voter ID law is that it is designed to solve a problem — widespread voter fraud — that, considering available documented facts (as opposed to Tea Party conjecture), is nearly nonexistent. (As we wrote months ago.)
Here is how common and widespread voter fraud has become in Charlotte-Mecklenburg: In the 2008 election, more than 400,000 votes were cast in Mecklenburg County — the most in its history; County Board of Elections Public Information Manager Kristin Mavromatis said that out of those 400,000-plus votes, a whopping eight instances of possible voter fraud were reported and investigated. "Of those eight instances, all but one were mistakes due to poll worker error, not fraud on the voters' part," explained Mavromatis. "And the one that could have been construed as voter fraud was a 95-year-old lady who, it seems, was taken to early voting by a relative, and then taken to vote again on Election Day by someone else. And those eight were a lot; we normally have one or two instances per election."
Statewide, the numbers are much the same. Investigations by the N.C. Board of Elections found that from 2004 and 2010, a mere five votes per million cast involved fraud that would have been preventable by a voter ID. Voter ID supporters say they don't believe those figures, preferring to trust in cold, hard hearsay. The law, in reality, has little to do with fraud, and everything to do with suppressing vote totals among some traditionally Democratic constituencies who are more likely than others to need to get a new ID: the poor, students, the elderly, people of color, and the disabled. The GOP was distraught when Obama won the state in 2008, and they are bound and determined to keep it from happening again, even if it means putting roadblocks in the path of certain voters. Voter suppression is one of several new GOP tactics being used nationwide, along with gutting social programs, attacking women’s reproductive health programs, and wrecking public schools in favor of private ones. Thanks to Perdue, N.C. may at least avoid the politically inspired debasement of its elections by the GOP’s strong-arm tactics. A veto override is still possible, but less likely than the override of Perdue’s veto of the GOP-passed budget.
News Help the Catawba Riverkeeper win a car
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 9:41 AM
One day only: On Fri., June 24, you can help our Catawba Riverkeeper win a Toyota. (For real!)
It's part of Toyota's 100 Cars for Good contest, held on Facebook ... which means you have to have a Facebook account to vote. (Boo.)
The auto company has narrowed down the field of contestants to 500, so 20 percent will win. They're giving away those 100 cars over 100 days, and have assigned specific days to vote for different groups. Today is the Riverkeeper's day.
And, let me tell you, the organization could use a new car. Currently, David Merryman, our Riverkeeper, uses his own car to drive to public meetings and to watchdog the river — which starts near Asheville and ends in South Carolina (the water eventually ends up in the Atlantic Ocean) — and the river's watershed. With that, you can imagine that his odometer reading is sky-high.
From the Riverkeeper:
We have a great chance at winning a new vehicle that can tow boats and kayaks throughout the Catawba River basin for our youth programs and pollution response activities, but we need your vote and your help in spreading the word about voting.Vote for Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation at http://apps.facebook.com/carsforgood
And in response to privacy concerns, he wrote this in an email to his supporters:
Q: What if I don't want to click 'allow'?A: Clicking "allow" at the Cars for Good program let's them look at the information that is available to view by "everyone" on your profile.
- If you are already using a Facebook application or playing a Facebook game such as Survey/Questionnaires about your friends or Farmville, you need not worry about the next bullet - just VOTE CRF tomorrow.
- If you would not like to share information with Cars for Good, you don't have to - simply update your privacy settings to "Friends only" or "Friends of Friends only" or "Customize" your account privacy before clicking "allow" on the Cars for Good application. Once you have made these changes, click "allow" and go vote for Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation tomorrow.
From Toyota:
Winning organizations can choose from the following vehicles: Toyota Prius, Tacoma, Tundra, Highlander Hybrid, Sienna, or Sienna Mobility. With each vehicle, Toyota Financial Services will provide a six-year 100,000 mile Toyota Vehicle Service Agreement to help provide extended protection from mechanical breakdowns beyond the vehicle warranty.
