Mobile
Monday, October 8, 2012
News / Opinion City Council will decide fate of NoDa Mills tonight
Posted By Aileen Arreaza on Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:19 AM
The first thing Hollis Nixon said to me when I told her I was calling to ask a few questions about the NoDa Mills was, “I’m so sick of all of this, it’s been seven years.” Nixon is the president of the NoDa Neighborhood Association. The abandoned mills on the corner of 36th and Davidson streets have been a thorn in her side since shortly after she took office 10 years ago. “I just want to close my eyes and have them magically become beautiful again,” she confessed.
If only it were that easy.
- Jasiatic
- NoDa Mills
Film / Film Reviews Halloween Countdown: Week 1 Recommendations
Posted By Matt Brunson on Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 10:00 AM
(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31 Here are the films that were selected Oct. 1-7. Click on the title to be taken to the review.)
Oct. 1: Day of the Dead (1985)
Oct. 2: Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
Oct. 3: The Thing from Another World (1951)
Oct. 4: Count Dracula (1970)
Oct. 5: Cat People (1942)
Oct. 6: Homicidal (1961)
Oct. 7: The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
News / Opinion Obama, Romney and Couponing
Posted By Jarvis Holliday on Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 9:36 AM
I get coupons in the mail often, and some will have a pre-printed note on them, such as one I recently received that reads: “Postmaster: Deliver 10/1 - 10/3. Coupon expires 11/12/12.” The retailer is telling the post office to deliver the coupon to me in a timely manner, which gives me more than a month to use it. I’m undecided as to whether I’ll make a purchase by sometime in November that will save me 20 percent.
Now, I’m not typically an indecisive type of person, say like the estimated 8 percent (or fewer, depending on the varying national polls) of Americans who are undecided about which presidential candidate they’re going to vote for. It’s actually comforting to know that, by now, more than 90 percent of likely voters have made up their minds.
What’s discomforting, however, is to see how broken and dysfunctional the political process has become, in which too much is being done either too early or too late. Such is the case with this month's presidential debates.
- Wikipedia
- Decisions, decisions, decisions
Arts / Today's Top Five Today's Top 5: Monday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 9:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Oct. 8, 2012 as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
* Karaoke at Dixie's Tavern
* Manic Monday Industry Night at The Glass House at FABO
* Monday Night Allstars at Double Door Inn
* Open Mic at Jackalope Jacks
* Saving Abel and Beyond the Fade at Amos' Southend
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Film / Film Reviews Halloween Countdown: The Phantom of the Opera
Posted By Matt Brunson on Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 2:00 PM
(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925). One of the landmarks of silent cinema, this adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel was also the film that firmly cemented Lon Chaney's reputation as a superstar as well as set the stage for Universal Pictures to continue producing definitive horror classics throughout the 1930s and 1940s. If it wasn’t quite the match of the fright fests that were being made over in Europe during this decade (Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), it was certainly one of the most epic American undertakings this side of D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, with the Paris Opera and surrounding streets beautifully recreated on the studio lot and populated with that literal cast of thousands. There have been approximately a dozen screen versions of the story, but not one of the subsequent actors to essay the role of the Phantom — among them Robert Englund and Gerard Butler — came close to matching Chaney's brilliant portrayal. (Best among the runners-up was Claude Rains in the 1943 interpretation, largely playing up the tragic rather than horrific dimensions of the character.) Chaney, who also created his own makeup, is mesmerizing as Erik, the disfigured underground dweller who won't let anything stand in the way of his love for a singer named Christine (Mary Philbin). The picture admittedly suffers whenever Chaney's not around, but his string of remarkable sequences — including his unmasking at the organ and his entrance at the costume ball — make up for any shortcomings.
Arts Get your coffee fix at Discovery Place
Posted By Anita Overcash on Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 10:00 AM
If it weren't for coffee, some of us might not make it out of bed. Some say the powerful aroma alone is as functional as an alarm clock. Kicking off this month, coffee is the topic du jour at Discovery Place. Birth of Coffee may not grab your kids' attention, but it's pretty engaging if you're a caffeine junkie. The exhibit was put together by a duo — photographer Daniel Lorenzetti and author Linda Rice Lorenzetti — who traveled to five continents and eight countries to research coffee culture.
But the exhibit goes beyond the planting, harvesting, processing and shipping — it poses questions about coffee growers and producers themselves: "Are they as passionate about coffee as those who drink it?" and "What is their relationship with this intriguing bean that has traveled around the world?" The hope: that we get a better understanding of those who bring us our morning joe. $10-$12. Exhibit continues through Jan. 7, 2013. Museum hours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m.-5 p.m. Discovery Place, 301 N. Tryon St. 704-372-6261. www.discoveryplace.org.
Arts Davidson Community Players rocks the cradle
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 8:00 AM
Couples are greeting brand new bundles of joy in Baby: The Musical, but baby will not make three for all of them. All of the eagerness and trepidations are there for Lizzie and Danny, collegians who have just set up house. The situation is different for Pam and Nick, two athletic thirty-somethings who have been infertile until now.
And to get a little more real about the thrill of it all, Arlene is already the mother of three grown daughters when she and husband Alan unexpectedly learn they're expecting. After staging summer performances of Crazy for You and Rumors at Davidson College, the folks who make up Davidson Community Players return to their intimate home at Armour Street Theatre with this bouncing new musical, directed by Melissa Ohlman-Roberge. $12 and up. Oct. 7, 2 p.m., Oct. 11-13, 8 p.m., Oct. 14, 2 p.m., Oct. 18-20, 8 p.m., Oct. 21, 2 p.m. Armour Street Theatre, 307 Armour St. 704-892-7953. www.davidsoncommunityplayers.org.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Film / Film Reviews Halloween Countdown: Homicidal
Posted By Matt Brunson on Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 2:00 PM
(In anticipation of the coolest day of the year, this month-long series will offer one recommended horror flick a day up through Oct. 31.)
HOMICIDAL (1961). Producer, director and consummate showman William Castle clearly was influenced by (and often mimicked) Alfred Hitchcock, and Homicidal is such a blatant rip-off of 1960's Psycho that a lawsuit probably wouldn't have been without merit. Yet while traveling along similar lines, Castle and scripter Robb White manage to include enough originality that the shock ending still has the power to catch many viewers off guard. Unlike Psycho, this film's central blonde (played by Joan Marshall) is villain rather than victim, yet there's still a squeaky-clean heroine, her dullard boyfriend, a crotchety old woman in a wheelchair, and a soft-spoken young man. To reveal more would be criminal.
Arts UNC Charlotte takes on queasy play
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 10:00 AM
No doubt about it, How I Learned to Drive is a powder keg of a play. That's because playwright Paula Vogel presents sexual predator Uncle Peck — oh yes, he and his victim are related — with such balance and objectivity. He's a diffident, ultra-cautious fiend. That said, how long can narrator Li'l Bit go on without bluntly rejecting her uncle before we feel — as she will — that she's complicit in her own torment?
This was one queasy, uncomfortable and utterly essential evening of theater when Charlotte Repertory Theatre staged the local premiere, directed by Steve Umberger, in 1999 — a year after Vogel's script won a Pulitzer Prize. There should be little fall-off in the current edition at UNC Charlotte, where it plays at the cozy Black Box Theatre through October 14. If you've seen Joe Rux at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte in recent years (Southern Rapture and Santaland Diaries), you're already confident that Peck is in good hands, and he's directed by Lon Bumgarner, a two-time CL Theaterperson of the Year. $6-$14. Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 10-11, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 12-13, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 14, 2 p.m. UNC Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd.
Film / Arts Spirits rise for new film series
Posted By Matt Brunson on Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 8:00 AM
In time for Halloween — and beyond — the University of North Carolina Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library have teamed up to present Spirits Rise: A Ghost Film Series, a program inspired by two books by UNCC Department of Theatre professor Dr. Mark Pizzato (Ghosts of Theatre and Cinema in the Brain and Inner Theatres of Good and Evil: The Mind’s Staging of Gods, Angels and Devils).
-
Question the Queen City: Hugh McManaway, the man behind the statue
It pays homage to a traffic director, friendly neighbor and one of Charlotte's most beloved local characters
-
Longtime dancer to leave NC Dance Theatre 3
Mia Cunningham, a dancer who has spent 18 seasons performing with the North Carolina Dance Theatre, is set to retire.
-
5 Reasons To Buy Home Insurance Policy
