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Monday, October 22, 2012
Arts / Today's Top Five Today's Top 5: Monday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 9:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Oct. 22, 2012 as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
* Gwar at Amos' Southend
* Open Mic Night at Jackalope Jacks
* Monday Night Allstars at Double Door Inn
* Karaoke at Dixie's Tavern
* Find Your Muse open mic at The Evening Muse
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Film / Film Reviews Halloween Countdown: Slither
Posted By Matt Brunson on Sun, Oct 21, 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.)
SLITHER (2006). While this horror yarn offers gore by the bucketful, it’s also in the spirit of those enjoyable, us-against-them monster yarns that ran rampant from the 1950s straight through to the mid-1980s. Starting out as an "invader from outer space" opus (think The Blob) before switching gears to become a quasi-zombie flick (think Night of the Living Dead), the film involves a gelatinous E.T. that turns hicksville businessman Grant Grant (Michael Rooker) into its agent of evil on earth. The master plan eventually involves a mass assault by hundreds of slugs that take over humans' bodies by entering through the mouths; naturally, the entire planet is doomed unless double-Grant's wife (Elizabeth Banks) and an amiable sheriff (Nathan Fillion) can figure out a way to shut the otherworldly operation down. Slither takes its time getting started, but once it does, it never lets up, throwing blood, slime and one-liners (some woeful, most of them witty) at viewers with feverish abandon. Banks is touching as the wife who doesn't comprehend why her husband has morphed into a human squid. The worst part of the picture is the unnecessary coda tacked on after the closing credits have run their course, so be sure to turn off your player before then.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Film / Film Reviews Halloween Countdown: Phenomena
Posted By Matt Brunson on Sat, Oct 20, 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.)
PHENOMENA (1985). Even folks who don't generally like movies that can broadly be categorized as "gore" or "slasher" flicks should be able to get a kick out of the works of Dario Argento, the Italian filmmaker whose oeuvre has inspired countless budding filmmakers and thrilled audiences held captive by his mastery behind the lens. Phenomena represents as good a starting point as any. In between her film debut in 1984's Once Upon a Time in America and her breakthrough role in 1986's Labyrinth (and long before her Oscar-winning performance in 2001's A Beautiful Mind), 14-year-old Jennifer Connelly toplined this absolutely loopy yarn in which a lonely American student at a Swiss boarding school is revealed to possess a strange hold over all insects. Can she use her powers to catch the serial killer who's been bloodily offing the school's nubile young girls? Formerly making the rounds under the moniker Creepers (and usually in an edited version), this engaging oddity — Argento's favorite of all his own films — also finds room for a heroic, razor-wielding chimpanzee, a deformed kid who bears an eerie resemblance to Chucky, and veteran actor Donald Pleasence as a kindly entomologist prone to making grandiloquent declarations about bugs.
Friday, October 19, 2012
News Emotional scene in courtroom as Chris Radok's murderer pleas guilty
Posted By Lynn Farris on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 4:48 PM
If a man was simply judged alone by the quality of friends he leaves behind, then Chris Radok was certainly great and mighty.
Just five days after friends and family of the former CL photographer filled Tremont Music Hall to celebrate his life and work at the second annual Radok Fest, many of them packed into a Mecklenburg County courtroom on Thursday for the arraignment of his accused killer, Antoine Young.
- Jacqueline Heer
- Radok
Film / Film Reviews Weekend Film Reviews: Alex Cross; Beauty Is Embarrassing
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 4:27 PM
- Summit Entertainment
- Alex Cross
Click on the title to be taken directly to the review.
News Question the Queen City: The school teacher’s fountain
Posted By David Aaron Moore on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 3:33 PM
Editor’s note: In this series, local author David Aaron Moore answers reader-submitted questions about historic places in Charlotte. Submit inquires about unusual, noteworthy or historic people, places and things to davidaaronmoore@post.com.
Several years ago I lived a few blocks from the Elizabeth neighborhood and often walked my dog in Independence Park. He always stopped for a few laps of water at a stone fountain near the corner of 7th Street and Hawthorne Avenue. One day I noticed a plaque with a woman’s name on it and a few lines indicating she had died while trying to save a child sometime back in the early 1930s. I’ve asked a few people around town if they knew the story, but so far, no answers. Do you know any details? — Victoria Westbrook, Charlotte
The monument you’re referring to was constructed in late 1931 in Independence Park as a memorial for Lillian Arhelger, a teacher and physical education instructor at Charlotte’s old Central High School, now part of the Central Piedmont Community College's campus.
Arhelger’s story is a mix of heartbreaking heroism and horrifying tragedy. In short, she died while attempting to save a young girl from dying at Glen Burney Falls in Blowing Rock.
Arts Pearls raises domestic violence awareness through art
Posted By Anita Overcash on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 3:00 PM
A quick peek at the portfolio of local photographer Sandra Guynes of Hip Chick Photography (www.hipchickphoto.com) reveals impressing shots of cuddly newborn babies. But Guynes is versatile in the directions she points her lens. Her photographs range from colorful, celebratory shots of babies and couples to darker, poignant portraits of domestic violence victims.
The latter collection of new works, specifically snapped for Pearls (www.pearlscharlotte.org) — an organization utilizing art as a means of healing and expression for female victims of abuse and domestic violence — will showcase with accounts from victims in an exhibit at Pearls: Personal Encouragement and Renewal Ladies Soiree on Oct. 20 at Synergie of Wellness.
The organization, created in July by Guynes and Lissette Torres of Synergie of Wellness, will provide monthly art-driven programs starting in January 2013. Guynes, who is a victim of violence, said her inspiration for creating the organization came from her own struggles to find a supportive haven where she felt comfortable recalling her experiences.
“I felt that being an educated professional or having any kind of status made it seem like it was a dirty little secret or something that I couldn’t talk about. There was no place for me to go. The shelter had a certain stigma to it and I couldn’t really talk to my family,” says Guynes.
News QNotes blasts local elected officials who attended Day of Atonement
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 2:59 PM
QNotes is blasting some local elected officials for attending the Nation of Islam's celebration of the Day of Attonement in Charlotte this past weekend, asking several, including openly lesbian Council member LaWana Mayfield, why they won't condemn NOI's leader, Louis Farrakhan.
- Dennis Brack/Newscome
- Farrakhan speaks at the Million Man March on Oct. 17, 1995
Film / Film Reviews Halloween Countdown: Horror Express
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, Oct 19, 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.)
HORROR EXPRESS (1972). Also known as Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express, this Spanish-British co-production managed to build a sturdy cult following during the 1980s — it still deserves that standing, thanks to a crafty premise and the presence of two genre superstars. Set at the start of the 20th century, this stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as rival scientists who team up once a monster long frozen in ice breaks loose on the Trans-Siberian Express and starts murdering the crew and passengers. There's much more to the film than this deceptively simple synopsis — should I drop a hint that a dinosaur makes an appearance? — but part of its allure is that it takes all manner of detours, both fun and far-fetched. Telly Savalas appears briefly as a thuggish Cossack, and there's a suitably loopy turn by Robert De Niro look-alike Alberto de Mendoza as a fanatical priest. It's always a pleasure to see Lee and Cushing perform together, and here they're especially ingratiating, with Lee projecting authority and Cushing getting off some amusing quips — when someone suggests that one of them might be the monster in disguise, he retorts, "Monster? We're British, you know!"
Arts Theater reviews: Baby the Musical and How I Learned to Drive
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 1:13 PM
Despite its saccharine title and rubber ducky logo, Baby the Musical turns out to be mostly substance and not at all the pabulum you might expect — particularly when it’s being done by Davidson Community Players. Nor are there any offstage eruptions of colic, maternal cooings, baby bassinets, or drowsy early-morning bottle feedings. The three couples who share the stage at Armour Street Theatre actually don’t do any parenting at all. It’s all about what happens before the blessed event in Sybille Pearson’s suburban-flavored book.
Arlene and Alan McNally are empty-nesters, who are thinking about selling their home now that the kids are gone, when they get the news that the frisky celebration of their freedom has yielded the traditional biofeedback. At the other end of the age spectrum, Danny Hooper and Lizzie Fields have plenty of time left on their biological clocks. Too much time, we assume, since Lizzie gets the news while she is still a college sophomore — and she’s not jumping at Danny’s marriage proposal. In between are Nick and Pam Sakarian, two rather athletic people watching the time on their biological clocks run down with no children to show for their efforts.
As varied and true-to-life as those storylines are, they might still devolve into sugary goo were it not for the music of David Shire and the lyrics of Richard Maltby, Jr., more in the manner of Stephen Sondheim than Barry Manilow. So for the most part, I’m drawn in to the various trials of these three couples — largely because, for the most part, director Melissa Ohlman-Roberge has found a strong cast and kept the cutesiness on short rations.
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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
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The Hangover Part II: Buzz kill 7
No use crying over spilt sequel.
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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.
