There’s a story about “Jack and the Beanstalk” in which Jack trades a cow for some magic beans. He gets the beans wet, they grow into a beanstalk that reaches into the sky, and Jack and a rabbit battle a giant with a speech impediment who wants to grind their bones to make bread.
ARTS Pick: Corey Harris & The Rasta Blues Experience
With a trademark appreciation for the timeless sound of traditional blues, Corey Harris & The Rasta Blues Experience celebrate the release of Fulton Blues.
East side story: Nashville anti-hero Todd Snider goes electric
Todd Snider lives on the other side of the tracks from the Music City establishment. It’s in his attitude as much as his address. With a reverence for Americana in its many forms, and a delivery that can mirror the wry wit of early Dylan or the earnest twang of John Prine, Snider tells humorous tales of sketchy characters and uses thought-provoking wisdom from the dive-bar underbelly to rail against what ails him.
The Taming of the Shrew
05/19/2013 2:30 pm The Taming of the Shrew Four County Players, Barboursville VA
Comedy writer repurposes a vintage sci-fi script for live performance in “Radio Raygun”
“Originally it was the idea of taking an old science fiction premise that wasn’t very good, and using it as a basis for sketch comedy,” Jones said. “But then I found this movie, that had everything I wanted.”
ARTS Pick: Bent Theater Improv
Bent Theatre goes all the way—with a bit of “Saturday Night Live,” a dash of “Whose Line is It Anyway?,” a touch of “MadTV,” and plenty of other side-splitting schticks.
ARTS Pick: Another RoadSide Attraction
Hailing from Roanoke, Another Roadside Attraction has the uncanny ability to envelope audiences in its strange carnival atmosphere.
Film Review: Amour
A loving married couple, Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges, (Jean-Louis Trintignant), both retired music teachers in their 80s, find their marriage taking a markedly different turn when Anne suffers a stroke. At first, Anne is able to retain something of her former self. She’s confined to a wheelchair, but has control of one side of her body.
R.I.P. Bruce Willis
Let’s begin with an end. The end of Bruce Willis, that is. I went to see A Good Day to Die Hard,the fifth Die Hard, last week at the Regal Stonefield 14 theater. (Side rant: The Stonefield theater is great; Stonefield’s layout isn’t.
ARTS Pick: Ashley McMillen
Local singer/songwriter Ashley McMillen is proving that inspiration combined with perspiration breeds success.
March First Fridays Exhibits
First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com. First Fridays exhibitions: March 1 Angelo 220 E. [...]
Thurston Moore keeps thrashing in his latest project, Chelsea Light Moving
Wasted on the young Art rock legends Sonic Youth tentatively called it quits in 2011, but the band’s key members have remained characteristically busy with the usual slew of side projects and collaborations. Guitarist/singer Thurston Moore’s newest group, Chelsea Light Moving, is backed by a band of his protégés and collaborators, including Keith Wood of [...]
Fast forward: Second Street Gallery celebrates 40 years of contemporary art for the people
“Perhaps we aren’t being controversial enough,” Steve Taylor, the director of Second Street Gallery, joked during a recent interview after explaining that no one had walked out of a show in a huff recently. Beneath the joke lay the inherent tension in Taylor’s job: Second Street’s mission for the past 40 years has been to [...]
Worst. Oscars. Ever.
Each year we think the Oscars can’t possibly be worse than the year before. And then each year, it’s so much worse than the year before (except last year; nothing will ever out-worse Billy Crystal and his non-eyebrows). Straight up: I will pay for the next Academy Awards ceremony if they bring back Franco and [...]
ARTS Preview: Horsefang
Saturday night’s line-up at the Tea Bazaar is an unusual but promising mix. After several years of dormancy, Horsefang have returned, and their dusty, instrumental doom-metal riffs seem as vital as ever. They’re joined by Mike Gangloff, whose career oscillates between two unlikely poles: the rural twang of Appalachian traditionalism and the mind-expanding drones of [...]
ARTS Preview: Weird Mob
Friday night is the live debut of Weird Mob, but the bands’ members may look familiar to Charlottesville concert-goers; the towns’ most adorable power-pop power-couple, Dave Gibson and Renee Reighart, previously played together in the now-defunct Hilarious Posters, and have also helped fill out the line-up of Adam Brock’s Borrowed Beams of Light project, all [...]
ARTS Pick: Notes on High
Faith lift Get on board the soul elevator with Kiss FM’s Chucky Hayes of “Total Praise with Chucky Hayes” fame as he hosts Notes on High, a Gospel Showcase. This night of inspirational music features four local choirs sending up a variety of praiseworthy tunes as they carry the torch of gospel tradition forward. The [...]
ARTS Pick: Oscar Experience: Charlottesville
Dream category If you thought the Oscars were out of reach, think again. The Virginia Film Festival is offering a chance to get in the running for your own Oscar prize. The glitz, the glam, and an abundance of Hollywood-inspired dishes crafted by Glass Haus Kitchen come out at this year’s fourth annual Oscar Experience: [...]
Film Review: A Good Day to Die Hard
When did the demon dogs of hell stop merely influencing movie stars and studios and begin pulling the strings? To reiterate the inescapable point, A Good Day to Die Hard is a piece of shit.
Breaking the chrysalis: Whistler’s early work reveals non-conformist beauty
The butterfly of “Becoming the Butterfly,” The Fralin Museum’s current exhibition of etchings and lithographs by James Abbott McNeill Whistler refers to the stylized butterfly that Whistler used to sign his work and the exhibition.
Album reviews: Fiction Family, Trixie Whitley, and Sandra McCracken
Brian Palmer reviews the latest releases from Fiction Family, Trixie Whitley and Sandra McCracken.
Interview: Black Francis
Enigmatic Boston musician “Black Francis” played a leading role in the ’80s alternative rock scene. Art, darkness and angst defined Francis’ career with The Pixies and the solo years as Frank Black (and Frank Black and the Catholics) as did his unique, ranting howl vocals.
ARTS Pick: Paula Poundstone
Catty lady If you can’t quite place Paula Poundstone, try imagining her with a red brick wall behind her while she dishes out a brilliantly composed cat joke. There’s also a pretty good chance you’ve heard her yucking it up as a regular panelist on NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.” Poundstone holds the honor [...]




















