The creative crowd funding series Charlottesville SOUP, based on a model created by The Garage founder Kate Daughdrill, launches at The Bridge PAI.
ARTS Pick: Downton Abbey Season 3 Premiere
British steel The snarky, gossipy family and the conniving house staff you know and love are returning to T.V., and to the Paramount. The theater kicks off 2013 with a screening of the Season 3 premiere of “Downton Abbey.” The show will broadcast on the jumbo screen, and there’s a ticket option for a reception [...]
ARTS Pick: Cody Purvis
Pick up tuner According to Cody Purvis, you can’t have too much of a good thing, except maybe “Too Much Truck.” The soulfully deep-voiced 18-year-old is country through and through, capturing the outlaw spirit of Merle Haggard and the contemporary energy of Toby Keith. His tunes bounce with charisma, and at 6’5″ Purvis is a [...]
Danny Barrale
05/22/2013 9:00 pm Danny Barrale Fellini’s #9, Charlottesville VA
Film review: Django Unchained
Spaghetti southern: Django Unchained is a lawless, violent romp marked by stellar performances First, the cynical: One wonders whether making a movie that takes place in the pre-Civil War American South is Quentin Tarantino’s way of getting around criticism for using the n-word. Second, the straight-up: Django Unchained is loads of fun. For years, I’ve railed [...]
Single vision: Steve Snider views the world through Golden Glasses
Steve Snider laughed when I asked him to list every Charlottesville band he’s played in over the years. “There’s like, more than a dozen,” he said. “I’m not totally sure I can even name them all.” Among the most memorable are the jangling indie-rock of the Fingerpainters, the yelping keyboard-punk of Cataract Camp, the anthemic [...]
January’s First Friday Exhibits
First Friday is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues.
ARTS Pick: Micah Goska
Micah Goska hosts the release party for his first solo record, The Blue Sessions.
Album reviews: 3 Doors Down, Maggie McClure & Shane Henry, Rachael Yamagata
Brian Palmer writes Tunes, a bi-weekly music column that reviews current releases.
Film review: This is 40
There’s a lot going on in writer-director Judd Apatow’s This is 40, including bickering siblings, failing businesses, grand theft, and one or two big surprises. Perhaps this is Apatow’s achievement: He’s made a watchable movie in which the emotional content mirrors real life so closely he doesn’t need a conventional narrative. The ups and downs of human existence are plenty.
ARTS Pick: Firefish Gallery Pin Up Show
Firefish Gallery’s Pin Up Show benefits the University of Virginia’s Emily Couric Cancer Center.
Closing credits: Can the Sneak Reviews faithful revive the dying film rental business?
Sneak Reviews carries 32,000 titles, organized by country and director rather than genre, packed floor-to-ceiling on narrow shelves that have expanded to take up two floors of its Ivy Road location.
A quick guide to New Year’s Eve in Charlottesville
Whether you decide to spend your New Year’s Eve with talented student filmmakers, passionate performing artists, or rocking out to big band sounds, you’re guaranteed to ring in 2013 with a newfound love of Charlottesville’s arts scene. First Night is an annual “celebration of the arts” that began in Charlottesville in 1983 with dozens of family-friendly [...]
ARTS Pick: The Fifth Annual Rock and Roll Christmas
Welcome friends Three albums in and Sons of Bill remains true to its roots. Blending classic rock and traditional Virginian folksiness with emotional resonance, the brothers (and friends) have crafted their own sound. 2012’s Sirens opens with a quotation lifted from a William Faulkner speech, and sets the tone for a collection of powerhouse tunes [...]
ARTS Pick: Rapunzel’s 11th Annual Christmas and All Other Holidays Party
Leave a light on Paying the heat bill has never sounded so enticing as at Rapunzel’s 11th Annual Christmas and All Other Holidays Party. Whether you’re celebrating the solstice or another traditional wintry holiday, the venue pulls together with warmth at its one and only yearly fundraiser. An impressive line-up of local artists donate their [...]
ARTS Pick: Improvocalypse
Happy ’til the end You may as well go out laughing. That’s what Play On! Theatre has in mind as it invites everyone to await the end of the Mayan calendar in humor at the Improvocalypse. With troupes from all over Virginia—Bent Theatre, No Strings Attached, West End Comedy, and Found Fathers—in the house, the [...]
ARTS Pick: End of the World Party
The Jefferson is throwing a debaucherous blowout dubbed the End of the World Party.
Peter Jackson takes an unexpectedly cute approach in the first Hobbit movie
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first film in writer-director Peter Jackson’s three-part Hobbit series based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book. That means each film—and this one is just shy of three hours—tells about 100 pages of story, provided each film sticks to the events contained within those pages. Before we get any more meta, [...]
ARTS Pick: Mannheim Steamroller
Incorporating live music with stunning multimedia effects, Chip Davis’ Mannheim Steamroller Christmas has remained among the top holiday celebrations in America for over 25 years.
ARTS Pick: Christmas at the Paramount
The Oratorio Society of Virginia is nearly 50 years into its mission to enrich, inspire, and educate through the performance of choral masterworks, and it’s not slowing down in December.
ARTS Pick: The Homecoming
The Homecoming, a play by Christopher Sergel based on the book by Earl Hamner (creator of T.V.’s “The Waltons”), takes place in a familiar location—a Virginia town lodged in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Album reviews: Freelance Whales, Alyssa Bonagura, Soundgarden
Brian Palmer writes Tunes, a bi-weekly music column that reviews current releases.
Charlottesville City Limits: Local promoters’ favorite performances of 2012
Charlottesville is one hell of a music town these days. With 60-plus shows weekly, we are starting to feel on par with the heralded scenes of Athens, Asheville—and at this rate, someday…Austin! We reached out to local players in music promotion and asked them to name a show that stood out in 2012. Rodrigo y [...]