Culture Extra

A local spin on Record Store Day

Ask vinyl enthusiasts what’s special about their collection—and then order another drink because you’re in for a passionate lesson on record-bin diving, rare releases, cover art, reissues, mint ratings, analog vs. digital audio superiority, and the nuances of the recording and pressing process.  Every year, on the third Saturday of April, audiophiles get their own […]

Tami Keaveny | April 15, 2026

Culture Feature

The Virginia Film Festival brings filmmakers, stars, and audiences together for a five-day celebration of cinema

Big-deal film fests are synonymous with location. Toronto, Telluride, Cannes, and Sundance evoke industry accolades and red-carpet credentials. Our own Virginia Film Festival has gotten pretty buzzy over the years, with marquee names, tentpole previews, and movie deals cut on the Downtown Mall. The VAFF has become “one of the nation’s leading regional film festivals […]

Tami Keaveny | October 22, 2025

Arts Culture

Actor, director, and producer Matthew Modine appears at the 37th annual Virginia Film Festival

Birdy, November 1, The Paramount Theater I Hope This Helps!, November 2, Violet Crown 3 From his first film, Baby It’s You, directed by John Sayles, to his recent role as Dr. Martin “Papa” Brenner in Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and a star turn in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Matthew Modine’s accomplishments in film, television, and on stage define the range […]

Tami Keaveny | October 30, 2024

Arts Culture

No blank pages

Shannon Spence awoke to her calling as a cartoon artist while pursuing a fine arts degree focused on printmaking at University of Virginia. In her fourth year, she took a course in sequential art–and she saw her future. “I realized what incredible potential comics were as an art form, and it just clicked for me,” […]

Tami Keaveny | June 12, 2024

Arts Culture

David Crosby is still speaking out against the madness

David Crosby passed away on January 19, 2023. In tribute, we are reposting our interview with him, originally published May 30, 2018. Naming someone a “voice of a generation” may be cliché, but when applied to David Crosby, there’s nothing trite about it. After founding The Byrds with Roger McGuinn in 1964, he left to […]

Tami Keaveny | January 19, 2023

2021 Best of C-VILLE Staff Picks

Side by side

Sometimes it’s a side dish that makes a place special. That’s the case with Otto Turkish Street Food’s rosemary fries. The menu is loaded with good stuff, but it’s the long slim cut of yellow potato, fried to a crispy gold exterior and dusted with a palate-pleasing mixture of salt and minced fresh rosemary, that […]

Tami Keaveny | August 25, 2021

Culture Living

Opening eyes

Late afternoon light pours into The Ridley’s stylish dining room through tall street-facing glass walls, warming a dark-wood interior accented by copper features and splashes of UVA orange. Sitting in a booth, chef Robert Anglin is shy, and calm, even though service starts in just two hours. The upscale restaurant opened its doors on April […]

Tami Keaveny | May 19, 2021

Arts Culture

To hell and back

Years before the 2020 pandemic, artist Michelle Gagliano developed a fascination with Dante’s Inferno and set out to interpret each of the poem’s 34 cantos through one painting per week. She completed the project, and exhibited it in 2017. But as the virus and social and political unrest escalated this spring, the work called her […]

Tami Keaveny | November 25, 2020

Arts Culture

Get closer

Mixed-media artist Brielle DuFlon’s work speaks of comfort in bold ways. Imagine putting on your favorite sweater, wrapping up in a fuzzy blanket, or donning a lacy garment. DuFlon takes those emotional aesthetics to a textile reality in her show, “huddle,” at New City Arts. Using repurposed and reclaimed materials, DuFlon’s dramatic pieces are a […]

Tami Keaveny | October 28, 2020

Arts Culture

PICK: Lola Flash

Action shots: Photographer Lola Flash’s art and activism are inextricably connected. For decades her work in genderqueer visual politics has challenged stereotypes and preconceptions about gender, sex, and race. Her exhibition “salt” is part of the Seeing Black: Disrupting the Visual Narrative Speaker Series, and captures women who are over 70 and still thriving in their […]

Tami Keaveny | October 14, 2020