Before we get into just how much Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One misses the mark, it’s worth noting that its badness has nothing to do with video games and the people who enjoy them. Critics often come down harder on movies about subcultures they disapprove of or simply haven’t taken the time to understand, which […]
Before we get into just how much Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One misses the mark, it’s worth noting that its badness has nothing to do with video games and the people who enjoy them. Critics often come down harder on movies about subcultures they disapprove of or simply haven’t taken the time to understand, which […]
Cry Cry Cry is back together, but not for long. A collaboration between established folk singers Dar Williams, Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky, the harmony-based trio formed two decades ago to release one album before members went their separate ways to focus on individual careers. The project mostly sat dormant until last summer, when an […]
Last April, A’nija Johnson walked into the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center auditorium ready to speak her truth at the Nine Pillars Hip Hop Cultural Fest’s freshman class competition. Wearing a floor-length skirt, a Tasmanian Devil “I need coffee” T-shirt and a pair of sunglasses, the local high schooler found herself in a room […]
Van Hunt Popular (Blue Note) The “great lost” album by the vastly undersung Van Hunt is no longer lost, but it’s pretty great. The Ohio savant caught notice in 2004 with his self-titled debut and Grammy-nominated single “Dust,” then took a leap forward with On the Jungle Floor, and its agile mix of soul, funk, […]
First-timers get a chance on the mic and a warm welcome from host Remy St. Clair as the Nine Pillars Hip-Hop Cultural Fest invites local middle and high school students to show up at Cville’s Freshman Class for a chance to become Charlottesville’s next breakout hip-hop artist. Last year’s winner, Zeus4K, won time in the […]
For local Parrot Heads looking to waste away again on a seashore in their minds, Jimmy Buffett brings his easy listening island tunes and beach ballads to the stage. Combining country, rock and pop, Buffett is often referred to as the “king of Gulf and Western” sound. From his start as an easygoing beach bum […]
For the past eight years, Americana road warriors The Black Lillies have been chasing success like hounds, pushing musical boundaries on tour and in the studio. The independent roots-rockers inspire with a rich mix of tight harmonies cut with country blues, but it’s the group’s chemistry that keeps it rockin’ from festivals and clubs to […]
Cigarettes After Sex formed accidentally in 2008, according to the group’s founder, Greg Gonzalez, who says he was experimenting with the dreamy, languorous sound that defines the band. A move to Brooklyn and the release of the single “Affection” resulted in millions of internet clicks, and catapulted the group to its current success with a […]
Standing in The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA, surrounded by paintings from across the 19th and 20th centuries, you notice something about the passage of time in the museum’s current exhibition, “Feminine Likeness: Portraits of Women by American Artists, 1809-1950.” There’s a subtle shift as years slip by, a transformation in the representation of […]
Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim—like pretty much all of his films, including The Shape of Water—was a tribute to the genres he loved that lack mainstream recognition, in this case a fusion of Toho kaiju monsters and mech suit anime where there is as much drama inside the suits as there is out, most notably […]