Over easy: Fifty Shades of Grey is beautiful to look at

I don’t know who or what director Sam Taylor-Johnson sacrificed to the god of false bondage, but it worked: Fifty Shades of Grey is the best film it could have possibly been given the circumstances. This is quite a different thing from saying it’s good. It’s not. At its core, this adaptation of E.L. James’ notoriously […]

ARTS Pick: Vodka Variations

UVA Drama presents an evening of “bite-size” dramas entitled Vodka Variations, adapted from short stories by Anton Chekhov. The production examines the colorful world of 1890s Russia with hilarious and heartwarming glimpses into the lives of everyday people in search of love, happiness and a strong vodka buzz as they navigate their way through their […]

The people’s diva: Renée Fleming is branching out and looking for ways to keep opera relevant

In January, Charlottesville audiences experienced Renée Fleming’s artistry on the big screen at The Paramount Theater’s HD broadcast of The Metropolitan Opera’s live performance of Lehar’s The Merry Widow. On Friday, February 20, Fleming will grace the stage in person, and while opera houses around the country are facing increasingly tough times prompting cutbacks, strikes […]

ARTS Pick: Fat Tuesday

Celebrate Fat Tuesday in style by tapping into those Southern roots. The Jazz Rascals warm up the evening with a set of Dixieland jazz. The nine-piece ragtime group performs traditional numbers by such greats as Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, and Duke Ellington. Jolie Fille takes the late stage for some rowdy Cajun Rock that’ll […]

ARTS Pick: Charlottesville Symphony

Indulge in the food of love with your sweetheart at the Charlottesville Symphony’s tribute to the romance of Shakespeare. Kate Tamarkin conducts a program chock full of starry-eyed, heartwarming works, including Mendelssohn’s “Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Prokofiev’s “Suites No. 1 and 2 from Romeo and Juliet” and the score to Oscar-winning film Shakespeare […]

ARTS Pick: Unlucky in Love

Sing and dance your Valentine’s blues away at the theme night Unlucky in Love: A Night of Outlaw Country with a Side of Garage with four of central Virginia’s rowdiest honky-tonk acts. Drunk Luke & The Broken Bottles bring some raucous country sing-alongs about frolicking, fighting, and fornicating after sets by The Upper Deckers, Paul […]

Action overload: Lack of cohesion deflates Jupiter Ascending

Every Wachowski movie, for better or worse, is a passion project. There is no theme, visual detail, character or line of dialogue to which the sibling duo does not have a deep personal attachment, from the hopeful nihilism of The Matrix to Cloud Atlas’ meditation on reincarnation and the risk and reward of realizing your […]