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.

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 […]

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, […]