Arts

Buck Brannaman is no ordinary horse trainer, which is unfortunate for some. Thanks to Cindy Meehl’s film about him, ordinary horse trainers now have a lot to live up to.

“Damages” Wednesday 10pm, DirecTV Channel 239 Satellite-TV provider DirecTV scores its biggest coup yet, snatching up FX’s critically acclaimed but only moderately watched legal drama as the latest in its exclusive-content offerings. “Damages” returns for a fourth season (it’s also been renewed for a fifth, to air next year) with Glenn Close returning as tough, […]

What were you doing when we called? Sleeping. You woke me up.   Tell us about your day job. I don’t have a job. Every day, I wake up, and then I write and practice lyrics for at least two hours. And then what I usually do after that is go to the Music Resource […]

“Torchwood: Miracle Day” Friday 10pm, Starz This popular spinoff of the “Doctor Who” series returns for a pseudo-reboot, with a much more American slant. That’s because this is a co-production between the BBC Worldwide and Starz, and us Yanks actually get to see it before the Brits. The sci-fi series will feature the three remaining […]

This must begin with a shameful confession, which is that the trailer for Larry Crowne made me want to see some horrible fate befall Julia Roberts. Look, I know it’s terrible. I barely even know how to hurt another person, let alone a balloon animal like the one Roberts plays in Larry Crowne. But if movies starring Tom Hanks have taught me anything, they have taught me that it’s important to do the right thing.

Regular readers of this column know that Super 8 left me cold. That film had been billed as one of the good ones. But that’s in a world—to borrow the blockbuster-trailer parlance—where “good” means predictably “shallow and sentimental.” As a grudging habitue and tiny-paycheck-collecting parasite of Hollywood excess, I know all too well that the […]

“Necessary Roughness” Wednesday 10pm, USA USA continues to crank out its female-friendly dramas with this new series about a soon-to-be divorced therapist who finds financial and professional fulfillment head shrinking a team of unruly professional football players. It’s a novel-enough concept, the pro-sports setting should provide some interesting footage, and USA has basically perfected the […]

I was sending out some coordination e-mails. I’ve been running the Charlottesville Photography Initiative since August of 2009. We’re a group of about 270 amateur and professional photographers in town, and we’re largely involved with education and community outreach.

"I am looking through images for this Charlottesville City schools website, compiling new pictures to go up on the site. I teach art to everyone at Clark Elementary and half the population at Greenbrier. This is my ninth year teaching."

“From writer-director J.J. Abrams,” the poster says in big letters, “and producer Steven Spielberg,” in letters just as big. That triumph of dual brand-identity marketing is the first thing people talk about, and Super 8’s salient feature.