They sing, they dance, they act

“In the Motherhood” Thursday 8pm, ABC This new sitcom started its life as a series of webisodes starring Leah Remini, Chelsea Handler and Jenny McCarthy. Unfortunately, none of those women are attached to the network TV version, which instead features Megan Mullaly (“Will & Grace”), Cheryl Hines (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), and Jessica St. Clair (“Best […]

Take a tour of Starr Hill! [with video]

The Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society hosts tours every Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, March 22, Starr Hill neighborhood was the featured area. About 20 people attended the tour, led by Bess Kane. It began at the Jefferson School parking lot on Fourth Street, continued to Fifth and Sixth streets, down Main Street across the bridge […]

Capsule Reviews

12 Rounds (PG-13, 108 minutes) A vengeful, psycho ex-con (Aiden Gillen) kidnaps the fiancée (Ashley Scott) of a New Orleans cop (John Cena), then orchestrates a dozen spectacular physical challenges through which he might win her back. Renny Harlin of Die Hard 2 and The Long Kiss Goodnight directs. Opening Friday Confessions of a Shopaholic […]

Booking your schedule

Never one to judge a Festival of the Book by its cover, C-VILLE compiled a handy online guide to some of the trends and tastier events that ruffled our pages. For a complete list of events, venues and times, visit vabook.org. But for a quick jaunt through literary ecstasy, read on! Wednesday 3/18 If history […]

Close encounters of the cute kind

Two young aliens arrive in Las Vegas, and right away they’re on the run—from the American government and from a paramilitary assassin sent by the government of their homeland to kill them. By chance they rely for safe passage on a gruff but decent taxi driver, himself with an unhappy past, who reluctantly becomes their […]

Reduce, reuse, recycle

“Better Off Ted” Wednesday 8:30pm, ABC More “Dilbert” than “The Office,” “Better Off Ted” follows Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington), a nice-guy single dad who is the director of research and development for Veridian Dynamics, a morally questionable business that creates, say, gourds that double as WMDs, and isn’t above creating the world’s most soothing hemorrhoid […]

Capsule Reviews

Confessions of a Shopaholic (PG, 112 minutes) When used in moderation, shopahol can enhance the joy of life. But for Isla Fisher, as a young, suddenly popular advice columnist in New York City, moderation might not be an option. Who knows, maybe debt-reduction rom-com based on Sophie Kinsella’s chick-lit bestseller is just what’s called for […]

Is Watchmen really unfilmable?

What’s truly amazing about Watchmen, the much-anticipated film version of writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons’ much-adored graphic novel, is how forcefully the movie negates the book’s two most basic, strangely symbiotic intentions. Instead of subverting superhero tropes and satirizing Cold War endgames, it blandly and reflexively endorses them.   Human after all: The […]

Reduce, reuse, recycle

“The Chopping Block” Wednesday 8pm, NBC This cooking competition is essentially a pastiche of several previously existing reality shows. From “The Restaurant,” we get the premise of examining what goes into opening a restaurant in New York City, but in this case it’s two competing, neighboring restaurants. From “Hell’s Kitchen,” we get the overbearing British […]

Capsule reviews

Confessions of a Shopaholic (PG, 112 minutes) When used in moderation, shopahol can enhance the joy of life. But for Isla Fisher, as a young, suddenly popular advice columnist in New York City, moderation might not be an option. Who knows, maybe debt-reduction rom-com based on Sophie Kinsella’s chick-lit bestseller is just what’s called for […]