Who would have known a prequel series to a reboot of a movie based on a book based on a hoax would boast some of the most delightful big-budget horror filmmaking in recent memory? The Annabelle series is one that should not work; kids, spooky dolls and overexplained mythologies are typically the undoing of any […]
Everyone knows at least one protest song. There’s Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” which American Songwriter magazine says is “arguably more popular than our national anthem”; Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”; Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”; Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”; Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”; Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind”; […]
Moby & The Void Pacific Choir More Fast Songs About The Apocalypse (Mute) There may be a buncha riots going on, but on Moby’s More Fast Songs the apocalypse is personal, and it feels less like Armageddon than a sleepless night spent sifting and cycling through dire thoughts that are universal, but banal for that. […]
Longing to escape the bright, hot, cheery sunshine? Violet Crown Cinema welcomes you into the dark by way of the first installment in its Summer in Paris film series. Focusing on crimes of passion and anchored by Panique, the 1946 murder mystery starring Michel Simon as a loathsome Peeping Tom framed for murder by the […]
Sing along as 40-plus Charlottesville kids perform with theater pros in Broadway at The Paramount. Guest actors include Jennifer DiNoia (currently Elphaba in Broadway’s Wicked), Tony Gonzalez (former dance captain for Mamma Mia!) and Matthew Steffens, a UVA graduate who has performed in everything from Broadway musicals to film and television (including an appearance on […]
The Chris Robinson Brotherhood began as a Los Angeles band that just wanted, in Robinson’s words, to “have a good time.” All in the name of having fun, the former Black Crowes frontman created a bluesy, quintessentially Californian psychedelic jam sound that central Virginia can’t get enough of. Five albums in, the Brotherhood stops by […]
Whether you’re looking for an empathetic evening out with your goth teen or the days of UHF TV channels, The Addams Family: A New Musical is sure to engage the quirkiness in us all. The familiar setup of trying to appear normal is channeled through song (begin earworm theme now) as a teenage Wednesday Addams […]
The push for greater representation in cinema, both in front of and behind the camera, is sometimes derided as an academic one that places statistics ahead of quality, of checked boxes over realism. What these critics miss is that representation means greater diversity of perspectives. People of different races, nationalities, genders, religions and sexual orientations […]
It began in a crowded Richmond parking lot. Local novelist Erika Raskin had an appointment to re-enroll in the master of social work program she had begun at VCU, and couldn’t find a parking space. As she drove in circles something shifted within her. She laughs and says, “I was like, ‘You know what? Screw […]
The Stevens Good (Chapter) The Stevens are from Melbourne, Australia, sharing a member with Twerps and sounding pretty similar. They invoke classic Aussie/New Zealand indie heroes like The Clean, cut with Pavement and Guided by Voices (and on “Purple and Grey,” Syd Barrett). It’s almost suspicious how effortlessly the 18 songs on Good unfold, but […]