When Boyd Tinsley set out to make Faces in the Mirror, it was more of a calling than a choice. After years of plotting out film projects in casual conversation, the ideas that formed his first feature came fast and furious. “Making a movie is something that I’ve thought about doing since the mid-’90s,” said […]
There’s a moment in Not Fade Away, the new film by “The Sopranos” creator David Chase that’s screening as the opening night feature at the Virginia Film Festival, that will simultaneously cause a chill to walk up your spine and a smirk to slide across your face. That reaction is well-known to fans of “The […]
The mark of a truly superlative Halloween costume is commitment. Sure, you can get by with a half-hearted zombie nurse, but tame decisions beget tepid treats. Let’s say that you get your band together and tog up like legitimate music legends—now you’re getting somewhere.
If you have been a fan of folk or Americana music at any point during the past decade, the chances are good that you have heard Tift Merritt’s arresting vocals, beautiful musical arrangements, and insightful lyrics. Merritt has been casting a spell on audiences and critics since day one, but on Traveling Alone she demonstrates that she is not above tossing out a few surprises.
You know you’ve got a good film festival, like this year’s Virginia Film Festival, when it gives you a sense of the world seeming small and large all at once. Small for having gathered so many mini-worlds in one place; large for, well, the overall largeness they collectively imply. Bearing in mind that films made […]
First Friday is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com. First Friday exhibitions: BozArt Gallery 211 W. Main […]
The phrase “calm like a duck” comes to mind. It is late September, 11 days before the announcement of the lineup for this year’s 25th Anniversary Virginia Film Festival, and festival director Jody Kielbasa and his staff are scrambling to pin down films and featured guests. Kielbasa is a pretty high-octane guy. Former Virginia Governor […]
Award-winning vocalist Natalie Cole has refreshed standards out of the Great American Songbook from Sinatra and her own father, Nat King Cole. With boundless vocal dexterity and a wealth of soulful emotion behind her lyrics, Cole is on tour supporting 2009’s Still Unforgettable, which harkens back to her ’91 Grammy Award for Album of the […]
Country megastar Eric Church operates in threes. Hat, sunglasses, and stubble are his distinctive on-stage accoutrements. Blood, sweat, and beers are not only a lifestyle for the devout Church-goers who come to his concerts, but the name of his record-breaking arena tour. Chief, his recent platinum album, is his third studio output. Church seamlessly weaves […]
Stanley Ann Dunham falls in love and marries a Kenyan student in the early ’60s. She struggles through a second marriage to a corrupt civil servant in Indonesia, and comes through it to work in anthropology and assist poverty-stricken women in third world countries. All the while she is raising the 44th President of the […]