AltWeeklies Wire
Confessions of a loyal Southern Charm fannew
I love Southern Charm. There, I said it. Reality television shows have the tendency to be either really good or really bad, with the majority falling into the latter category.
Charleston City Paper |
Dwayne Green |
04-30-2014 |
TV
Summer movie preview of the good, the bad, and the hopefulnew
Here's a look at the next four months of your movie life.
Charleston City Paper |
Dan Hudak |
04-30-2014 |
Movies
The Grand Budapest Hotel may not be Wes Anderson at his deepestnew
As fascinating — and maddening — as it can be watching the arguments that emerge between the fans and detractors of any given filmmaker, it can be almost more fascinating watching fans argue amongst themselves.
Charleston City Paper |
Scott Renshaw |
03-19-2014 |
Reviews
The best of Sundance 2014 didn't take their subjects too seriouslynew
For 11 days in Utah's mountains in January, not a flake of precipitation fell on the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. And the cheery blue skies could not possibly have been a better match for the mood of the festival's best films.
Charleston City Paper |
Scott Renshaw |
01-29-2014 |
Movies
Twelve Years a Slave tells the story of one man's abduction into slaverynew
Uncomfortable as it may be, McQueen skips the history lesson and achieves a visceral experience that will surely be known as the definitive moral rendering of an era that should only be recalled with remorse and shame.
Charleston City Paper |
Tom Meek |
11-07-2013 |
Reviews
Michael Apted talks Appalachia, documentaries, and authenticitynew
Feature films, documentaries, television — you name it, director Michael Apted has done it. The British-born, critically-acclaimed director has accrued an extensive body of work that includes such disparate and impressive credits as Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorky Park, Bring on the Night, Gorillas in the Mist, episodes of the HBO series Rome, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Charleston City Paper |
Colleen Glenn |
08-21-2013 |
Movies
CIFF goes beyond screenings for an all-inclusive film experiencenew
Get ready, Charleston. If the organizers behind the Charleston International Film Festival achieve their goals, our little town may one day be home to a film festival on the scale of Tribeca, Sundance, and Cannes. "We want to be the biggest, best festival on the East Coast," says board member Margaret Ford Rogers.
Charleston City Paper |
Erica Jackson Curran |
04-24-2013 |
Profiles & Interviews
Local filmmaker gets into Indie Grits with Reednew
Dorian Warneck's mother Petrea is an oboeist, and like many oboeists, she makes her own reeds. Carving tools, lacquers, and cane shavings were a normal sight during his childhood, so Warneck never thought twice about his mom's craft.
Charleston City Paper |
Susan Cohen |
04-18-2013 |
Profiles & Interviews
Park Chan-Wook's thriller delves deep into psychosexual territorynew
That's when Chan-Wook takes over, and it's a bloody, hallucinogenic marvel.
Charleston City Paper |
Jake Mulligan |
03-21-2013 |
Movies
Killing Them Softly is a hitman allegory about the Great Recessionnew
Killing Them Softly, the new crime caper thriller from writer/director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford), is set in 2008, during the height of the panic over the U.S. financial collapse and the run-up to Barack Obama's election. I mention this because you might miss that crucial bit of subtext if you're not paying close attention to the excerpts from Obama's election-night speech that are included during the jaggedly edited opening sequence. Or during the centerpiece heist sequence. Or five minutes later when someone has the car radio on. Or pretty much every time anyone in this movie is listening to a radio or watching a television.
Charleston City Paper |
Scott Renshaw |
11-28-2012 |
Reviews
Tags: Killing Them Softly
Ang Lee's Life of Pi is more of a spectacle than a storynew
The credits introduce us to the title character's lush home, an Indian zoo run by his family. His mother is a spiritualist, while his father preaches the importance of science and tough love.
Charleston City Paper |
Jake Mulligan |
11-21-2012 |
Reviews
Spielberg's Lincoln humanizes the legendary presidentnew
When you hear that Steven Spielberg directed an Abraham Lincoln biopic, you get an image in your head of what it must look like: overtly sentimental, grand in scale, and more about idealized hero worship than anything else. The famed director's historical dramas tend to be maudlin affairs, custom-made for history classrooms, and no doubt Lincoln will be shown to many a middle school over the ensuing decades.
Charleston City Paper |
Jake Mulligan |
11-14-2012 |
Reviews
Tags: Steven Spielberg
Horrific Hilaritynew
These horror films were never meant to be funny... but they are.
Charleston City Paper |
Kevin Young |
10-24-2012 |
Movies
The Mechanics of Time Travel Sren't Really the Point of Loopernew
Pay attention to Rian Johnson, because he's trying to tell his audience how to watch his deliriously effective science-fiction thriller Looper. He does it when Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)—a hired killer in the year 2044 whose job it is to slay people sent back from 30 years in the futur—talks to his crime lord boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels).
Charleston City Paper |
Scott Renshaw |
09-26-2012 |
Reviews
The Unchained Tour's Peter Aguero talks about life on the busnew
It took only three days for the 1972 Blue Bird school bus to break down on the Unchained Tour's last jaunt in February. The vehicle, which transports a cluster of kooky storytellers and musicians to venues around the South, still had a ways to go. While most of the performers went ahead in a van, the bus perpetually lagged behind the rest of the day.
Charleston City Paper |
Susan Cohen |
09-19-2012 |
Profiles & Interviews
