courtesy of New Video Considering the volume and variety of family-friendly animated films that come down the pike, it’s curious that they all offer essentially the same movie-watching experience: A kid-friendly story with kid-friendly jokes, the occasional stealthy double entendre aimed at parents, and varying levels of animated wizardry. With the good stuff, you’ll get […]
Glenn McDonald
Posted inFilm & Television
An unreliable narrator in the unsettling documentary The Imposter
The Imposter opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: Talk about your unreliable narrators. The unsettling documentary The Imposter tells the bizarre story of French con man Frederic Bourdin, who, in 1997, impersonated a missing Texas teenager and lied his way into the United States. Bourdin not only fooled European cops, U.S. […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Ben Affleck’s directing career continues to impress with Argo
Argo opens Friday throughout the Triangle (see times below) Our rating: On Nov. 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran, taking 53 hostages and instigating an international crisis that would play out for more than a year. Six Americans managed to escape the siege and take refuge in the home of a […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Catherine Keener, aging hippies and Misunderstanding
courtesy of IFC Films In the romantic comedy Peace, Love and Misunderstanding, new to DVD and Blu-ray this week, Catherine Keener plays Diane, a stressed out Manhattan attorney who retreats to her hippie mom’s house in Woodstock when her husband asks for a divorce. Diane brings the kids as well, college student Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen) […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie is a triumph of visual design
Frankenweenie opens Friday (see times below) Our rating: A loving variation on the old boy-and-his-dead-dog story, director Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie is a gleefully macabre kids’ movie and a triumph of visual design. You’ll see some things here you’ve never seen onscreen before. By working simultaneously in three distinctive cinematic formats3-D, black-and-white and stop-motion animationBurton has […]
Posted inArt
The ArtsCenter’s fun and fast-paced 44 Plays for 44 Presidents
44 Plays for 44 Presidents The ArtsCenter Through Oct. 7 Just in time for election season, The ArtsCenter in Carrboro has mounted the fun and fast-paced 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, a collection of staged shorts concerning history, politics and the U.S. executive branch. Beginning with George Washington, 44 Plays addresses the presidents in succession, […]
Posted inArt
Burning Coal’s spiky Jailbait
Jailbait Burning Coal Theatre at Murphey School Auditorium Through Oct. 7 In Jailbait, a spiky drama playing at the Murphey School Auditorium as part of Burning Coal’s Second Stage series, high school sophomores Claire and Emmy decide to play dress-up and sneak into a 21-and-over dance club. Their planbarely thought throughis to get drunk, flirt […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Dirty jokes, Danish bacchanals and Klown
courtesy of Drafthouse Films The comedy of the idiot man-child has been a running theme in American movies of late, with an endless parade of films celebrating the joys of perpetual adolescence. The 2010 Danish hit KLOWN, new to DVD and Blu-ray this week, proves that the trend isn’t a strictly American phenomenon, and there’s […]
Posted inCulture
DVD+Digital: Sex, death and Steve Martin
courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment This week’s Cognitive Dissonance Double Feature begins with THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, a twisty and postmodern horror movie from writer/producer Joss Whedon and his posse. New this week to DVD and Blu-ray, the film has been available via select video-on-demand for a while following its theatrical run this summer. […]
Posted inArt
Raleigh’s SPARKcon arts fest opens up
SPARKcon Sept. 13-16 Downtown Raleigh Raleigh designer Aly Khalifa realized that he had reached a landmark of sorts earlier this year. He was on the other side of the globe, and people wanted to know about SPARKcon, the unique street festival he helped found in 2006. “I was on a fellowship this year, traveling through […]
