The Intern★★★ Now playingNancy Meyers is a one-woman show. The writer-director of Something’s Gotta Give and It’s Complicated is known for tightly controlling every aspect of her films, going so far as to personally fill each side table with vases of fluffy peonies and roses to evoke a sense of manicured luxury. Her consuming attention […]
Kathy Justice
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Movie review: Saint Laurent, a biopic of the French designer, is a visual feast of excess and fashion
Saint Laurent★★ ½ Now playing There is plenty to appreciate about director Bertrand Bonello’s flamboyant, kaleidoscopic fever dream of a biopic of Yves Saint Laurent (played by lookalike Gaspard Ulliel). It’s a mesmerizing depiction of the esteemed French designer’s agonized grasp for all-consuming beauty and creative genius, and it plays out like a tragic love […]
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Movie review: Meet a remarkable pianist who gave up the limelight in Ethan Hawke’s documentary Seymour: An Introduction
Seymour: An Introduction ★★★ ½ Opening Friday If J.K. Simmons’ turn as Whiplash’s acerbic music teacher stripped away your faith in all the pleasure and beauty found in playing music, then Seymour: An Introduction will be a restorative salve. As indicated by its title, this sweeping, emotionally rich documentary is devoted to Seymour Bernstein, an […]
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Movie review: David Cronenberg serves a visceral Hollywood satire with an ounce of compassion in Maps to the Stars
Maps to the Stars ★★★ Now playing Bruce Wagner is a screenwriter, producer and director whose specialty is highlighting Shadowland’s ugliest flaws and skewering its narcissistic stars. David Cronenberg is both revered and (by some) despised for illuminating human brutality and the body horrific on the big screen. Put them together and you get Maps […]
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Film review: A terrifying pop-up book comes to life in The Babadook
THE BABADOOK Opening Friday The debut feature from Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent is a haunting tale of suburban paranoia that sticks with you after the credits roll. The Babadook is the stuff of dark fairy talesliterally. The titular monster is introduced when the widowed Amelia (Essie Davis) and her young son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), search […]
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Halloween special: Ouija movie taps into childhood terrors
Ouija★★Now playing When I was growing up, my mother warned me against toying around with the board game Ouija. Modeled after the infamous “talking boards” used for interviewing the dead in the late-19th century, the game was first produced by Parker Brothers before Hasbro picked it up in its present-day form. It seems that my […]
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Ben Folds still writes his (older) life into his songs
You know Ben Folds: Perhaps you hung out with him in Chapel Hill 10 years ago, bought him a beer or maybe vice versa. It’s possible you saw him play with his band, Ben Folds Five, or tried unsuccessfully to get him on a local compilation back in the day. Perhaps, though, you watched and […]
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General Store Café expands to attract
Oh, the sounds of progress: It’s 3 p.m. on a sleepy, early spring afternoon in Pittsboro, and the hum of cars down Main Street is punctuated by the staccato drum of a nail gun and the crack of a hammer swung against wood. The pops come from the General Store Café, where co-owners Joyce and […]
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Liam Finn’s “Second Chance”
Listen! Download Liam Finn’s “Second Chance” (5.7 MB) or stream it below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. A melancholy masterpiece that seems to breathe its own sorrow, Liam Finn’s “Second Chance,” from the Yep Roc release I’ll Be Lightning, builds on guitar loops and analog fuzz. Finn, […]
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James Dunn
Listen! If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. On his second album, James Dunnthe Raleigh singer/songwriter CMT described as “one of America’s top unsigned artists,” for what that’s worthfinds himself aiming for heartland rock and mostly landing. His voice is a dust-covered croon, comfortable and familiar like an old […]