A.R. Rahman The Jai Ho concert RBC Center Sept. 29 A.R. Rahman’s multimedia spectacular, the Indian equivalent of Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball, rolls into Raleigh for one last American tour date before he opens the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. We spoke to Rahman last week, and he told us that his double Oscar win for […]
Laura Boyes
Posted inFilm & Television
UNC grad shows new feature at Galaxy
Raspberry Magic Galaxy Cinema Opens Friday Writer-director Leena Pendharkar, a UNC graduate, will be in the area this weekend to discuss her feature film Raspberry Magic, which will be playing a regular engagement at the Galaxy Cinema. Her film is targeted to young people, and it concerns a girl and her 6th-grade science fair project […]
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Mao’s Last Dancer blooms in America
Mao’s Last Dancer opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: We meet Li, the title character of Mao’s Last Dancer, as he’s plucked out of his village in rural China and placed in an elite Beijing arts academy. Although he was reluctant to leave his village, Li’s superb dancing skills bring him […]
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Another take on the Coco Chanel story
Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: If Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky have sex, is the 20th century born? That’s what director Jan Kounen seems to be proposing in Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, his tantalizing, but ultimately disappointing tableau. The film opens on one of […]
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Our Family Wedding is a Hollywood wedding disaster film
Our Family Wedding opens Friday throughout the Triangle Nobody falls for the “wedding that heals society” plot harder than I, but once uttered, some bad words cannot be taken back. Such is the case with Our Family Wedding, a rebooted Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner that amounts to a racist rom-com for a supposedly postracial […]
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Make way for Bollywood
My best of the decade comprises joyful movies I’ve watched five, 10 times or more. There is no day so drear that one of these films cannot improve it. 1. Bunty aur Babli (2005), a Bollywood caper comedy directed by Shaad Ali Saigal, tops the decade. Bunty (Abhishek Bachchan) and Babli (Rani Mukherji) extract revenge […]
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It’s Complicated is a baby-boomer rom-com
It’s Complicated opens Friday throughout the Triangle Jane (Meryl Streep) and Jake (Alec Baldwin), the couple at the center of It’s Complicated, pride themselves on their civilized divorce: Jake is now married to his tawny mistress, Jane runs a folksy bakery and, as far as we can tell, their three grown children experienced their split […]
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Coco Before Chanel needs a stylist
Coco Before Chanel opens Friday Chanel was a fashion revolutionary. Her simple, comfortable designs emphasized not the man-admiring feminine adornment but the woman who wore the clothes. Inspired by masculine tailoring, nuns’ habits and sailor jerseys, she democratized 20th-century styles, proving that comfort and chic could coexist. The person who did that must have been […]
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Whip It!
Whip It! opens Friday throughout the Triangle Role models for girls are hard to find in mainstream movies. Easy to find: brainless hotties, victims and uptight control freaks looking for love. Then there’s Juno, but Ellen Page’s breakout film was a conundrum: Diablo Cody’s writing was sharp and funny, but unprotected sex and then pregnancy? […]
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A marvelous, unabashedly nostalgic trip back to Woodstock
Taking Woodstock opens Friday throughout the Triangle The ’60s hadn’t quite reached White Lake, N.Y., at the start of that decade’s last summer. Elliot Teichberg (Demitri Martin) restless but dutiful, has returned to the El Monaco Motel, his parents’ grubby summer holiday camp in the Catskills. Again, he’ll try to parlay his position as the […]