Last Train Home opens Friday at Chelsea (see times below) Our rating: Last Train Home depicts what it calls “the world’s largest human migration,” when some 130 million Chinese migrant workers go home each winter to celebrate Chinese New Year with their families. Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan helped produce 2007’s Up the Yangtze, and his […]
Marc Maximov
Bio: Marc Maximov lives, works and rides his bicycle in Durham.
Posted inArt
The Mendacity of Hope: A liberal’s disappointment in Obama
Of course expectations were too high. Barack Obama’s ascension unleashed the pent-up hopes of liberals who’d seethed helplessly through the eight-year idiocracy of George W. Bush. Reflective, intelligent, resourceful, Obama seemed the opposite of his predecessor. It’s no wonder he was taken for a savior. However, supporters who hoped for a 180-degree turn from Bush’s […]
Posted inCulture
It’s still here (but not for much longer): last thoughts on “JP”
Magnolia PicturesSecond thoughts? So Casey Affleck finally came clean, admitting to The New York Times last Thursday that the “documentary” I’m Still Here, in which his brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix appears to abandon his acting career (and grooming habits) to try to make it as a rapper, is a fiction. Talk about a spoiler! While the […]
Posted inArt
Getting fired up to get rich at the RBC Center
It was during working hours, 8 a.m.–5 p.m., that an announced crowd of 18,000 filled the RBC arena last Wednesday. They spent part of the day batting around beach balls and boogying to arena rock, but this was no mass slacking-off; quite the opposite. Many, if not most, of the attendees had been sent by […]
Posted inArt
A terrifying global future in Gwynne Dyer’s Climate Wars
Climate Wars By Gwynne Dyer One World Publications, 297 pp. In an era marked by ever-decreasing attention spans, the problem of global warming, which requires a long view decades and even centuries into the future, has aroused a collective shrug from humankind. The Pentagon, though, has already started planning for frightening scenarios that might arise […]
Posted inArt
Dan Ariely investigates how intuitive weaknesses can be turned to our advantage
The Upside of Irrationality By Dan Ariely Harper, 352 pp. In mid-July, a crowd filled the lower level of The Regulator Bookshop in Durham beyond capacity for a talk by the Duke professor and best-selling author Dan Ariely. His new book, The Upside of Irrationality, follows on the heels of his 2008 best-seller, Predictably Irrational, […]
Posted inGuides
Aaron Greenwald expands the reach and mission of Duke Performances
The Kingsbury Manx, stalwarts of the local music scene, finished their set last Wednesday just as the heavy air of the late summer afternoon finally started to lighten. In the leafy embrace of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, a razor-thin sliver of moon crouching above the treetops, they played a languorous encore before a relaxed […]
Posted inGuides
Floors of dirt, walls of mud
Dirt! The Movie can be acquired for community screenings. See www.dirtthemovie.org for more information. The dirt floor is making a comeback and so is the mud wall. For millennia, earth in its many forms was a favored building material, and though mud wall construction may sound like an anachronism, it’s actually a remarkably durable, energy-efficient […]
Posted inGuides
Tapped examines the battle of the bottle
Tapped is available on DVD and for hosted screenings. Info: tappedthemovie.com. In one of the biggest marketing coups in history, the beverage industry has somehow managed to convince consumers to pay good money, to the tune of $5 billion in 2008, for a product that’s widely available for free (or nearly so). What’s more, a […]
Posted inFilm & Television
An ambitious slate of comic films closes N.C. Comedy Arts Festival
N.C. Comedy Arts Festival Varsity Theatre Feb. 25–27 The ever-expanding, nearly monthlong N.C. Comedy Arts Festival is entering its stretch run. After three weeks of sketch comedy, improv and standup, the new addition for this year’s fest is a week of film and video, and NCCAF founder Zach Ward has assembled an intriguing set list. […]