The Karate Kid opens Friday throughout the Triangle (see times below) I know Ralph Macchio, and you, Jaden Smith, are no Ralph Macchio. The interminable remake of 1984’s The Karate Kid manages to re-create the original, almost scene for scene, with none of its charm and resonance. Though it might appeal to younger viewers, its […]
Zack Smith
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Posted inFilm & Television
Judd Apatow’s Get Him to the Greek
Get Him to the Greek opens Friday throughout the Triangle (see times below) Our rating: The British comedian Russell Brand’s mercurial screen presence walked off with 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall. With his unruly hair, thick eyebrows and lanky frame (he resembles an anorexic caveman), Brand offered a mixture of naughtiness and innocence missing from modern […]
Posted inArt
Raleigh Little Theatre’s Songs for a New World
Songs for a New World Raleigh Little Theatre Through May 22 “I’m not trying to philosophize/ I just want to tell a story,” sings one of the characters in Raleigh Little Theatre’s production of Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World. The offbeat collection of songs and characters offers plenty of philosophy in its […]
Posted inArt
A.D.D. Theater’s Spring Loaded
Spring Loaded A.D.D. Theater @ Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre, UNC Campus Through May 22 A.D.D. Theater’s Spring Loaded opens and closes with a song parodying the theme to Gilligan’s Island, which gives you an idea of the topicality of this sketch show. Drawing inspiration from some solid sources, including a cover of a Flight of […]
Posted inCulture
Stalking the Norris: The Bloody Cinema of ActionFest
The bullet-ridden, blood-splattered poster outside Carolina Cinemas Asheville declares ActionFest “the film festival with a body count.” Indeed, over the next few days I’ll see about every possible way for a human being to be shot, impaled, exploded or receive a roundhouse kick to the head on camera. A few efforts might even be Oscar-worthy, […]
Posted inArt
Burning Coal Theatre’s Gee’s Bend
Gee’s Bend Burning Coal Theatre Through May 2 Told in slices of life linked by gospel songs over the better part of the 20th century, Gee’s Bend offers a window into a unique community. But while it puts people over history, Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder’s play sometimes obscures the significance of its subject. Set on the […]
Posted inCulture
A conversation with famed children’s book author Lois Lowry
Neil GiordanoLois Lowry On the phone from Boston, Lois Lowry calls her latest novel The Birthday Ball a “silly little book,” wonders if she should have expanded the last section of her novel The Giver, and asks if the new crop of children’s and young adult authors have rendered her obsolete. Her modesty is hardly […]
Posted inArt
Raleigh Little Theatre’s Our Town
Our Town Raleigh Little Theatre Through April 25 The shadows seem to be creeping into Grover’s Corners in Raleigh Little Theatre’s production of Thornton Wilder’s seminal Our Town. There’s always been an elegiac quality to Wilder’s work, but it’s often overshadowed by the play’s sense of nostalgia. In this production, that wistfulness is balanced by […]
Posted inArt
NC Theatre’s Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella NC Theatre Through April 18 North Carolina Theatre’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella adapts a play with a complicated history. Originally produced as a live TV musical in 1957 with Julie Andrews, it was produced again for TV with Lesley Ann Warren and a new book in 1965, then once […]
Posted inArt
One-time Tar Heel writers Peter Hedges, Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce talk about their work
It’s been a quarter of a century since Peter Hedges graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, a period that’s seen him become an enormously successful screenwriter, director, playwright and novelist who’s worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest A-list talent. But he can still recall the midnight runs to the Krispy […]
