UVA professor of Architecture and past Charlottesville mayor Maurice Cox spent Monday out in Detroit helping officials plan the future of the city’s downtown district.

Cox’s suggestions took into account Detroit’s unique identity, including development plans in which its sports teams and musical history were crucial components. Hopefully they’ll take them to heart, as Cox’s accomplishments as both architect and as a politician give him significant experience on both sides of the red tape.

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In yet another Dave Matthews/Coran Capshaw success story, the duo’s ATO Pictures wowed the audiences and the studio fat-cats at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, January 27 with their feature film Joshua, staring Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga. In fact, by Monday, ATO had inked a deal with Fox Searchlight Pictures for $4 million.

“We found out we got into Sundance the Tuesday before Thanksgiving,” says ATO executive producer Temple Fennell. “Then we found out we got the 8:30 Saturday night screening…which was the perfect time.”

Joshua, an original script by novelist David Gilbert and director George Ratliff, tells the story of a brilliant and precocious 9-year old, played by Jacob Kogan, who wreaks psychological havoc on his family, especially his father (Sam Rockwell) and mother (Vera Farmiga), after the the birth of a new sister. As one online reviewer describes it, “it�s a total horror film in the vein of The Omen, but without the supernatural elements, it�s all very realistic and plausible.

“Not to spoil too much, but you should expect to see many poisoned animals, parents being driven to the point of insanity, and many attempts at killing a baby. This is the film to show your wife or girlfriend if you want to convince her to never have children. It�s frightening as all hell, but also a wonderful drama about a child feeling neglected and dealing with it in the most evil bizarre way.” (more)

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The father of one of the teens imprisoned last year during the Albemarle school bomb scare plans to testify tomorrow in Richmond in support of a bill that would ensure that all juveniles interrogated without a parent get a video of the session.

“We’re living proof that it really made a difference,” says the boy’s father, who says he believes the interrogation video shot by Albemarle police was key in convincing a jury that his son had no knowledge of any conspiracy.

“They kept trying to lead him, kept trying to get him to admit something, to say what the other child said was real when he knew it wasn’t real,” says the father.

Unlike at least two of the other three defendants, who ultimately accepted some (more)

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Lawyers in Greene and Madison counties gave a thumbs up to Charlottesville General District Court Judge Robert Downer to succeed Albemarle Circuit Court Judge Paul Peatross, who retires tomorrow. That makes the second bar endorsement Downer has snagged.

In early January, the Charlottesville Albemarle Bar Association picked Downer and former prosecutor Cheryl Higgins as “highly qualified” for the judgeship out of seven candidates that include Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos.

The latest endorsement emerged from the January 22 meeting of Madison-Greene Bar Association, which sent its unanimous endorsement of Downer, 58, to the delegates and senators representing the 16th Judicial Circuit. Whether those legislators (more)

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In just over a week, the noise level in the normally serene confines of UVA’s Darden School of Business will rachet up a decibel or ten when CNBC’s catchphrase-coining, prop-loving, chair-throwing stock analyst, Jim Cramer, comes to Charlottesville for a broadcast of his hit show, Mad Money, the latest stop on his “Back to School” tour. The bulls-and-bears-fest happens at the Abbott Center Auditorium on February 7.

Known for his hyper-animated persona and trademark quips like “booyah!” and “Other people want to make you friends, I just want to make you money!” Cramer is (more)

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Local fans of iconic blues guitarist B.B. King had reason for panic. The legendary musician, who has a sold out show at the Paramount Theater coming up on February 18, was hospitalized last Thursday due to a bout with the flu — which, at 81 years old, is nothing for the Grammy award winning maestro of vibrato to mess around with.

King was admitted to the University of Galveston hospital in Texas, causing him to miss his Thursday and Friday night performances at a Galveston concert hall. The venue’s manager noted that King was intent on playing at all costs until a doctor ordered him to take the night off. He was released on Saturday afternoon and will resume his tour on Tuesday in Fort Worth with the doctors’ blessings.

“He is still going to play the 18th of February,” says Jamie Sisley, an executive with Starr Hill Presents, the Charlottesville-based promoter of the performance, a sold-out benefit for the Jefferson Area Board for Aging. Opening act is wunderkind Eli Cook.
King has a well-known history of hypertension and diabetes. He starred in a series of television commercials for LifeScan blood glucose monitors several years ago. Family members were particularly worried because of complications that might have arisen from those conditions.

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