Cover Stories


Big year: Bruce unplugs and lots more Published on Dec 13th, 2012 0 comments The year 2012 was another big one in the annals of Charlottesville music history. It would have been news enough to have "The Boss," Bruce Springsteen in town, but it's what he did with his time in...
Person of the Year: UVA President Teresa Sullivan Published on Dec 13th, 2012 66 comments Two years ago, after Teresa Sullivan was selected as the eighth president of UVA, and the first woman to fill the role, replacing John Casteen, III after 20 years at the helm, an associate dean in...
Person of the Year: The runners up... Published on Dec 13th, 2012 2 comments UVA President Teresa Sullivan was a shoo-in for the Hook's Person of the Year, but she certainly wasn't the only one who made waves in 2012. From a certain UVA rector to a determined sheriff to an...
Season of giving: Is panhandling, vagrancy, destroying the Downtown Mall? Published on Dec 6th, 2012 57 comments The success of the Downtown Mall is a miracle in many ways. After it was completed in 1976, initially eliminating five blocks of Charlottesville's Main Street to revitalize the downtown area, it did...
Towing tales part deux: Wreckers, guns, and money Published on Nov 29th, 2012 85 comments Nicholas Rigterink may not have been seeking a fight over property rights when he went out for a mid-November dinner, but the 29-year-old Charlottesville man found one– one that ended up with...
Towing trouble: Is Lethal owner back in biz? Published on Nov 29th, 2012 6 comments Mention the words "Lethal Wrecker" around Charlottesville and chances are you'll find someone with a story. For nearly a decade, the towing operation, and its owner, George Morris, earned a...
We Love This Place: Shopkeepers, citizens dish on local holiday tradition Published on Nov 27th, 2012 1 comments The Hook's editorial staff takes a break this week from producing the hard-hitting news you've grown accustomed to (at least in the cover story), choosing instead to check in with local shop owners...
Bantam wait: Another indie theater gears up Published on Nov 12th, 2012 21 comments As Vinegar Hill prepares to duke it out with Regal cinemas for the art film market in Charlottesville, another independent art house is gearing up to open, but its co-founder says it won't be...
Bond on Bond Published on Nov 10th, 2012 15 comments The grand opening film at the biggest and most luxurious movie theater in Charlottesville was Skyfall, the newest movie in the James Bond spy series; and, appropriately, the box office faces Bond...
Featuring Charlottesville: New indie flick packed with country music Published on Nov 9th, 2012 2 comments A pair of overseas hitmen come to Charlottesville to kill musician Jim Waive. 'My Fool Heart' Playing: Paramount TheaterDate: November 17 @ 7:30pmTickets: $12-15Noted musicians: Merle Haggard, Ralph...
Flick trick? The downtown Charlottesville Regal goes indie Published on Nov 7th, 2012 19 comments Amid all the hullabaloo about the opening of the 14-screen stadium-seating Regal theater at the Shops at Stonefield, some other big Regal news seems to have escaped notice: on Friday, November 9,...
Slamdancer: Indie mensch Mirvish reveals secret society Published on Oct 31st, 2012 0 comments Dan Mirvish is getting the check-engine light on his minivan checked in Los Angeles as he's speaking with a reporter, a seemingly mainstream activity for a filmmaker known as a subversive. Mirvish co...
This property condemned: Marc Singer goes house hunting Published on Oct 30th, 2012 2 comments Actor Marc Singer’s roles have varied wildly. He has co-starred in period dramas like Roots: The New Generations. In TV’s V, he battled aliens. In the title role in The Beastmaster, he ruled the...
En garde: Carradine offers 'shocking' details from 'The Duellists' Published on Oct 30th, 2012 1 comments In The Duellists, a French Hussar (Keith Carradine) insults a fellow soldier (Harvey Keitel) during the Napoleonic Wars. For years afterward, they engage in a series of brutal duels, driven by the...
Festival origins: Founder Patricia Kluge tells how it all began Published on Oct 30th, 2012 2 comments On the 25th anniversary of the Virginia Film Festival, Patricia Kluge and former Governor Gerald Baliles both are being honored for its founding. According to Kluge, however, someone else first...
One-man band: McElwee persists in first-person documentary Published on Oct 30th, 2012 0 comments In the mid-1980s, filmmaker Ross McElwee considered shooting a documentary about General Sherman’s march through the South. And he did shoot a documentary following Sherman’s trail, but in wholly...
Rogue cinema: Boyd Tinsley makes film you can feel Published on Oct 29th, 2012 1 comments For violinist Boyd Tinsley, it's always about the music– even when the medium is the movies. In films like Star Wars, Psycho, and North by Northwest, the music creates the tension, says Tinsley...
Fat kid: Lillard's directing debut rules the world Published on Oct 28th, 2012 1 comments Some people recognize Matthew Lillard from Scream. Others know him from Scooby-Doo. Sitting in the airport in Dallas on the day he's talking to a reporter, someone tells him they just saw him in SLC...
Flick picks: What local filmmakers want to see Published on Oct 28th, 2012 1 comments The curtain is getting ready to rise on the 25th Virginia Film Festival, and there's the recurrent problem: what to see? Sometimes, it's simply too much to weed through more than 100 films for the...
Living in the shadow: As Samantha Clarke's family mourns, a suspect claims police harassment Published on Oct 25th, 2012 23 comments Every day brings fresh torment for Barbara Tinder. "I keep expecting her to walk in the door," says the 37-year-old town of Orange resident, who has spent the last two years anguished over the...
Cavalier developments? UVA buys 199-acre near-town farm Published on Oct 22nd, 2012 11 comments After two decades of dealing, a sprawling Charlottesville-area farm recently came into the possession of UVA, practically completing a sort of university-owned western wall around Charlottesville and...
Mr. Jefferson's greed: New book challenges image of reluctant slaveholder Published on Oct 17th, 2012 75 comments Publishers Weekly calls it the number one history title of the fall and one of the best of all genres. Both Smithsonian and American History magazines have made it a recent cover story. However, thus...
Greenwood: EPA leaves Superfund site 27 years after fatal disaster Published on Oct 10th, 2012 11 comments The most obvious disturbance to the bucolic setting of Mt. Zion Baptist Church is the sound of constant traffic zooming from Interstate 64. Less obvious, but way more disturbing about the location of...
Less hazardous: Acme Visible Records gets cleaned Published on Oct 10th, 2012 0 comments For more than 10 years, a prime commercial/light industrial site in designated-growth-area Crozet has been empty. It turns out there's a reason for that: it's polluted. Related: Greenwood: EPA...
All that's Glitter's: Should a perv profit from Wahoo-wah? Published on Oct 4th, 2012 27 comments It's the riff that's been pumping up UVA fans for years, energizing the Scott Stadium crowd pre-game when the Cavalier Marching Band plays its distinctive chords. And when it blares over the Scott...
McDonnell's BOV: Who gets their donations? Published on Sep 26th, 2012 17 comments Since what's now called "UVA June," the question has arisen: Why should the governor, whose budget funds just seven percent of the University of Virginia's operations, get to make 100 percent of the...
Prospective presidents: How they might appeal to the BOV Published on Sep 26th, 2012 18 comments It has long been an intriguing question. Did the leaders of the ouster of UVA President Teresa Sullivan have someone in mind when they made their daring weekend move? Also in this issue: • McDonnell...
Second cooling: Behind the new frozen yogurt craze Published on Sep 19th, 2012 8 comments Just two years ago, locally owned Arch's Frozen Yogurt, with locations on Ivy Road, the Corner, and Emmet Street, was the only fro-yo game in town. Today, there are three new regional franchises...
Little Washington, big taste: A Central Virginia high-wire act Published on Sep 12th, 2012 13 comments The Inn at Little Washington has been setting people up for disappointment for years. About an hour and twenty minutes north, just past Sperryville in the small town of Washington, the Inn has become...
Unfathomable: Grief, shock, and questions follow family slaying Published on Sep 4th, 2012 210 comments "The shining light in the room." That's how Jenny Clark remembers her friend Beth Walton, the 49-year-old mother of three who died along with her children in a murder-suicide that police say appears...