November 1st, 2012 issue #1144

November 1st, 2012

  • En garde: Carradine offers 'shocking' details from 'The Duellists'

    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 injured party’s fanatical sense of honor.   The 1977 film marked a major star turn for Carradine, as well as the directorial debut of Ridley Scott, who went on to make the now-classic Blade Runner.  

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  • Fat kid: Lillard's directing debut rules the world

    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 Punk. One role in which he hasn't been recognized– yet– is as a director, and that's the one that's bringing him to Charlottesville. The movie is Fat Kid Rules the World, and Lillard is candid about what brought him to direct the K.L. Going novel.

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  • Festival origins: Founder Patricia Kluge tells how it all began

    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 floated the idea of a film festival in Charlottesville.

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  • Flick picks: What local filmmakers want to see

    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 optimal film festival experience. And festival director Jody Kielbasa takes a fiendish delight in forcing moviegoers to make the hard choices when two or more screenings you want to see are on at the same time.

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  • One-man band: McElwee persists in first-person documentary

    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 unexpected ways. McElwee’s Sherman’s March became a droll account of his own romantic misfires, everyday upsets, and encounters with distinctly Southern characters. The 1986 film’s intensely intimate style arose from McElwee’s one-man band approach. The participant in the upcoming Virginia Film Festival was the film’s protagonist, narrator, and entire crew.

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  • Rogue cinema: Boyd Tinsley makes film you can feel

    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. "That's what I love about them. I may not remember the plot. I listen from an emotional sense. I listen from the way I feel." So when the Dave Matthews Band member decided to embark on making a film, the music came first.

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  • Slamdancer: Indie mensch Mirvish reveals secret society

    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-founded the anarchic alternative to the Sundance Film Festival– Slamdance– after he and three other filmmakers weren't accepted at the Park City-based festival in 1995, and to this day Slamdance continues to share the same time and location with Sundance.

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  • This property condemned: Marc Singer goes house hunting

    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 animal kingdom. And Singer, an avid Shakespeare aficionado, is particularly proud of his performance as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew.

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4Better Or Worse

  • The week in review

    Bigger than the 2012 election: Hurricane Sandy puts politicking on hold and has the Eastern Seaboard braced for a perfect (Franken)storm, the behavior of which meteorologis...

The Dish

Essays

Question of the Week

Real Estate - $old

Real Estate - On the Block

Real Estate Property auctions

  • Property auctions

    November 1 at 10am at Charlottesville Circuit Court Property: 1214 Monticello Road Debtor: Progressive Ventures LLC Original amount owing: unknown Bidder brings: 10 percent...

Movie Reviews

Contents

  • Table of contents

    COVERFilm festivalWith a vast array of documentaries, shorts, and feature films, how will you pick what to see at the 25th Virginia Film Festival? Never fear; the Hook's go...

News

Online only

Letters

  • Wiencek misled readers on Jefferson's record

    As the “recently retired” Monticello historian who had “no comment” in Lisa Provence’s cover story [October 18: “Mr. Jefferson’s greed"], I’m moved to speak...

CultureVulture

Black and White

  • Election 2012

    If Romney/Ryan supporters need cheering up, a happy place for a drive would be U.S. Route 360 through King William and King and Queen Counties. People in this region make t...

Cultural preview