The Southern’s Andy Gems and Lauren McRaven hope the music hall will also be known for its cuisine.
FILE PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Back in 2005, when Lauren McRaven opened The Flat on Water Street, she quipped that she might not have opened the little crêperie if she’d known beforehand how difficult it was going to be. Nearly fours years later, with The Flat having become a Water Street landmark, crepe lovers can be glad that no one told her. Fans of new music venue The Southern should be glad as well, as McRaven is behind the “Café” in the joint’s tag line “Café and Music Hall.” Initially, McRaven was hired by the owners of Gravity Lounge to head up the kitchen, but when Gravity closed she took over the space with partner Andy Gems.

Those early worries about taking on too much seem to have subsided for McRaven, as she says the new gig at The Southern has been a “nice step up” from The Flat, which she’ll continue to run. “It’s been nice to branch out a little bit,” she says.

McRaven also has ambitions to turn The Southern’s café into a real Downtown restaurant destination, not just a food option during music shows. As she points out, in addition to a late night show menu for concert goers, folks can also eat at the café without buying a ticket to a show. The café is open from 11am to 3pm Tuesday through Sunday, with a brunch on Saturday and Sunday that features live music.

The biggest challenge now, says McRaven, (more)

Comments(0)

Jimmy in 2008.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL W. PENDERGRASS

I think my wife and I don’t get out enough. We won two free tickets to the November 17 Jimmy Buffett concert in Charlottesville from a local newspaper’s contest. It was wonderful.  We walked in from the law school smugly watching what appeared to be all of Virginia streaming into the John Paul Jones Arena.

The ginormous parking lots around the Arena were plastered with a special brand of tailgaters: guys in hula skirts and coconut bras, girls with shark pasties. Many sporting parrot, crab, and shark hats and some in shark and pirate costumes, all downing flagons of Caribbean-pastel margaritas mixed to the tunes of Jimmy and whining 12-volt blenders.

Some cars were decorated. A popular fixation were big shark fins duct-taped to the roof.

We approached JPJ and found (more)

Comments(7)

The Jefferson Theater, the historic downtown theater sold by Hook editor and former owner Hawes Spencer to local music magnate Coran Capshaw in 2006, has announced a re-opening date of November 27, closely following the abrupt closing of IS Venue at the end of September, the strong simultaneous opening of the Southern, and the imperiled-Outback rumblings of the week, as well the somewhat more distant closings of other beloved music venues like Starr Hill, Gravity Lounge, and the Satellite Ballroom.

Since the theater changed hands in April ‘06, it has undergone drastic and much-needed renovations— bars, bathrooms, balconies— and work is expected to continue after the opening on the basement and second balcony.

Nonetheless, Capshaw’s events company Starr Hill Presents has (more)

Comments(17)

Alan Ball charms and amuses at True Blood and American Beauty screenings– and in the lobby of Culbreth.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

The projectors have stopped running, the popcorn has been swept up and bleary-eyed moviegoers have emerged back into the daylight. The 22nd Virginia Film Festival is a wrap.

This year’s fest was the debut of director Jody Kielbasa, who inherited the “Funny Business” theme when he was hired five months ago, and reports record attendance and near-record ticket sales at this year’s fest.

More than once, we heard moviegoers say, “I thought this was supposed to be funny.” Screening films that have zilch to do with the theme is nothing new for this festival, and Kielbasa expanded the yuk-fest theme to take in the funny business of politics and business. Some of the movies made us both laugh and cry.

Instead of the usual star-studded opening night of a Virginia-made film, UVA’s marching band was the star in the star-less documentary Marching Band.

Another festival first: Some of the headliner shows (more)

Comments(4)

Still from Kevin Everson’s Erie.

One thing I look forward to during the Virginia Film Festival is the chance to view edgy, experimental pieces that usually only screen in urban centers like Chicago or New York. But this year the arty offerings are few and far between. Two exceptions are Kevin Everson’s new feature, Erie, and a group exhibition by Everson’s art students at the former C-Ville office on the Downtown Mall.

Erie contains elements familiar to Everson fans: a focus on middle-class African-American labor and leisure, an ambient soundtrack, and indications of the filmmaking process, such as scratched ends. Nevertheless, it’s a departure from the UVA art prof’s previous features. Shot in northern Ohio and Buffalo, NY, the 81-minute black and white film is a series of single takes, lasting between 10 and 11 minutes— the amount of time a film spool moves through a camera’s magazine- that are unrelated narratively.

Everson says he’s been thinking about one-take filmmaking for some time, but when he was in Europe last year he began to conceive of a piece that would string together disparate scenes, connected only by their subjects’ focus on a task at hand. Alternating between static shots and ones involving action, interiors, and exteriors, Erie is a meditative visual poem.

Opening on workers putting up a Volkswagen billboard intended to appeal to African Americans, the film cuts briefly to Niagara Falls, and then settles into a prolonged shot of a young girl in a white shirt staring at a flickering white candle. The composition is beautiful, but as the minutes tick by, with next to nothing happening, the small things— the twitch of the girl’s mouth, a drip of wax, the sound of a dog barking— become enormous.

And so it goes for the rest of the film, slow and ponderous. Which is not to say there aren’t breathtaking moments. In one memorable shot, Everson’s camera pulls back from a vocalist and pianist practicing a sentimental song on a tinny upright to follow a dancer krumping to music blasting from a CD player in another part of the warehouse-like room.

Erie screens on Thursday night, but 18 of Everson’s University of Virginia students carry the filmic art torch through the weekend with a series of video installations at 106 E. Main Street. According to fourth-year student Vashti Harrison, the eighteen pieces “are made for people to walk in and of,” and several are site-specific.

Erie, screens at 10pm on Thursday, November 5, at Regal 3 on the Downtown Mall.  For more information, call 1-800-UVA-Fest. Everson’s UVA art students’ video installations are on view Friday and Saturday, 9am-10pm, at 106 E. Main St. (former office of C-Ville). 434-242-4211.

Comments(0)

“I deserve health care.”
SCREEN CAPTURE

One local filmmaker (along with a pack of kids at Riverview Park) might play a key role in the health care debate if a new video keeps advancing in the Obama Health Care Reform Video Challenge. Already, the 30-second spot from Charlottesville has been chosen from over 1,000 submissions to become one of just 20 finalists.

Eric Hurt— who once shot a television show about Spudnuts— wrote, directed, and shot “I Deserve Health Care” with producer Erica Arvold. Voting for the Challenge is now open, and individuals are encouraged to watch the top videos, vote for their favorites, and help select the winning ad that will air on national television.

The whole enterprise, but particularly Hurt’s video and a graffiti video, drew the outrage of FoxNews commentator Sean Hannity, who interviewed a conservative commentator who blasted Hurt for “grooming the next generation of entitlement-seekers.”

–last updated 6:49am Friday
Spelling of Spudnuts corrected 9:20am Friday

Comments(54)

WordSmith and DJ Double A I K host a poetry jam, featuring poets, spoken word artists, singers, etc. Random Row Books on West Main. Wednesday, October 28, 7pm to 10pm. Open mic at 7pm, main event starts at 7:30pm. $5.

Comments Off

Orzo Kitchen and Wine Bar in the Main Street Market.
PHOTO BY NED OLDHAM

An elephant is like a tree—at least that’s what the blind monk who felt its leg deduced; his five fabled brethren felt differently. If Orzo Kitchen and Wine Bar in the Main Street Market can be likened to an elephant, it might have to be one of those that famously traversed the Mediterranean areas working for Greeks, Romans, and North Africans because here owners-chefs Ken Wooten and Charles Roumeliotes have created a polished paean to Mediterranean cuisine via the Market space’s top-shelf position in Charlottesville’s foodie-fantasy, at the intersection of Local and Fine Taste.

I am not a blind monk; I am The Eater. It’s the variety of the layout that got me thinking of the elephant parable as we stopped first under sleek, dangling, swirled orange-and-blue glass lights over wooden stools and bar with coat hooks underneath. Here, a few over-40, country-club types were (more)

Comments Off

On Saturday, October 17 award-winning Keswick Vineyards is having its first-ever “Lucy-style” grape stomping event, inspired by the famous “I love Lucy” episode in which Lucille Ball makes a mess of things in an Italian grape vat. In fact, the folks at Keswick are encouraging you to dress up as Lucy by offering a 5 percent discount on wines if you do. There’ll also be a “best Lucy” costume contest, with prizes for the best female and male impersonations.

Sounds like a grape stompin’ good time, with music provided by Rock River Gypsies. The cost in $25 per person, which includes a glass of wine and the chance to get your feet sloppy. You may have to join Keswick’s Wine Club for this, but hey, its free. Call 434-244-3341 for more information.

Comments Off

Film fest director Jody Kielbasa details this year’s program.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

When the Virginia Film Festival unveiled this year’s line-up October 7, Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick and Cherry Jones were among the headliners, along with previously announced cult filmmaker John Waters.

By October 19, Bening had discovered a scheduling conflict and canceled her visit to Charlottesville to screen her new film, Mother and Child. That show will go (more)

Comments Off