Tagged: Culture

It's summer movie time, which means big stars, big thrills and big box office blockbusters - at least the studios hope so. This time every year, we invite local film critics Matt Brunson and Sean O'Connell to talk about the summer's biggest movies - which ones to catch and which ones to avoid. Whether you're looking for superheroes in Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel, fast cars in Fast & Furious or some throwback SciFi in Star Trek, we'll cover them all. And you can't talk blockbusters without talking about those larger-than-life action sequences - so we've invited the visual effects supervisor for Iron Man 3 to explain how these effects work and the history of special effects in film, when Charlotte Talks.

Blood suckers, slime makers and vomit munchers. Discovery Place has a summertime exhibit sure to grab your kids . . . and probably make you gag. We go inside "Grossology" on the next Charlotte Talks. But first, we sit down with some people on a mission to make sure the city's museums and cultural institutions – like Discovery Place – have stable financial future. Government grants and workplace giving have declined so dramatically in recent years that Charlotte's arts leaders are sounding the alarm. They've formed a task force to come up with solutions. We talk to the co-chairs of that task force, when Charlotte Talks.

Part One: Queen City Theatre Co.'s Me and Jezebel. We've all had a houseguest who overstayed their welcome. Most do so for a matter of minutes or hours. Hollywood superstar overstayed her welcome by 32 days! Author Elizabeth Fuller met Bette Davis in 1985 and offered to let Ms. Davis stay in her home while there was a hotel strike raging in New York City. Over a month later, Davis finally left but her legacy continued as Ms. Fuller wrote a popular book about the experience. That book is now a play and Queen City Theatre is presenting it. We'll learn more when Charlotte Talks.

From time to time on this show, we discuss performances of plays, musicals, symphonies or operas composed or created by talented artists who are no longer with us, or who aren't available to join us on the show. On this edition of the show, however, we're joined by a living legend, an American composer and librettist who has been creating famous operas since the 1950's! Carlisle Floyd will join us, along with 4-time Grammy Award-winning American tenor Anthony Dean Griffey. They're in town to do residencies at Wingate University, and while they're here, they'll join us to talk about their craft and their worldwide prominence in opera and music performance, when Charlotte Talks.