For obvious reasons, it would have been a damn shame if COVID-19 had kept Historic Columbia’s Jubilee: Festival of Black History & Culture from happening in 2020.
Netflix seems to have taken my entire childhood and put it into a series with the new High Score.
Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn concerns a 16-year-old Black teen from Brooklyn killed in a racially motivated attack in an Italian neighborhood.
Lovecraft Country incorporates Black people surviving the Jim Crow South with magic and monsters.
Once upon a time, back before snarky Internet comments and such, there was a wonderful show that made fun of the many, many cheesy, cheap, badly acted and otherwise awful movies.
There’s something wholly peaceful about the music Yo La Tengo creates.
In a different world, the fabulous, existentially grounded Groundhog Day homage that is Palm Springs would be the indie flick blockbuster of the summer.
The Jasper Project continues the virtual editions of its Tiny Gallery series by featuring an artist as well known for his music as his visual art.
To complement Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite, the Columbia Museum of Art hosts a virtual screening of The Black Power Mixtape 1965-1975.
The story of Betty Davis is as fascinating as it is sad. Known for being the first wife of Miles Davis, she was responsible for his surge into the fashion of the ‘60s and his going electric.
Things are reopening, and there are some options for seeing music in person, but excellent live-stream options remain.
It’s official: The distance between Dave Chappelle and other comedians is now equivalent to Secretariat running away from his competition.
Atlanta rapper Killer Mike is the man of the moment, from his impassioned speech to his hometown two weeks ago on the cusp of the nationwide protests inspired by the brutal police killing of George Floyd to his rap duo Run the Jewels delivering what could be a zeitgeist-defining album in RTJ4.
A malevolent magic imbues the scarred Icelandic countryside in Björk’s 1986 film debut The Juniper Tree.
The Midlands Astronomy Club regularly hosts meet-ups during normal times for people to socialize and look at the wonders of the cosmos (at least those visible through a telescope with a city’s light as the backdrop).
The organic, near-effortless Americana grace of Jason Isbell is best experienced live, but a new record with a new batch of songs is always worth celebrating.
No film captures the vampire’s unearthly power like W. F. Murnau’s silent Nosferatu.
From the beginning, the computer-animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars had to make up for other disappointments.
Of all the things that have been canceled to deter close social contact, I miss live music the most.
The COVID-19 slowdown is disrupting local musicians’ routines and ways of life, so a hearty cheers is in order to the ones making lemonade out of socially distanced lemons.
In the case of Kemapalooza, COVID-19 can’t keep a good fundraiser down.
Put on your boogie shoes, shake shake shake your booty and get down tonight at the Township Auditorium, where disco-era relics KC & the Sunshine Band perform at 7:30 p.m.
As The Washington Post notes with the headline “The latest target of racist rumors about coronavirus: The ubiquitous dance troupe Shen Yun,” the company that returns to the Koger Center this week will not put you at any elevated risk of infection.
Look, we’re not saying ventriloquist comedian — ventrilocomedian? — Jeff Dunham is racist, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic. But his hacky, outdated, shopworn, minority-targeting, quote-unquote-politically-incorrect act is.
The South Korean film Parasite is back the Nickelodeon Theatre after dominating the Oscars, winning four awards, including Best Picture.
It’s been 10 years, but David Toole, owner of Bluetile Skateboard shop, is returning with a new feature-length skate video titled Lovers.
The TRIBE exhibition will feature visual art, audio elements and artifacts from S.C. hip-hop history.
Charles Bradley: Soul of America starts with the happy ending: It opens with the late soul singer, already 62 years old, on the precipice of releasing his debut record, No Time For Dreaming, on the vaunted Daptone Records soul imprint.
Perchance you saw Free Times recent Best of South Carolina Music poll for 2019, read about Benny Starr and his moving and politically potent 2019 opus A Water Album, which landed at No. 1 on that list, and now you’re raring to see him live and in person?
Based on a 1981 book by Vito Russo and narrated by Lily Tomlin, The Celluloid Closet details how the representation of homosexuals increased and evolved in the first 100 years of cinema.
If comedian Jordan Rock isn’t on the “What’s Hot” list just yet, he’s certainly getting warm.
Graves died this summer, but the new mural — with its whimsical whale and donuts (which he adored) and the singer’s own smiling face looking sidelong into the distance — is a reminder of the spirit he instilled in this city’s music scene.
The last First Thursday on Main of the year is typically a big one, as folks head out to the monthly art and drink and entertainment crawl in search of gifts and good cheer, and this December edition is no different.
With the impending departure of Tapp’s Arts Center from Main Street — to be reborn as Tapp’s Outpost in Five Points — the city will lose impactful resources that won’t be immediately replaced.
Thelma Houston wasn’t the first female solo artist at Motown Records, but she was the first female solo act to win a Grammy (in 1977, for “Don’t Leave Me This Way”).
Superheroes are all the rage at the multiplex these days, with four of the Top 10 movies to date at this year’s domestic box office coming from that genre. Which makes this a fine time to go back to one of the formative early superhero films, 1978’s Richard Donner-directed Superman.
The Nickelodeon Theatre populates its screens with many a fine and adventurous series. But even given the arthouse cinema’s willingness to get out there, Weird Sister is pretty out there, in a great way.
Alison Krauss is one of our best musical double-threats, playing incredible bluegrass fiddle and singing in an impossibly clear, angelic voice.
An all-female acapella quintet from Zimbabwe that specializes in the mbube style of singing popularized by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Nobuntu brings an infectious performance style and a deep well of tradition and emotion registers to music that seems to have a strikingly universal appeal across languages and cultures.
The Mothers improv comedy troupe walk on a high-wire every time they get up onstage, taking suggestions from the audience and weaving comedy gold from their ideas.
The long-running Chamber Music on Main series at the Columbia Museum of Art returns once again to co-opt the adaptable front hall of the museum into a world-class classical music experience.
The Columbia Museum of Art has had quite a fun summer thanks to its dual exhibitions of Mimi Kato: Ordinary Sagas and Wow Pop Bliss: Jimmy Kuehnle’s Inflatable Art, both of which close on Sept. 8.
The Nickelodeon Theatre’s Foreign Focus film series continues Tuesday with a screening of The Wild Pear Tree.
