Month: November 2010

Categories
News

Will Democrats strike twice?

Two years ago this week, a cherub-faced Eagle Scout from Ivy named Tom Perriello pulled off the near-impossible: ousting entrenched six-term incumbent Rep. Virgil Goode from Virginia’s sprawling Fifth Congressional District. Though many attributed Perriello’s wafer-thin, 727-vote victory to Barack Obama’s electoral coattails, in reality the first-time candidate actually outperformed Obama on Goode’s Republican-leaning southwestern turf, and in general drew more conservative support than any Fifth District Dem in recent memory.

In the intervening years, however, things have definitely not gotten any easier for Perriello’s struggling constituents, and the overall political atmosphere for Democrats has gotten significantly worse, leading many political prognosticators to assume that Tom’s goose is royally cooked.

And yet, somehow, Perriello has managed to keep himself in the game. A recent Roanoke College poll had him trailing by just 6 percent, while an internal poll released by the campaign last week showed him down by a single point.

In many ways, the various trials and travails of Perriello have become a walking, talking, campaigning metaphor for the reeling Democratic Party. From the moment that Goode conceded the 2008 race, the national press focused on Charlottesville’s earnest, hard-working new congress-critter as a convenient stand-in for a new breed of “Obama Democrat” who had surfed a blue wave of hope into dozens of blood-red districts across the country. (Just a few weeks ago, even as he was trailing in the polls, Time magazine named Perriello one of the “rising stars of American politics.”)  

But now that the wave has receded, many of those same Dems are feeling stranded—beset on all sides by high unemployment, low liberal enthusiasm and angry Tea Party hordes. In fact, the other two members of Virginia’s freshman congressional class—Representatives Gerry Connolly and Glenn Nye—are in similarly tough reelection battles.

But it was Perriello who got the prize plum (or rotten apple, depending on your perspective) of a presidential visit last Friday. And it’s not hard to see why Obama chose to make Charlottesville one of his last major stops of the campaign season. The Fifth District might not be the toughest fight the Dems are facing this cycle, but there’s no doubt that it’s a prime bellwether.

In addition, the President surely realizes that Perriello’s problems very closely mirror his own. By voting for both the much-demonized stimulus and health care reform bills, Perriello set himself up for all manner of conservative attack ads. But he also antagonized his liberal base by staying true to his Roman Catholic roots and voting for the so-called “Stupak amendment,” which sought to keep taxpayer funds from being used to fund abortions.

For all of these reasons and more, Perriello has become one of the most prominent Democratic canaries in an increasingly dark electoral coal mine. If he dies, it’s a good bet that the donkey’s House majority is toast. But if he somehow emerges from this Election Day with his job intact, it will mean that, against all odds, Obama’s buzzer-beating half-court shot once again miraculously hit its mark.

Categories
News

Virginia Film Festival 2010

This year’s Virginia Film Festival is going to be different. Less classic cinema. More new and independent flicks that reflect contemporary concerns. A snazzy new festival logo. Plus, they’ve established an additional box office at the Main Street Arena, so viewers don’t have to trek to Culbreth for a movie that’s showing Downtown.

But what stays the same—and this is the most important thing—is the spell of excitement that the festival casts over Charlottesville with four days of expert-curated films, bigshot special guests and glitzy parties. And given the vast selection of fun times, we know how hard it is to pick out which movies are must-sees—and which ones you don’t want to be seen at. In this feature you’ll find suggestions from our film critic, previews of new movies from Darren Aronofsky and Tom Shadyac and a rundown of this year’s festival, by the numbers.
 
When looking at the full schedule, don’t forget that a lot of local filmmakers are bringing the heat. Enjoy already acclaimed features like The Parking Lot Movie (Friday 9:30pm, Vinegar Hill) and World Peace…and other Fourth Grade Achievements (Sunday 3:15pm, The Paramount), but be sure to check out newer regional fare, like Vintage: The Winemaker’s Year (Saturday 6pm, The Paramount), about Virginia’s wine scene, and Beardo (Saturday 5pm, Vinegar Hill), a Harrisonburg-produced short documentary about a competition in Alaska that determines whose beard is the world’s finest. In the end, the choice is yours.—Andrew Cedermark

Dance Macabre

Darren Aronofsky brings his unique vision to a ballet thriller




Darren Aronofsky arrived as a fully formed auteur in 1998 with the low-budget, black-and-white film Pi. The film generated suspense—horror, even—through little more than a paranoid, migraine-plagued genius’ interactions with his jerry-rigged computer and a 216-digit number that may have had a connection to an esoteric mathematical formulation (the Fibonacci Sequence), may have been a Cabalistic interpretation of the Old Testament, or may have served as a way to predict the rise and fall of the stock market. Or, maybe not. It didn’t matter: The number was just a means to a disturbed ending. Aronofsky explored the descent of Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) into madness through an ever shifting lens that looked outward from a mind on the brink of disintegration to capture increasingly disjointed and surrealistic visions. The film wasn’t so much avant garde as it was guardedly avant: It introduced a talent who wasn’t afraid to experiment with everything from plot and narrative to lighting and camera angles, yet never gratuitously so. Even Aronofsky’s most daring shots served the larger purpose of generating psychological tension that’s only dispelled when Cohen takes a power drill to his temple.








Ballet and psychological terror collide in Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder and Mila Kunis. This acclaimed new film from Darren Aronofsky opens the Virginia Film Festival on Thursday. 

Aronofsky remains an obsessive filmmaker who makes obsessive films about obsession. He’s always taken on big themes—addiction in 2000’s Requiem For A Dream, mortality in 2006’s The Fountain, and the rise and fall of Mickey Rourke as Randy “the Ram” Robinson in 2008’s The Wrestler. But it is the little things that have distinguished Aronofsky’s filmmaking. With help from longtime cinematographer Matthew Libatique, he’s developed the right instinct for deploying clever filmic flourishes: the split-screen technique and rapid-fire montages in Requiem, the aggressive graininess of Pi, the hallucinatory textures and seamless fades that bind the three narratives in The Fountain, and the casual hand-held shots that give The Wrestler the feel of a documentary.  

The latter film earned Rourke an Oscar nomination and gave Aronofsky his first taste of mainstream success. It also created the inspiration for Black Swan (Thursday 7pm, Culbreth) Aronofsky’s new film, and put him in a position to cast Natalie Portman in the lead of what’s predicted to be an even bigger commercial breakthrough. Based around a New York City ballet company’s production of Swan Lake, Black Swan pits Portman, whose Nina is more comfortable in the role of the innocent White Swan, against Mila Kunis’ Lily, an understudy whose character better suits her for the role of the more devious, sensual Black Swan. Obsession takes over as Nina explores the dark side, succumbs to paranoia, and gives Aronofsky’s camera yet another opportunity to experiment with perceptual distortions and reeling realities. This is familiar terrain for Aronofsky, a director who seems most at home when his camera is peering into the twisted corners of the private hell he creates for his characters. When he introduced the film at the Telluride Film Festival in September, he did so with an open-ended apology. Presumably, he was trying to warn away anyone under the impression that a big star, a big budget, and a big ballet might have tempered his penchant for unpredictability or his preference for unhappy endings.—Matt Ashare

A critic’s picks

Sometimes it’s best to defer to the experts.

What to see? Well, everything, of course. But maybe you won’t have time for everything. So here’s a short list of suggestions. Never mind Black Swan (Thursday 7pm, Culbreth) and Casino Jack (Sunday 4pm, Culbreth) and I Love You Phillip Morris (Friday 9:45pm, Culbreth) and such. Yes, it’d be cool to catch those before their theatrical releases. But it’s also cool to catch other, stranger things that you might never see on a big screen again. Such as: 
 

Clockwise, from bottom right: Brazilian crowd-pleaser Elvis & Madona, Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc?, Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well, the Fierlingers’ My Dog Tulip.
At least one classic. As a 50th anniversary give-back gift to the gods of cinema, this year’s fest kindly reminds us how incredible it must have been when Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (Thursday 7pm, Newcomb), Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well (Thursday 8:30pm, Regal Downtown), Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (Friday 7:30pm, Regal Downtown) Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (Sunday 6:30pm, Culbreth) Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (Sunday 6:45pm, Regal Downtown) and Robert Drew’s JFK documentary Primary (Friday 3:15, Regal Downtown) all hit theaters in the same year, 1960. Now, also incredibly, they’re all hitting theaters in the same weekend. We’re paralyzed with indecision here; the choice is yours. 
 
At least one film by Festival Fellow Peter Bogdanovich. The dandily attired Oscar-winning writer-actor-director-producer-historian-critic came all this way to talk shop, bringing along more than half a century’s worth of experience and, we hope, at least one of his signature neck scarves. Opt for the perpetually charming What’s Up, Doc? (Sunday 10:45am, The Paramount) Plot particulars—something about jewels, underwear, igneous rocks, secret documents and a quadruple suitcase switcheroo—matter less than the comedy and romance of manners by which prim musicologist Ryan O’Neal finds himself hijacked from sourpuss fiancee Madeline Kahn (in her delicious film debut) by breath of fresh air Barbra Streisand (yes, there was a time). 
 
At least one local highlight. We suggest Vintage: The Winemaker’s Year (Saturday 6pm, The Paramount) for purely practical reasons. First, as fun as it is to guess what Thomas Jefferson might make of how the whole democratic republic thing has turned out here, it’s even more satisfying to gloat over actually having mastered that which he never could: the making of fine wine from Virginian soils. Second, the festival’s presentation of this documentary includes a Virginia winemakers reception and a post-screening panel discussion moderated by C-VILLE Editor Cathy Harding. Cheers.
 
At least one foreign film about young romance—or maybe two. In Elvis & Madona (Friday 5pm, Regal Downtown) a proven LGBT crowd-pleaser from Brazil, the romance between a transgendered cabaret performer and a lesbian is, shall we say, complicated. And you thought the whole genre of romantic comedy had exhausted itself. By contrast, German director Maren Ade’s intelligent, beautifully observed and ultimately harrowing drama Everyone Else (Sunday 6:45pm, Vinegar Hill) is a naturalistic portrait of romantic disintegration that focuses on a young, attractive (hetero) couple on vacation in Sardinia. It’s as if the tradition of John Cassavetes were transposed to the key of contemporary young Europeans. We’re just saying these two would make a hell of a double-feature.
 
At least one surprisingly unsentimental animated film about the special bond between a sad, clever old Englishman and the Alsatian bitch he reluctantly adopted. O.K., we weren’t sure how to categorize My Dog Tulip (Sunday 2pm, Vinegar Hill), but wanted to be sure to recommend it. Paul and Sandra Fierlinger’s animated adaptation of British writer J. R. Ackerley’s memoir is a singular testament to true companionship, and yes, so unsentimental it’s almost shocking. With the voices of Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave and Isabella Rossellini, and reportedly the first animated feature to be entirely hand drawn with paperless computer technology, it has special credentials. More important is that it is at once a complete delight for dog lovers and a complete surprise for people who might not be into movies that delight dog-lovers.—Jonathan Kiefer
 

Re-he-he-heeally.

Tom Shadyac gets serious with new documentary

There is a picture from 2005’s Virginia Film Festival of Tom Shadyac sitting in room 223 of the Cavalier Inn, his long mane dangling halfway to his ripped jeans. The room is trashed. It’s 7:45am.
 

Three years ago Tom Shadyac was injured in a mountain biking accident that nearly cost him his faculties. Now 95 percent recovered, he presents a documentary that’s more than a stone’s throw from the Jim Carrey vehicles that made him his name.
This isn’t the stuff of fantasy Hollywood all-nighters; Shadyac has stopped by the room to offer his services as a special-guest mentor for the Adrenaline Film Project, where crews are given 72 hours make an entire short film, from script to post. At one point in the encounter Shadyac corroborates a friend’s advice on the film, and the friend says, “Nobody believes me until I bring in a billion-dollar director.” Shadyac chimes in: “And that’s with a B, motherfucker.” 
 
That’s Shadyac’s signature sense of humor. He’s a Falls Church native and UVA graduate whose hilarious—and did we mention lucrative?—partnership with Jim Carrey produced Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty. (Shadyac also directed Evan Almighty, one of the most expensive comedies ever made, in Albemarle County.) But he returns to the Virginia Film Festival to introduce a new documentary, I AM (Saturday 2pm, Newcomb Theater) that asks two fundamental questions: “What’s wrong with the world,” and “What can we do about it.” In it he interviews the likes of Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.
 
I AM is a product of an extended period in which Shadyac’s sense of humor was put to the test, after he was involved in a mountain biking accident that was “serious enough that I didn’t think I was going to live,” he says. “I developed post-concussion syndrome, which is a syndrome when the symptoms of a concussion don’t go away. Your brain essentially loses the ability to filter stimuli, which is one of its primary functions. And my brain lost the ability to filter sound and light. It becomes quite, quite torturous.” 
 
In the meantime, Shadyac had grown increasingly involved in philanthropy, even going so far as to purchase the First Street Church in Downtown Charlottesville in 2006 for $5 million after wrapping up Evan Almighty. “I was compelled to release a conversation that had been locked inside of me that I wanted to share with people,” says Shadyac. “That was the birth of I AM.” 
 
Are people ready for a serious Tom Shadyac film? It may help when pondering that question to think of Shadyac’s past films. Perhaps you enjoyed them for their silliness: When Ace Ventura slaps his breast pocket, it explodes with water, and he says, “Do not go in there.” Young Dave Chappelle’s “Women be shopping!” monologue from The Nutty Professor. Or in Patch Adams, when the gynecologists find that they must walk through an enormous set of lady-legs and a sign that says “Welcome, Gynos! At your cervix” to get into Adams’ institute. 
 
While indeed silly, these are the kind of comedies with heart that, it seems, are few and far between these days. Patch Adams was about compassion, The Nutty Professor about feeling comfortable in your own skin, and Ace Ventura was about…well, you get the point.
“I have screened I AM for a lot of people,” he says. “The most common response I get is, ‘I’m so thankful that you made this film because this has been something that’s been in me that I haven’t been able to express and nobody is talking about.’”
 
“It’s all a journey. My other films are kind of thematic parables, from a silly thing like Liar Liar, which is really about how the truth sets us free—whatever that is in our own life,” says Shadyac. “Bruce Almighty was an exploration of true power.”—A.C.
 

DUDE, WHERE’S MY THEME?

Five questions for Executive Director Jody Kielbasa

What film are you most looking forward to?

 

 

Jody Kielbasa’s second year at the Virginia Film Festival has been his first to enact his vision, which includes clear branding and a new emphasis on regional films and contemporary cinema.
 

Honestly, I’m really looking forward to the opening of Black Swan. That is one that I’ve taken on recommendation entirely—very high recommendation, in fact, it’s almost universally acclaimed. But I haven’t see that film, so I’m going to have the same discovery process that everybody sitting in the theater will have. That’s exciting. And nerve-wracking. Simultaneously.

No Theme? 

It’s certainly opened the floodgates for us, in terms of programming, allowing us to explore a much wider variety of themes, topics and issues, and to be much more current and contemporary in our programming. I think that’s what the festival should be about: The process of discovery.

The festival celebrates 1960 this year. Do you think 2010 is poised to be as good a year as 1960 was?

I haven’t seen it yet. Of course, a lot of the films that are likely to be nominated for Academy Awards this year, or for the award season in general, are likely to be coming out in the next few months. I haven’t seen those films, not a lot of them anyway, so it’s tough for me to say. 

What’s the biggest challenge of running the festival?

We ended our call for entries on September 15, and we had to announce our program on October 5. That’s really less than a three-week turnaround from that date, and then you have to make decisions about what you’ll drop or add. And then the guests you’ll bring in, which is very tough as well, because you’re trying to lock down their schedules and they have schedules that change. It’s a moving target.

What do you have planned for November 8?

Honestly, I’m going to be driving a pickup truck with my staff unloading all sorts of various and sundry parts of the festival for at least half the day. The 9th I might be on the golf course.—A.C.

 

Categories
Living

November 2010: Green Scene

Southern hospitality

Late autumn is propitious for shrubs. The extreme battles of summer heat and drought are over. Above ground all is still and undemanding; below, cool, moderate soil temperatures encourage root growth. Cut the grass high one last time, stow the mower, and turn your attention to the bushes. 

 

Azaleas have set flower buds for next year and don’t want to be disturbed except for an application of acidic slow-release organic fertilizer (like Holly Tone) and a couple of inches of rotted leaves or pine tags. Hollies (Japanese, Chinese, and American) would like some of that, too, but also should wait for hair cuts until next spring when new growth will cover stubs. Lilac and boxwood, however, are another matter.

Iconic in estate gardens throughout our area, they’re an odd pair, neither native to central Virginia (both originated in southern Europe), nor particularly forgiving of acidic ill-drained clay, heat or humidity. Yet like so many other transplants to central Virginia, they’ve made their place among us. 

Lilacs push the limit of their heat tolerance down here in Zone 7, and there is a mistaken belief that they lack vigor and reliable flowering in the south. However, they can prosper for us with proper care, as fine old specimens at UVA’s Pavilion gardens and Morven testify. 

They need room to spread their roots and send up colonies of suckers. Cut out a third or so of older thicker trunks every fall and winter to keep energy flowing to the young sprouts, which can also be thinned. Keep the soil close to a neutral pH of 7 with regular applications of wood ash, bone meal or lime, and mulch with leaf mold or other compost. 

The key to good flower production in lilacs is strict attention to dead-heading in spring, so no old flowers are left to divert energy into making big fat seeds. Gardeners can become distressed at the sight of powdery mildew on the leaves in late summer, but this is a mere cosmetic blemish for which full sun and good air circulation are the best remedies.  

In contrast to the universally beloved scent of lilac, boxwood presents an interesting olfactory Rorschach test—stinking of cats and discredited aristocracy, or exuding the musky aroma of nostalgia and elegance, depending who you ask. Either way, it’s more demanding than lilac, which can persist in shade and neglect; if boxwood isn’t happy, it will turn orange and brown and die before your eyes. Drainage, soil pH and exposure to wind and harsh winter sun are the culprits.

Keep the pH around 6.5 to 7.2, as with lilacs. Cut out dead twigs, thin dense growth through December by plucking holiday greens for the house, and give everything a good shake. Rake up and clean out the debris. Beware of over-mulching and use only one to one and a half inches of light leaf mold, compost or very finely shredded hardwood. 

Do the southern thing and take the trouble to make these visitors who came to stay feel at home.—Cathy Clary

Show me the light

Lighting accounts for 20 percent of the average monthly electric bill, so this month’s column promises to turn you on with cost savings! 

By now you’ve heard of CFL bulbs, but LEDs are getting a lot of ink, too. Which is greener? Here’s Betty’s comparison:

Compact fluorescent lighting (CFL)

It’s true that if every American changed just one incandescent bulb to a CFL bulb, that would be the equivalent of taking 800,000 cars off the road. At $4 each, they offer three to four times the energy savings of an incandescent. They are readily available nowadays, and aesthetically are able to mimic the lighting effects of the old ones. The cons: They contain trace amounts of mercury (which collectively adds up), and some complain that their warm-up period to reach full brightness is too long (instant gratification, anyone?). Remember, McIntire recycles these bulbs and everything in them can be reused.  

Light emitting diodes (LED)

These bulbs are pricier at $30-40 each, but imagine never having to change a light bulb again. They offer 10 times the energy savings and create less heat (they’re even cool to the touch), which results in lower home cooling costs. There is no mercury in the manufacturing or the bulb itself. The cons are the upfront cost and the fact that they’re not as readily available; both should continue to improve.

Don’t forget motion sensors as a smart alternative to leaving lights on for long periods of time, and solar lighting if you enjoy outdoor lighting accents.

Energy efficiency is the key, so just remember to “turn on the darkness” when you leave the room.  

Check out Better World Betty’s local green living resource list at www.betterworldbetty.org and blog at cvillebettyblog.blogspot.com.

Superhip recycling

Experiencing JohnSarahJohn, a “pop-up shop” on the Downtown Mall, is like an intimate walk through a dynamic stage set or the apartment of a righteously hip chemist. The storefront is the physical home (and studio) of the designing trio of John Gibson, Sarah Owen and John Owen. For the past two decades the Johns (and for the last several years, Sarah) have been collaborating on events, branding, products and now, retail. The philosophy of the collection of items in the shop? In Gibson’s words, “Beautiful objects come from lots of kinds of places.” 

There are repurposed glass beakers (made into a gorgeous collection of lamps), a reclaimed wooden billboard printing block from the 1930s, piles of chunky glass and the incredible work of a Tennessee farmer who covers furniture with sheets of salvaged zinc. 

Pulling from “secret sources” and its creators’ arts backgrounds, JohnSarahJohn was only fleetingly open to the public early this fall. Not to worry: The shop will reopen before the holidays in November (check johnsarahjohn.com).—Christy Baker

Win tickets to see Dawes, Vetiver and Peter Wolf Crier

Dawes, the wise and earnest young band from Los Angeles that’s signed to ATO Records, headlines the Jefferson Theater tonight, and folks, we’ve got your chance to dig these vintage California vibes gratis.

For yours truly the main attraction is San Francisco’s Vetiver, a band’s band in a world of bands first known to me as part of that region’s shortly lived freak folk scene. They’ve also released a string of great records since then, including a superb album of covers called Thing of the Past.

Vetiver covers Michael Hurley’s "Blue Driver" live. More below.

 

What do you have to do to win tickets to this show? Tell us which of these three bands your favorite is. (And of course, put your real name and e-mail in the box.) I’ll announce a winner at 4pm today. Martin Braun is the champion.

Election 2010: A look at campaign contributions for Hurt and Perriello

Here we are, Fifth District voters—a-balloting, avoiding, or simply awaiting the results of the Congressional race between Democratic incumbent Tom Perriello and Republican challenger Robert Hurt. As of 9am, the city’s voter turnout was roughly 10 percent of registered voters, while the county’s turnout neared 15 percent. (The next turnout numbers arrive at 1pm.)

C-VILLE plans to post updates throughout the day, with coverage ramping up tonight as precincts start to report results. For starters, however, let’s spend some time with…well, with what people and political action committees spent on candidates.

New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog has an admirable collection of charts, statistics, predictions and dollar signs for our Fifth District deul. Below, a few interesting tidbits:

  • Individuals who list the University of Virginia as their employer gave a combined $27,675 to Perriello’s campaign committee during the 2010 election cycle. Donors include cardiologist George Beller, husband of late Democratic state senator Emily Couric, and law professor Jonathan Cannon, part of President Barack Obama’s transition team. Run the same search for Hurt? Zero dollars. (The same search returns no results for independent candidate Jeffrey Clark.)
  • OpenSecrets.org, which provided data for the Times, lists Perriello as the top recipient of funds from the environmental industry, with a total of $56,492. The same site lists Hurt as third among recipients of funds from the tobacco industry, behind Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner and Michigan Republican candidate Dave Camp, with $30,750.
  • The site also offers sector totals for combined contributions from political action committees and individuals. The greatest sector contribution for each candidate was the "ideological/single issue" sector ($461,020 for Perriello, $128,125 for Hurt). However, Hurt shows zero dollars in the "labor" sector, compared to Perriello’s $198,000, and more than $17,000 to Perriello’s $72,000-plus in "communications/electronics." Hurt, meanwhile, received more than $52,000 in "agribusiness" to Perriello’s $12,000, and $48,500 to Perriello’s $8,550 in "construction."

Albemarle County voter turnout lags well behind 2008 turnout as of 1pm

According to the State Board of Elections (SBE), there are more than 69,000 registered voters in Albemarle County, about 28,126 in the City of Charlottesville and 446,641 in the entire Fifth District. As of 1pm, Albemarle County voter turnout was 32.89 percent—22,773 voters. That number falls more than 15 percentage points below the 2008 county turnout, which totaled 49.9 percent of registered voters as of 1pm.

The next update will be at 5pm. The voter turnout has been steady throughout the state, says the SBE.

There are reports that the Jefferson Park Precinct is running out of “I Voted” stickers. If you don’t know where to vote, here are the polling places for the city and for the county.

For information on other races in the U.S., click here for The Huffington Post’s live updates.

New Cover Story: Face the flicks

We know how hard it can be to pick out what’s worth seeing at the Virginia Film Festival, which runs Thursday through Sunday. So we put together an in-depth feature that previews some of the most talked-about films and filmmakers at this year’s event.

What should you watch? Why no Jim Carrey in the new Tom Shadyac movie? Is there room for the kind of psychological horror in Black Swan that has distinguished Darren Aronofsky’s harrowing ouvre? Find out this and more here.

What will you see at this year’s Virginia Film Festival?

Perriello campaign says Old Ivy Road office broken into

The Old Ivy Road campaign office of Congressman Tom Perriello was broken into early this morning, says Jessica Barba, communications director for Perriello for Congress.

Between the hours of 2:30am and 5am, when the office was empty, perpetrators took campaign materials and “there was a Hurt sign that was put up in the front of the office and that was something that obviously wasn’t there when we left,” she tells C-VILLE.

Barba says whomever entered the ground floor office by bending and breaking a screen door took a packet of door hangers. Additionally, door hangers with incorrect precinct information were distributed throughout the Venable district.

“We found out later when we had canvassers going around that neighborhood,” says Barba. She adds that because it was caught early, this incident won’t be a huge factor in today’s elections. “UVA students, [many of whom live in the Venable district,] are pretty smart, so hopefully they’ll figure it out.”

County spokesperson Lee Catlin tells C-VILLE that police were called this morning to the campaign office and are investigating a potential break-in.
 

Hurt leads Perriello, 53 percent to 44 percent, with nearly half of Fifth District reporting

The crowd at Congressman Tom Perriello’s election results party at Siips is growing by the minute. Senator Creigh Deeds is watching the results closely as Perriello supporters gather around the sole TV screen.

According to the State Board of Elections, with 45 percent precincts reporting throughout the Fifth District, Senator Robert Hurt leads with 53.23 percent of votes to  Congressman Tom Perriello’s 44.44 percent. Independent Jeffrey Clark has 2.24 percent of the votes reported.

In the City of Charlottesville, with 33 percent precincts reporting, Perriello has a healthy lead—81.5 percent, compared to 18 percent for Hurt trailing. In last place is Clark with 0.55 percent.

In Albemarle County, Perriello has 51 percent of the vote to Hurt’s 47 percent, with 3.4 percent of precincts reporting. Clark has 1.84 percent of the reported Albemarle vote.
 

Election 2010: With 77 percent of precincts in, Hurt leads Perriello by 6 points

Here at the Albemarle County GOP election night party—at the Doubletree Hotel on Route 29, if you’d like to stop by—everything seems calm. Very calm. The chatter of the 150 to 200 guests, gathered in two rooms, doesn’t overwhelm the flatscreen TVs (provided by GOP donor Bill Crutchfield’s business local electronics business), which show results on Fox News. The crunch of red, white and blue tortilla chips is audible—along with the occasional cheer as more precincts report and confirm Virginia Republican senator Robert Hurt’s lead.

The last cheer announced a six-point lead, with 77 percent of precincts reporting. While Fox makes no mention of the fate of independent candidate Jeffrey Clark, Hurt seems to hold steady at 52 percent, while Democratic incumbent Tom Perriello holds tight around 46 percent.