JOHN COGGIN

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A little for every chap in gay 'boy feature

By JOHN COGGIN | January 31

Beware: The gay cowboys are coming. Right now, somewhere in Los Angeles, director Ang Lee is busy counting the accolades he's collected for his film "Brokeback Mountain." A few miles away in West Hollywood, retailers are busy counting all the cash rolling in thanks to Lee's efforts, as gay men empty their savings accounts on a new wardrobe of Cowboy-chic plaid - something not even Madonna could popularize back with that Music album.

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Embrace your inner network

By JOHN COGGIN | September 27

Some time this summer, around 9:55 p.m. Sunday night, I was speaking on the phone with a friend, who recently moved to Florida. He was confronting the loneliness that comes with moving to a new place. Sitting in my living room, waiting for a timer to go off and the HBO logo to appear on my TV, I knew exactly what would cheer him up. "No matter how difficult it may be, no matter how lonely you may get," I said, "at least Ari Gold will still be there to tuck you in every Sunday night." "Not anymore," he replied despondently. "I can only afford basic cable."

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Students cap off reopening

By JOHN COGGIN | September 12

On the final day of Memorial Hall's gala opening weekend, students and the University community poured into a renovated venue for a free day of entertainment called "Carolina Performs." The daylong event showcased an array of University students performing everything from ballroom dancing to hip hop. As producer and UNC alumnus Casey Molino Dunn rushed around the building to ensure that all the acts made it backstage for curtain call, Memorial Hall's marketing manager, Jennifer Smith, greeted patrons in the lobby.

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Edgy author's latest is sinister but predictable

By JOHN COGGIN | July 21

Chuck Palahniuk has built a career on exposing the insanity of our culture through disgustingly ironic cautionary tales on American commercialism. His new book does more of the same. “Haunted” is a series of short stories, sloppily glued together by a cumbersome narrative about a bunch of wannabe writers who are kidnapped by a crazy old man named Wittier.

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Receptions have never been this fun

By JOHN COGGIN | July 21

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn recently crashed the summer box office with a comedy about two guys who like to crash weddings to pick up girls. While performing the crash of all crashes at the wedding of the daughter of the secretary of the treasury (sorry for all the “of”s), Wilson falls for the bride’s sister (Rachel McAdams). Let the raunchy sex scenes ensue! If this is your mentality going into “Wedding Crashers,” then expect to be disappointed.

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Honest flick shows life on the streets

By JOHN COGGIN | July 14

In director Craig Brewer’s brilliantly authentic new film, street hustler DJay (Terrence Howard) pays the bills by pimping three whores for $20 tricks on the streets of South Memphis. Sitting in a car that’s two flat tires away from a junkyard, Popsicle-sucking, bottle-blond Nola (Taryn Manning) invokes a midlife crisis in DJay by accusing him of contributing nothing to the whole “trickin’ ho’s” operation (a reasonable observation, by all indications).

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One-man show explores relationship issues

By JOHN COGGIN | June 30

Relationships get the old college try in a new one-man theatrical production on campus in July. In “A Guy’s Tale,” writer/actor Adam Bergeron and director Bryan Cohen, both recent graduates of UNC, examine the male perspective on the ins and outs of intimacy between men and women.

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Australian pop singer leaves much to be desired

By JOHN COGGIN | June 30

Australia’s newest offering to the American pop charts comes in the form of singer/songwriter Missy Higgins’ new album, The Sound of White. To an American audience, White is likely to sound a lot like a nondescript welding of Jewel and Vanessa Carlton — themselves two nondescript artists that attempt to play “piano-folk” music.

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Thriving music scene lives on collaborations

By JOHN COGGIN | May 26

For many fans of live music, the Chapel Hill music scene is no more than an endless series of concerts at places like Cat’s Cradle, the Local 506 and the Cave, featuring a host of bands as varied as Rolling Stone Magazine’s picks for “next big thing” to local upstarts of which no one — not even an emo-obsessed little brother — has ever heard.

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Student's thesis honors Stone

By JOHN COGGIN | May 19

Chuck Stone's legacy at the University was cemented in a documentary by masters student Chad Danford at Carroll Hall on Thursday. The film —Danford's masters thesis — traced the famed professor’s life through his involvement in the civil rights movement up to his taking on the Walter Spearman professorship at UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication.