Planes, drugs and bears, oh my! Hollywood film has WNC connections

Who would have thought a true story with a link to Clay and Macon counties would arguably be the most popular movie in the United States today?   

The drive-in brings back memories

I’m as nostalgic as the next guy. I mean, I don’t get choked up over the thought of bell bottoms or soap-on-a-rope and I didn’t buy that very special Time Life complete collection of “Hee Haw” episodes (now on DVD! Operators are standing by!), even though that and the Lawrence Welk show formed the soundtrack of my Saturday night “going out on the town” preparations as a teenager. My mother always enjoyed Lawrence Welk. I’m not nostalgic about him myself, you understand.

Small-town sequel: Waynesville’s Smoky Mountain Cinema reopens

Standing in the lobby of the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville this past Monday morning, owner Greg Israel is putting the final touches on two years of planning and renovations to the theater for its grand reopening on Tuesday.

“I’m tired, mostly,” Israel chuckled. “But, I’m happy. Very pleased. I think it’s come a long way and people are going to be very happy about it.”

Release date nears for movie shot in Sylva

Film fever is hitting Sylva as the release of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” draws closer.

Franklin to offer outdoor family movies

Families will be able to enjoy free outdoor movies in Franklin in the next couple of months thanks to a partnership worked out with Ruby Cinemas.

This must be the place: I was never cool. Then again, who is?

She is still a fox.

Midnight. Last Tuesday morning. Wide-awake and in front of a large HD television at my parent’s Florida rental cottage. I haven’t had cable in several years. But, seeing as everyone was already asleep and March Madness was over for the night, I clicked around the endless channels of nothing.

‘Casablanca’ one of the finest scripts of all time

“Casablanca.”

For some, that name evokes a city in Morocco, an urban center of four million people quartering one of the more important economies in all of Africa.

‘Little Biltmore’ goes Hollywood

Thom Morgan isn’t the type to be star struck. 

When a location scout approached him two years ago about filming a major movie at his mansion in Waynesville, the agent hoping to sell him on the idea ticked off the famous comedians in the playbill for “Masterminds,” a true-crime comedy about an armored car heist in Charlotte in the late 1990s.

Luck of the draw: how a Waynesville mansion made the silver screen

Haywood County was abuzz with excitement during the filming of the major motion-picture “Masterminds” two summers ago, but exactly how the directors set their sights on a local mansion for their movie location has been a closely held secret until now.

This must be the place

I teared up immediately.

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