Uneasy Night at Golden Globes
What does it say when Golden Globes’ host Ricky Gervais is getting more post-show attention than the night’s winners (or January Jones’ gravity-defying dress)? Sure, Gervais’ sharp-tongued shots at various targets — from the easy (Charlie Sheen, Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson) to the slightly less so (Steve Carell, Tim Allen and God) —…
Matt Sledge, Back on the Air
Matt “Sledge” Waller, a former DJ for the late Indie/Alternative music powerhouse WOXY (dating back to its terrestrial days in Oxford, Ohio), has gotten back to playing music. Waller hosts a weekly two-hour radio show on the Internet channel party934.com, which also airs in its hometown of Hudson Valley, NY, on the 94.9 frequency.—- The…
Groups Urge Chabot to Just Say ‘No’
A major effort is underway today to urge Congressman Steve Chabot (R-Westwood) to buck his GOP colleagues and vote against repealing the health-care reform law. A national group, Catholics United, is placing about 6,000 telephone calls to Catholics who live in Ohio's 1st Congressional District, that contains a recorded message asking them to have Chabot…
Music: Tom Rush
Long been considered one of the leading lights of the 1960s Folk revival, Tom Rush tends to dismiss that pigeonhole. With a style that embraces Country, Blues, Pop and Rock as emphatically as Folk in all its own quirky permutations, Rush has utilized a singular guitar style, a distinctive physical and literal voice, a finely…
Events: Gold Star Chili Cook-off
Saturday at Findlay Market (1801 Race St.), Cincinnati’s Chili Meister will be crowned. Allow the gravitas of this situation to settle in for a second… Now that your shattered world has been crafted anew, we can talk about the seventh annual Gold Star Chili Cook-Off. Thirty of the city’s top chili cooks will square off;…
Best of Cincinnati Badges
Are you trying to rally support for yourself, your local business or other establishment? Grab the official 2011 "Vote For Me" Badges right here. Drop these badges right into your website and remember to link them to the Best of Cincinnati ballot.
Onstage: Burn the Floor
I recently saw Black Swan, a new film about a neurotic ballet dancer who descends into paranoid madness. It made me wonder why anyone would pursue a career in dance. Watching Burn the Floor, a company of exuberant dancers on tour — and on fire — who obviously revel in movement, I had my answer.…
Art: 1957 BMW Isetta 300
The Cincinnati Art Museum has been displaying automobiles near the front entrance for several years now — part of the attempt to spotlight functional design — and the latest one is probably the most unusual to date. It is a
Ingram Hill
Ingram Hill came nearly full circle with the release of last year’s Look Your Best. In many ways, the Memphis outfit went back to its roots on its third full-length album; the band returned to the Indie label world, leaving major label Hollywood to sign with grassroots Rock Ridge, and it hit the studio with…
Tom Rush
Long considered one of the leading lights of the 1960s Folk revival, Tom Rush tends to dismiss that pigeonhole. With a style that embraces Country, Blues, Pop and Rock as emphatically as Folk in all its own quirky permutations, Rush has utilized a singular guitar style, a distinctive physical and literal voice, a finely tuned…
Events: Naturally Nora in Cincinnati
Do you know what’s in your cupcake? “Naturally” Nora Schultz formed her company around this question. Pegged as the all-natural Betty Crocker, Schultz wanted to create a line of tasty, kid-friendly baking mixes with a short, sweet and all-natural ingredient list. With unbleached, unbromated wheat flour, real ingredients like vanilla and cocoa and even all-natural…
Circa Survive with Anberlin and Foxy Shazam
One of the most entertaining things about experiencing concerts is witnessing other people's reactions to the shared music. Some folks have the ability to react so strikingly that your attention drifts away from the music to keeping an eye on what one person is going to do next. Anthony Green is one such individual. During…
Music: Ingram Hill
Ingram Hill came nearly full circle with the release of last year’s Look Your Best. In many ways, the Memphis outfit went back to its roots on its third full-length album; the band returned to the Indie label world, leaving major label Hollywood to sign with grassroots Rock Ridge, and it hit the studio with…
Events: OTR Pretzelfest
The first official Bockfest fund-raiser is taking place this Friday in Over the Rhine. Pretzelfest will be at Venue 222 from 5-10 p.m. Local eateries like MOTR, Shadeau, Taste of Belgium, EAT WELL Catering, Skirtz & Johnson and Mecklenberg Gardens will showcase their unique sourdough creations. Admission is $35, which includes a sampling of freshly…
Onstage: Brighton Beach Memoirs
If your impression of plays by Neil Simon is that they’re only comedies, you need to swing by Covedale Center for the Performing Arts sometime before Feb. 6 for their production of Brighton Beach Memoirs. It’s funny, to be sure, but the first play in a set of three autobiographical pieces Simon wrote is also…
Lectures: Van Jones
Van Jones is one heck of a guy. In fact, in 2009, Time magazine named him as one of the world's most influential people. So it should be no surprise that he's the founder of three nonprofit organizations, each of which focus on empowering people living in disadvantaged communities.
Music: Circa Survive
One of the most entertaining things about experiencing concerts is witnessing other people's reactions to the shared music. Some folks have the ability to react so strikingly that your attention drifts away from the music to keeping an eye on what one person is going to do next. Anthony Green is one such individual. During…
Music: Terrible Things
In 2008 and 2009, Coatesville, Pa., was victim of bizarre, cruel trauma. Within that period, the small town with a population of about 10,000 was subject to some 44 arsons within its city limits. The damage was in the millions of dollars, several families were displaced because of destroyed homes and one woman died. The…
Music: Freddie Gibbs
They say when times get lean it’s best to reel it in and stick together. Born and raised in post-industrial, Reagan-approved-crack-era Gary, Ind., Freddie Gibbs gets that. This would explain his grassroots approach to re-inventing a once-promising major-label-approved career into an independent DIY movement. In 2004, Gibbs signed with Interscope, but, not one for the…
Art: NVISION and Thunder-Sky Inc.
NVISION is one of several funky retail spots around town that offers lots of handcrafted, up-cycled or recovered clothing, art and furniture. Additionally, they host regular art exhibitions. This Friday the space presents an exhibition by Eric Deller and additional works on display by self-taught painter Angie Ziegler. Deller is a graphic design student at…
Comedy: Stand-up Comedy Show at Arcade Legacy
Comedian Mike Cody is widely known in the local comedy scene as the man behind the Underbelly comedy show at the Southgate House. He also does stand-up throughout the Midwest, but concurrently continues to be a comedy impresario of sorts. His latest effort is a stand-up comedy show to be held at Arcade Legacy in…
Worst Day Ever!
• Reds baseball player Joey Votto signed a three-year contract with the team and says he can't imagine playing anywhere else. Thousands of Reds fans who know little about baseball economics cry.—- • Lakota students are walking both ways to school uphill in the snow now that school busing has been cut for 6,400 students.…
David Crowley Passes Away
Following a long battle with cancer, former Cincinnati City Councilman and Vice Mayor David Crowley passed away early this morning. Crowley, 73, had struggled with the illness since leaving City Council in 2009 due to term limits. After a grueling round of chemotherapy that took a toll on his body, Crowley appeared to have beaten…
Loft Society Celebrates MLK, Jazz-Style
One of the coolest, more unique musical experiences to be had in Cincinnati is at the concerts presented by The Loft Society, an on-the-down-low, speakeasy-like venue housed in the top-floor loft of an apartment building on Calhoun Street in University Heights (next to Mayra’s restaurant). Programmed and hosted by Al Williams, the Loft has been…
Walk the Moon
Until recently, Walk the Moon’s membership had more turnovers than the Bengals in the fourth quarter. The band’s lineup has fluctuated since vocalist/keyboardist Nicholas Petricca officially put WTM together three years ago, but that situation changed in 2010. Since recording their debut full length I Want! I Want! in late 2009, the band underwent yet…
Wait For the Footsteps
It was a late summer night nearly a year ago. It’s a night I have a hard time forgetting. My friend and I were stumbling from Mac’s Pizza Pub down to our friend’s house on Ravine in Clifton. It had already been quite a long night of drinking but we were ready for more. About…
Stage Door: Catch ‘King John’ While You Can
It's taken 17 years for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company to get around to staging King John. With only four more beyond this one to complete the cycle of producing all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, CSC is headed to a position that few theater companies can boast about. —- If you saw the company's production of A…
Friday Movie Roundup: Winona Ryder Edition
There was a time when Winona Ryder could do no wrong. Simultaneously intelligent, beautiful and creatively savvy, Ryder burst onto the scene with a series of late-1980s roles informed by a refreshingly offbeat sensibility best exemplified by her adorable goth-girl breakthrough in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and her career-defining performance as Veronica in Heathers, a scathing…
Worst Day Ever!
• Mayor Mark Mallory is extremely proud of the public employees he met during a recent taping of the CBS show Undercover Boss. City Council not included.—- • A new mortgage proposal that would ask home buyers to put 30 percent down has upset bankers. Not because they won't be able to loan the more…
More Details on Keller’s IGA
A Clifton community group is contacting local and state officials to get help with the effort to reopen Keller's IGA grocery store in the Gaslight District. The store, located on Ludlow Avenue in the heart of the neighborhood's business district, abruptly closed Jan. 6, shocking many residents and other longtime customers.—- The Clifton Town Meeting…
The Dilemma (Review)
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Ron Howard has a bit of a reputation. He, along with producing partner Brian Glazer, has become known for a generic competence that, within the mainstream, has evolved into a brand of comfort and some measure of quality. Cocoon, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code are…
Local Artists Using Kickstarter (A Little Bit)
With today’s technology, it has become easier and cheaper for an artist to share his or her work with the world. But, depending on what you want to make and of what quality, cash is still often required at some point during the creation process. Dwindling arts grants have shut that source off for most…
Clooney Comes Home
As you've no doubt heard by now, a portion of George Clooney's next directorial effort will be shot in and around the Cincinnati area. Based on writer Beau Willimon's stage play Farragut North, Ides of March features Clooney, who co-wrote the screen adaption with partner Grant Heslov, as a “Howard Dean-type governor” who's trying to…
Worst Day Ever!
• Here's another reason not to attend college at Ohio University: The school this fall will begin testing male-female roommate situations (girls are gross!). Leaders in the school's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Center say gender-neutral housing will be of particular benefit to transgender students. The school says it will frown upon students in dating relationships…
UC vs. South Florida Live Blog
Hi from Fifth Third Arena! The UC Bearcats just finished warming up for their contest against the South Florida Bulls. Before they headed into the locker room Darnell Wilks tried a windmill jam with the ball near his knees and Cashmere Wright tried to throw in a crazy rebound. The 'Cats look ready to play…
DGA Announces Top Docs
The Directors Guild of American today announced its nominees for “Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentaries” for 2010: Lixin Fan's Last Train Home; Charles Ferguson's Inside Job; Alex Gibney's Client 9: The Rise and Fall of the Eliot Spitzer; Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for Superman; and Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger's Restrepo. There's no denying that the…
Bucket of Paint, Hold the Fumes
Y ou know that new paint smell you get when you roll out the latex on your living room walls? It’s not good for you. In fact, these volatile organic compounds (VOCs) might irritate your sinuses and lungs or even be carcinogenic. It’s a mixed bag, depending on what colors and formula of paint you’re…
Between ‘the Dying Old and Emerging New’
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous speeches address the crushing issue of his time: ending racial segregation in America. His “I have a dream” exhortation at the 1963 March on Washington and his foreboding “I’ve been to the mountaintop” sermon at Memphis, just before his 1968 assassination, are the best examples. But a…
Made in Dagenham (Review)
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } A determinedly sunny take on the labor struggles of women factory workers at a British Ford plant in 1968, Made in Dagenham is a highly polished comedy with a clear message about equal pay for women. Adapted from William Ivory's seamless script, director Nigel Cole…
The Internet Rantings of Jared Loughner
M y son is 9 years old, so when I heard from University Medical Center’s Dr. Peter Rhee that a child of the same age is among the confirmed dead from the shooting at Safeway supermarket on Ina and Oracle roads, this whole event became even harder to take. I try to take my son…
Jan. 5-11: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY JAN. 5 Sometimes even the biggest supporters of public transportation have to give the anti-streetcar movement credit: “Yes, anti-streetcar guy, modern streetcars do resemble trolley cars used in the early-20th century. What does this school bus kind of look like?” The latest news out out of anti-trolly town is that streetcar opponents are continuing…
The Green Hornet (Review)
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } I remember when comic books were nothing more than cheap pieces of escapist fun and the film and TV adaptations, like the old Adam West Batman series, were camp, pure and simple. A similar crime fighter, The Green Hornet battled across several media beginning on the radio in the 1930s,…
Making Resolutions Work
“The easiest way for me to start out is with a metaphor,” Dr. Charles Brady says. Brady is a psychologist for the Lindner Center of Hope. “Picture yourself sitting on the edge of a forest and you want to clear a new path. You have to start by doing the heavy work first, cutting down…
Alamar (Review)
Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s verite-styled familial drama is an aspirational observance of three generations of males living at one with nature in the Caribbean’s coastal solitude of Banco Chinchorro, Mexico’s largest coral reef. Mexican Jorge, a primal man turned husband dad, is divorcing from his Italian wife Roberta, who would rather enjoy the spoils of urban life…
Rabbit Hole (Review)
From the start, Rabbit Hole seems to be looking up at the world from a position of frustration and regret. Suburbia is a place of artificial security, away from the harsh urban reality; an unsettling dreamscape we pretend does not share a border with the nightmares that we seek to avoid. Due to an unbearable…
Getting Bed Bugs to Bug Off
S ometimes your enemy is so terrible that you have to hire a hitman to take care of the problem. Richard Tyree is a mercenary who handles some of the nastiest and smallest characters you’ll encounter: Tyree kills bed bugs with heat. Tyree has worked as a contractor for years, but that market hasn’t been…
New Enquirer Editor Has Odd Views on Journalism
R eaders who had hoped The Cincinnati Enquirer might impose a more watchful eye on local corporations and their business practices with the hiring of a new executive editor probably shouldn’t proceed any further. They will only get depressed. It’s well known that The Enquirer has been timid about calling out businesses on possible misconduct…
New Roo Revue
My awareness of and subsequent passion for local music began when I was around 12, but a new compilation album could get your favorite little one started even earlier. Diva Kangaroo is a 13-track album featuring a variety of area performers playing original children’s songs. Put together by The Ceilidh Group , the proceeds from…
Mag: Boehner ‘The Ultimate Beltway Hack’
Perhaps the perfect antidote to The Enquirer's fawning, superficial coverage of the new House Speaker is the profile of John Boehner that appears in the new issue of Rolling Stone. West Chester's favorite son — who is now second in line to the presidency — doesn't come off well in the lengthy article by political…
Worst Day Ever!
• Remember how funny it was in 2008 when the windstorm wreaked havoc on Cincinnati? (Unless you got hurt or your car was smashed by something the city didn't own.) It's time for individuals to pay for the costs incurred by the energy company. It's just $14.1 million. No big deal. —- • Dusty Rhodes…
Big New Album From Bootsy Due Soon
Cincinnati music’s most iconic figure, Bootsy Collins, is gearing up to release a new album this spring, the funkmaster’s first new material in five years. The guest list on Tha Funk Capital of the World is stacked with superstars from various fields, not just music. Along with Hip Hop legends Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and…
