The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Review)
Disney, Jerry Bruckheimer and Nicolas Cage tap into the legacy of one of the most celebrated animated films of all time (Fantasia) and end up bastardizing it with a live-action reconfiguration set in this vice-free version of New York City, which is missing its living warts and wonders. This tale of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice begins…
Music: Dan Karlsberg Group CD Release Party
Dan Karlsberg has nearly a lifetime of experience on the piano. The 31-year-old Jazz pianist has been sitting at the keys since about the time he could reach them. “I started playing piano before I was 5,” Karlsberg says over cheese sticks and drinks at Willie’s Sports Cafe in West Chester. “I had two older…
Music: Zach Deputy
The term “one-man band” used to conjure images of a guitar player with a harmonica rack, cymbals taped to the insides of his knees, a bike horn under his arm, a bass drum with a stomp pedal and a tambourine for a hat. Technology has largely eliminated that stereotype in favor of a guy playing…
Music: Peter Case
To call Peter Case’s newest album — the invaluable Roots Rock/Americana singer/songwriter/guitarist’s 11th of original material — “miraculous” isn’t to merely say it’s very good. And very good Wig! is, featuring new songs that in their expressive intensity and spontaneity conjure mid-1960s Dylan possessed by the spirit of those bluesy 1950s recordings by Chuck Berry,…
Onstage: Cotton Patch Gospel
Take the familiar stories of of the New Testament, add some contemporary tunes and you might have Jesus Christ Superstar or Godspell. But you’re on the Showboat Majestic this month, so it’s Cotton Patch Gospel, which transplants Jesus and his disciples to a caricatured version of the American South in the early 1970s. Cotton Patch…
Events: 48-Hour Film Festival Screening
The antithesis to the bloated, big-budget commercial fare that dominates the summer multiplex, the annual 48 Hour Film Project has done exactly what its creators envisioned when they founded it in 2001: empower filmmakers of every stripe and experience level to get off their asses and create something from nothing. The brainchild of a pair…
Dan Karlsberg (Profile)
Dan Karlsberg has nearly a lifetime of experience on the piano. The 31-year-old Jazz pianist has been sitting at the keys since about the time he could reach them. “I started playing piano before I was 5,” Karlsberg says over cheese sticks and drinks at Willie’s Sports Cafe in West Chester. “I had two older…
Onstage: Cincinnati Opera’s La Boheme
Puccini’s La Boheme is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Love at first sight in Paris for the seamstress Mimi and the poet Rudolfo, struggling young artists, with a heartbreaking conclusion and that meltingly beautiful score. The inspiration for Rent, it’s the perfect opera for first-timers, for date night, for anyone (and much better musical theater than Rent).…
48 Hour Film Project
The annual 48 Hour Film Project took place weekend of July 17th this year. We followed a team as they tackled the theme of "time travel" for their piece.
Music: Lightning Bolt
The first time I saw Lightning Bolt was one of the most intense shows I’ve ever seen. The Providence, R.I., duo was part of a 2002 package tour with like-minded Noise Rock bands like Arab on Radar and headliners The Locust. While one band was finishing their set on the main stage, drummer Brian Chippendale…
Justice Now a Partisan Affair
A federal appeals court recently made a groundbreaking decision that will change the way judicial candidates run for office in Kentucky and has some experts worried about how it could potentially impact Ohio judicial elections and the impartiality of judges. The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the rules used in Kentucky for…
News Sites Trying New Approaches to Handling Anonymous Comments
I just don’t have time for the stupidity, ignorance, anger, obscenities and racism that anonymous online commenting encourages. Those folks are not people to whom one says, “Come, let us reason together.” Rather, they’re the literate cousins of people who call local talk shows. In a more innocent online era, many dailies and others opened…
Events: CF3 Cookout, Swap Meet and Film Screening
Although Cincinnati Form Follows Function (an organization for enthusiasts of Modern design and architecture called CF3 for short) has only been in existence since 2004, it's already come up with a potentially famous photograph of the city. It’s a panorama taken from Bellevue Hill Park in Clifton Heights. And the success of it gives CF3…
Music: Swear Jar CD Release Party
Post Punk crew Swear Jar celebrates the release of its new long-player Cuss Saturday at the Southgate House Parlour with Pincushion and Mala In Se. Phratry Records is giving away Cuss CDs at the door with the price of admission. Though the press release for Cuss states “most people won’t like it,” fans of old-school,…
Swear Jar CD Release Party
Post Punk crew Swear Jar celebrates the release of its new long-player Cuss on Phratry Records by giving away CDs at the door Saturday with the price of admission ($5, or $8 for those ages 18-20). Though the press release for Cuss states “most people won’t like it,” fans of old-school, underground, independent Rock and…
Music: Chaselounge CD Release Party
Five fun facts about Chaselounge: 1. Three-fourths of the band members are landlords. 2. The original piece of furniture that inspired the band name was orange. 3. The band has been together for eight years, which in musician years is multiplied times three. 4. Some of the band’s musical influences include Jimmy Eat World, Weezer…
Lightning Bolt
The first time I saw Lightning Bolt was one of the most intense shows I’ve ever seen. The Providence, R.I., duo was part of a 2002 package tour with like-minded Noise Rock bands like Arab on Radar and headliners The Locust. While one band was finishing their set on the main stage, drummer Brian Chippendale…
MidPoint Indie Summer Series Featuring Wussy
The weekend is creeping up again, and the super-awesome plans you made on hump day are already falling through. The weekend seems like it's going to consist of you and your friends debating what to do in a dreary living room. Then, suddenly, it’s midnight and you all just decide to call it a night.…
Robert Randolph: We Walk This Road
Over the past decade, Robert Randolph has gone from the obscurity of playing pedal steel guitar in House of God church services in his native Florida (in a style known as Sacred Steel) to being named one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time on the basis of just two albums and an…
Events: Civic Garden Center Neighborhood Gardens Tour
Even though April and May got a little confused this year, all these beautiful gardens that we’re able to enjoy today make all that late rain worth it. The 27th Annual Neighborhood Gardens Tour is the perfect opportunity for you to experience what type of dedication goes into three local gardens that aim to build…
Events: Freak Show Exploded
RuPaul’s breakaway reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race has garnered untold numbers of new fans of drag. The drag queens that have competed on the show are sought-after celebrities that draw delighted crowds wherever they travel across the country. This summer, Leapin Lizard has been the destination to see these beloved queens in person in their…
Comedy: Donnell Rawlings
“I started as professional heckler,” says comedian Donnell Rawlings when asked about how he got into stand-up. “I was working at a grocery chain as a security guard.” Co-workers invited him to go to a comedy club. “I started heckling the comedians on stage and I started becoming pretty popular as a heckler. The club…
Onstage: Les Misérables
Every summer since 1982, Cincinnati Young People’s Theater has presented a musical using eager theater kids from across southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky. This year’s ambitious undertaking, presented at the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts, is the long-running Broadway hit, Les Misérables. The story of petty thief Jean Valjean’s lifelong struggle to become an…
Chaselounge (Profile)
Five fun facts about Chaselounge: 1. Three-fourths of the band members are landlords. 2. The original piece of furniture that inspired the band name was orange. 3. The band has been together for eight years, which in musician years is multiplied times three. 4. Some of the band’s musical influences include Jimmy Eat World, Weezer…
Laurie Anderson: Homeland
By way of historical context, Laurie Anderson’s last studio album, Life on a String, was released a month before 9/11, largely written and recorded in the earliest months of Bush Lite’s first term. And even though Life on a String predated the political tumult and social distress that followed the nation’s worst domestic terrorist attack,…
Zach Deputy
The term “one-man band” used to conjure images of a guitar player with a harmonica rack, cymbals taped to the insides of his knees, a bike horn under his arm, a bass drum with a stomp pedal and a tambourine for a hat. Technology has largely eliminated that stereotype in favor of a guy playing…
Events: Butler County Fair
Considering the first Butler County Fair consisted of a few wagons displaying the latest farm supplies, the fair has worked its way up to provide entertainment for everyone and fun for all ages. From a Mad Cap puppet show each day to a corn hole tournament, visitors can bring anyone to come enjoy the fair. There will be…
Events: Queen City Underground Tour
Cincinnati was once considered the Paris of the United States, and the 90-minute Queen City Underground: Bosses, Breweries, and Burials Walking Tour shows how Porkopolis came to be known as that. The tour goes through the Gateway District which was once home to over 130 bars, saloons, beer gardens and theaters that hosted icons like…
Paul Thorn: Pimps and Preachers
Paul Thorn’s bio reads like a Faulkner novel on mescaline. Born in Wisconsin, raised in Tupelo, Miss., by his Pentecostal preacher father, Thorn learned guitar at 12 but took up boxing under the tutelage of a black sheep uncle (who had been a pimp at one time) and got good enough to earn a bout…
Peter Case
To call Peter Case’s newest album — the invaluable Roots Rock/Americana singer/songwriter/guitarist’s 11th of original material — “miraculous” isn’t to merely say it’s very good. And Wig! is very good, featuring new songs that in their expressive intensity and spontaneity conjure mid-1960s Dylan possessed by the spirit of those bluesy 1950s recordings by Chuck Berry,…
Events: Hyde Park Craft Beer Symposia
Did you know that the word “symposia” comes from the ancient Greeks, who used the root word sympotein, which means "to drink together"? At these ritualized drinking parties, men would recline on pillows in the andron (i.e, ancient Greek man cave) while getting plastered on resinated wine and arguing over whether the Trojans could beat…
Art: Carl Solway Gallery Collection
Time is running out to see the most important art exhibit in town, in terms of the names represented. Carl Solway Gallery's Works from the Gallery Collection features 65 Modern and Contemporary Artists whose prints, paintings and sculpture belong to the venerable West End gallery and are for sale. It ends soon —some undetermined date…
Art: Cincinnati Public Library Book Exhibits
The Cincinnati Public Library’s book art exhibits are even more beautiful support for why real books, as opposed to their ever-muted cousins, ebooks, are superior. Two exhibits of handmade books are currently being displayed at the Main Library downtown. Running through Sept. 6, BookWorks 11 showcases more than 20 handmade books crafted by local and…
Music: MidPoint Indie Summer Featuring Wussy
The weekend is creeping up again, and the super-awesome plans you made on hump-day are already falling through. The weekend seems like it is going to consist of you and your friends debating on what to do in a dreary living room. Then, suddenly, it’s midnight and you all just decide to call it a…
Events: Venus Friday
Looking for love in all the wrong places? Look up and look no further. The goddess of love, better known to astrologists as Venus, awaits your arrival this Friday at the Cincinnati Observatory Center. Here atop the hillsides of Mount Lookout, guests will gaze upon the celestial brilliance of Earth’s sister planet through the lens…
Blithe Spirit (Review)
Critic's Pick For several summers, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company has offered shows of witty, classical fluff when most companies are on a seasonal break. This month Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit is filling the bill nicely. Six CSC’s veteran performers are featured in the comedic ghost story, with the addition of Annie Fitzpatrick, a local professional who…
Laurie Anderson, Marah, Paul Thorn, Robert Randolph, Wovenhand and Stars
By way of historical context, Laurie Anderson’s last studio album, Life on a String, was released a month before 9/11, largely written and recorded in the earliest months of Bush Lite’s first term. And even though Life on a String predated the political tumult and social distress that followed the nation’s worst domestic terrorist attack,…
Jonathan Miller’s Dramatic Truth
Puccini’s La Boheme is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Love at first sight in Paris for the seamstress Mimi and the poet Rudolfo, struggling young artists, with a heartbreaking conclusion and that meltingly beautiful score. The inspiration for Rent, it’s the perfect opera for first-timers, for date night, for anyone (and much better musical theater than Rent).…
Stage Door: Gospels and Ghosts
It's been a long hot summer without much theater to choose from, but this weekend you have several options. I can personally recommend Cotton Patch Gospel at the Showboat Majestic, which I saw earlier this week (read my review here).—- The singers make this show worth watching — it's a retelling of familiar Bible stories…
Boehner Fails Fact Check Test
Nearly two years after the economic meltdown in fall 2008, the U.S. Senate voted Thursday to approve a sweeping financial reform bill aimed at the reckless Wall Street investors who caused the crisis. The Senate voted 60-39 to pass the reforms sought by President Obama. Three Republicans — Scott Brown of Massachusetts, along with Susan…
Happy Jennings Cox Day!
I just got an email reminding me that July 19th is “National Daiquiri Day.” Now, a cursory search of the Big Box of All Knowledge (i.e., the Internet) doesn’t turn up any reference to this so-called “holiday” before 2007. Neither does it easily dig up any indication as to who actually granted it status, though…
Cotton Patch Gospel (Review)
Take the familiar stories of of the New Testament, add some contemporary tunes and you might have Jesus Christ Superstar or Godspell. But you’re on the Showboat Majestic this month, so it’s Cotton Patch Gospel, which transplants Jesus and his disciples to a caricatured version of the American South in the early 1970s. Cotton Patch…
Hearing Set on Water Works Change
Many Cincinnati residents got a glossy flyer in the mail this week informing them of a public meeting about a possible change in their water service. City officials will hold a hearing July 28 to solicit public input about a proposal to switch the Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) from a city-managed department into a…
Bamboozle Recap
All Time Low is an American pop punk band from Baltimore, Maryland, formed in 2003. The band consists of vocalist and rhythm guitarist Alexander Gaskarth, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Jack Barakat, bassist and back vocalist Zachary Merrick, and drummer Rian Dawson. Formed while still in high school, All Time Low started out covering pop…
Arrested Development at the Essense Festival
The Atlanta based-group Arrested Development, won two Grammy Awards in 1993 for Best New Artist and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, and was also named Band of the Year by Rolling Stone magazine. In January 2010, they released a new single “The World is Changing”, which was #9 on Japan Pop. I…
Teller’s to Host
Did you know that the word “symposia” comes from the ancient Greeks, who used the root word sympotein, which means "to drink together"? At these ritualized drinking parties, men would recline on pillows in the andron (i.e, ancient Greek man cave) while getting plastered on resinated wine and arguing over whether the Trojans could beat…
Inception (Review)
For weeks — nay, months — I played along with the coy refusals by writer/director Christopher Nolan and the cast members of Inception to reveal too much about its premise. I resisted the urge to watch online trailers and shunned reading early reviews. In effect, I spent the entire spring doing everything but literally sticking…
Reality Television Meets the Art World
There's an inherent competitive aspect to making art professionally — at some point, somebody else has to like your work more than the next person’s or you’ll never get any attention. So, dubious as I was about an elimination-style reality show devoted to art, I had to acknowledge the premise did make sense when I…
Robin Wood [Robin Wood Flowers]
Robin Wood was the silken voice of WEBN’s Dawn Patrol and 25-year radio/TV veteran until 2000, when she retired to pursue a more genteel life as a florist, a second career that she’s enjoying even more than her first. (Check www.robinwoodflowers.com for info on her business.) She dines out on weekdays, not weekends, because her…
Porn Tunes, Grammys, Prince Pissed AGAIN
[HOT] Suing the Back Off Sexy Times are tough for those in the corporate music world, so, like a lot of people having trouble paying the bills, they’re getting into porn. Eleven major labels have teamed up to sue porn Web sites RK Netmedia and RealityKings for unauthorized use of music by big-timers like Justin…
Stone Creek Dining Company (Review)
P aul Sturkey’s Mesh was one of the best restaurants in Greater Cincinnati, and its replacement certainly has some big shoes to fill. While Stone Creek Dining Company retains Mesh’s good looks and fine dining prices, we wanted to see if the cuisine stood up to its predecessor’s great reputation. On a recent Thursday at…
Rumors, Lies and General Misunderstandings
• While you’re waiting for nostalgia for the ’00s to kick in (remember that crazy Kanye West dude?), you can dip back to the 1990s this Friday as several local musicians team up at The Mad Hatter for a musical tribute to the era that saw Hair Metal murdered by Grunge. The “’90s Tribute Show”…
Despicable Me (Review)
Despicable criminal mastermind Gru (voice of Steve Carell) wants to set himself apart from his arch-rival Vector (Jason Segel), so he decides to steal the moon by shrinking it down to the size of a trinket that will fit in his pocket. But before he can set things in motion he ends up adopting a…
Taking on a Champion
The local manufacturing plant of a national window company might soon become a unionized shop. Employees at Champion Windows’ Sharonville manufacturing facility are scheduled to vote July 21 on a move to join the Iron Workers Shopmen’s Union. If approved, the move would lead to contract negotiations between the company and the labor union over…
Word Is Out (Review)
When it was released in 1977, the documentary Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives was touted as one of the first films about gay life made by gay filmmakers. This wasn’t entirely true, of course. Jean Genet, Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, Rosa von Praunheim, Curt McDowell and many others had been dealing…
Fortunate Girl
Over three-ways at Skyline, my boyfriend’s mother told us she had visions of the future. Across the booth, I nodded politely; boyfriend rolled his eyes, mumbled something. “Did you see me finding a summer job?” I asked. I’d been home from college a week and had filled out resumes at dozens of restaurants; things weren’t…
Lucky John Slow Market (Review)
For some of us, weekday lunch means heating up last night’s remnants or eating a cold can of soup (out of the can) while working at a cramped desk. Lucky John Slow Market (2550 Woodburn Ave., Walnut Hills, 513-979-4829) is not for those quick weekday lunches. Eating at Lucky John means chatting with owner and…
Streetcars and NAACP
[WINNER] STREETCARS: Federal transportation officials announced late last week that Cincinnati will receive a $24.9 million grant to help build a proposed streetcar system. City officials had been anxiously awaiting the outcome of their application, and in May approved $64 million in bonds for the project, contingent on nabbing the federal money. U.S. Transportation Secretary…
Tea Partiers Strike Out on Health Care
So much for the “outrage.” If you can remember back to late last year, the airwaves, newspapers and Internet were filled with debate about the proposed health care reform bill making its way through Congress. Much of the clamor came from opponents who were angry and afraid, whipped into a frenzy by constant lies about…
Predators (Review)
Nimrod Antal (Vancancy) helms this Robert Rodriguez production, which wants to be the true follow-up to the Arnold Schwarzenegger action-adventure from the late 1980s. That’s a fantastic idea, since it neatly sidesteps the two silly Aliens vs. Predators mash-ups (the only thing missing from these inane excuses to rip and kill at will were Abbott…
