Mar 8-15, 2017
Fresh Start: Director Debra Pinger seeks to reinvent ReelAbilities as the major film festival Cincinnati is missing
Minimum Gauge: With ISIS defeated, 100% employment and healthcare plan fixed, Republicans turn to real problems
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Morning News: Political implications of Health Gap investigation; protesters rally for fired federal worker; pro-life groups pushing more abortion restrictions in Ohio
Good morning all. Here’s some news for you today. Recent media investigations into a city-funded nonprofit run by former Cincinnati mayor Dwight Tillery could present complications for Mayor John Cranley’s re-election bid. Tillery was once a major Cranley ally who played a big role in the mayor’s outreach to Cincinnati’s black voters, and recent…
Pillich highlights Cincinnati Women’s March in pitch for 2018 governor’s race
Former State Rep. Connie Pillich released a video announcing her run for governor yesterday, and it prominently features Over-the-Rhine, Washington Park and local iteration of January’s Women’s Marches in protest of President Donald Trump. Pillich, who represented the Montgomery area in the Ohio House of Representatives, casts herself during the three-minute announcement as someone…
Morning News: Could feds fund part of Fort Washington Way cap?; more shelter beds coming for homeless youth; Trump in Kentucky next week
Good morning all. Let’s get straight to the news. Could the federal government foot the bill for part of a massive project covering Fort Washington Way downtown? Hamilton County Commissioners hope so. For a long time, officials and urban planning folks have speculated about covering the span of highway between downtown and The Banks and…
Morning News: Investigation into Park Board underway; is your tax rate higher than these huge local corporations?; Ohio stands to lose billions under House health care plan
Good morning all. Here’s what’s going on today in news. Two high-level Cincinnati Park Board officials are under investigation by the Ohio Ethics Commission, The Cincinnati Enquirer reports. The commission has issued a subpoena related to the board’s director Willie Carden and financial manager Marijane Klug — who have both been caught up in a…
Xavier looks to make a run after nailing down its 11th NCAA Tournament bid in 12 years
At this time last year, Xavier was celebrating its highest NCAA Tournament seed in school history — No. 2 in the East Regional — after a five-loss regular season. On Sunday night, the Musketeers watched 67 teams’ names show up on the NCAA Tournament board before theirs, waiting and finally celebrating as they learned their…
Fired government hydrologist wants her job back after criminal charges dropped
Practically overnight, Sherry Chen went from being an award-winning National Weather Service expert on predicting floods to suspected Chinese spy. Her indictment on espionage-related charges in 2014 thrust the Wilmington resident into widespread notoriety as a low-level likeness of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Then, just as suddenly, the government dropped the charges without saying…
Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Week Returns April 17-23
Craving a distinguished dining experience? You’re in luck: Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Week returns this spring featuring $35 three-course meals at more than 30 of the area’s best eateries. This is your chance to become a culinary tourist in your own city as you experience the cuisine that defines the art of dining in Cincy. From…
Hotel Covington introduces late-night food window
Skip the fast food on your way home from Braxton Brewing Company, The Hannaford or Madison Theater if you’re out late this weekend and enjoy some fresh, high-quality late-night eats at Hotel Covington’s new The Walk Up food window, which opens 10 p.m. this Saturday. Described by executive chef Brendan Haren as a “food-truck window,”…
Your Weekend To Do List (March 10-12)
FRIDAY 10 FILM: REELABILITIES FILM FESTIVAL The current trend in the film industry is the reboot —taking an old formula or beloved classic narrative and reconfiguring it with contemporary updates. The more difficult task, however, is the reinvention, because to truly make something new again — whether a movie or a film festival — there…
Gold Star Chili’s new vegetarian 3-Way is surprisingly good
As a Cincinnatian, it is my patriotic duty to the Queen City to eat and report back on anything smothered in chili. So when I heard Gold Star was coming out with a meat-free chili option, I went to the nearest location to give it a try. I should probably preface this by saying I’m…
Stage Door: Island Theater – Mythic Creatures and Pop Divas
It’s a weekend of eclectic theater on Cincinnati stages. Steve Yockey’s off-kilter plays have become regular offerings at Know Theatre: Pluto (2014) and The Fisherman’s Wife (2016). They’re at it again with Heavier Than…, a painfully funny and moving story rooted in ancient mythology. Asterius the Minotaur, the monster in the Labyrinth on the island of Crete, is turning…
Morning News: Group pushes Cranley on forum attendance; Chabot wants Japan, South Korea to consider nukes; Ohio private schools get $400 million in public money
Good morning all… it’s all hands on deck at CityBeat HQ today as we ramp up for this year’s Best of Cincinnati launch, which culminates in a huge party March 29 at the Phoenix downtown. It’s going to be an amazing issue this year and we’ve all been hustling on it. I tell you that…
More Oscar Shorts
The short film, in all its glory, will be back at Memorial Hall this Saturday and Sunday when Cincinnati World Cinema presents this year’s package of Oscar-nominated Live Action and Animated Shorts. Earlier, it had screened Oscar-nominated Documentary Shorts. Forget the small matter of winners and losers at the Academy Awards. We’re the beneficiaries of…
What a Week! March 1-7
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 01 Think you had a rough week? Film academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs told the Associated Press Wednesday that the two accountants responsible for the envelopes and, thus, Sunday’s monumental fail, Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz, will never return to the Oscars show. Cullinan is being blamed for the iconic flub — he…
Richardson, Simpson square off in second mayoral forum
Two of three mayoral hopefuls met for a second time last night at a candidate forum in Walnut Hills for a wide-ranging, hour-and-a-half debate. A cancellation earlier in the day by incumbent Mayor John Cranley afforded an opportunity to compare his challengers, Councilwoman Yvette Simpson and former University of Cincinnati Board Chair Rob Richardson, Jr.,…
The Other ‘American Crime’ Show
In the past year, the “American crime” on everyone’s minds was the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and the epic trial and media blitz that followed. It seemed like 2016 was all about reliving the O.J. Simpson trial, as evidenced by the heavily decorated debut of the FX anthology American Crime Story: The…
Two New Releases Present Complex Characters
In My Life as a Zucchini, one of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature, audiences are introduced to a young boy known as Zucchini (voiced by Gaspard Schlatter), the nickname given to him by his mother. The film is a Swiss-French production from director Claude Barras. It’s the last of this year’s Best…
Seeing is (maybe) believing at Weston Gallery
How do you know what you know? Through the internet? A photo? A dream? Three separate shows now at the Weston Art Gallery form a rich dialogue about what we think is real and what is really real as we move through time and space. Right away the street-level exhibit The Wired blurs the line between actuality…
Does ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ really foretell Trump’s rise?
J.D. Vance seems to be everywhere these days. The baby-faced 32-year-old has parlayed his uncommon story — small-town Ohioan transcends troubled childhood to graduate from Yale Law School — into something of a cultural phenomenon. Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, published last June, is being hailed as a…
Rembrandt’s Close Relationship with the Jews
Rembrandt and the Jews: The Berger Print Collection, the new exhibition at the Skirball Museum on Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s campus, features etchings that show how this Dutch Master portrayed Jewish and biblical subjects. As such, it is fascinating on several fronts. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, who lived from 1606-1669, is recognized as…
Fast-Casual Curry
If her long-standing passion for cooking was the seed, the call Sujata Pai received from her son six months ago was the push she needed to help cultivate Indi-Go, Hyde Park’s destination for fast-casual Indian dining. Nick, then a senior at Ohio State University, called his mom looking for suggestions for fast and affordable Indian…
Minimum Gauge: SXSW inadvertently finds itself in the middle of the immigration debate
HOT: SXSW’s Immigration Problem South By Southwest, the annual music industry conference/showcase/schmooze-a-rama in Austin, Texas, inadvertently found itself in the middle of the immigration debate created by our current president. When a performer closely examined his contract to play the event (SXSW attracts musical acts from across the globe), he noticed a clause that seemed…
Things the Poors Don’t Need if They Want Health Insurance
OK, we all get it. Health care costs keep going up. Even though the U.S. has been out-pacing the rest of the developed world in amount spent as a percentage of GDP for the past 30 years, the current Republican Congress believes the best way to bring down costs is to get rid of the…
Sound Advice: Moving Units with Viktor Fiction and Soviet (March 8)
Since launching their rhythmic Dance Punk outfit 16 years ago, Moving Units has had something of a tangled history. The Los Angeles quartet began in 2001 when guitarists Chris Hathwell and Blake Miller decided to work together after the breakup of their previous bands, Festival of Dead Deer and Spectacle, respectively. In relatively short order,…
Sound Advice: Johnnyswim with Will Solomon (March 9)
Of all the groups that ever came frontloaded with a surfeit of expectation, Johnnyswim could easily lead the pack. Essentially comprised of vocal duo Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano, the seeds of Johnnyswim were planted over a decade and a half ago when the pair met through mutual friends at a Nashville coffee shop while…
Sound Advice: SeepeopleS with Kumasi (March 11)
Regardless of the era, keeping a band going for 17 years is an impressive feat. But keeping an independent band together since 2000 — as is the case with Maine-based rockers SeepeopleS — shows particular dedication. SeepeopleS have endured a complete shift in the very way music is consumed by sticking to the foundation on…
Mad Anthony wraps song-a-week project
It’s amazing what a difference a year can make. Instead of piles of snaking cables, Ringo Jones’ living room now has a sensible couch and walls lined with framed show posters. The dining room is no longer the practice space for Cincinnati Rock band Mad Anthony, as it was when the group was interviewed for…
Greater Cincinnati Metal foursome Lucis Absentia moves beyond basic Thrash on its forthcoming full-length
If there were any justice in this world, the members of Lucis Absentia would’ve shown up to our interview drunk and/or hungover, with the stench of cheap beer, cheaper pizza and cigarettes still hanging from their all-denim outfits. Or, better yet, not shown up at all because they were too busy raging at their trashed…
Debra Pinger seeks to reinvent ReelAbilities as the major film festival Cincinnati is missing
The current trend in the film industry is the reboot —taking an old formula or beloved classic narrative and reconfiguring it with contemporary updates. The more difficult task, however, is the reinvention, because to truly make something new again — whether a movie or a film festival — there has to be an appreciation for…
Can any of this year’s mayoral candidates actually address Metro’s troubles?
Wearing her pink chef’s hat and neatly pressed kitchen uniform, Whitney Harmon rides the Route 43 Metro bus for an hour almost every day as it snakes its way from Winton Hills, where she lives, toward downtown, where she works as a cook. As the sun comes up, her bus picks up riders and passes…
