Portman PAC Uses Cash for Perks
A nonpartisan investigative journalism group uses Rob Portman as an example in a new report detailing how politicians use money donated to political action committees (PACs) for purposes other than those outlined in their mission. The report, entitled “Political Inaction Committees,” by the Center for Public Integrity concludes PACs have wide discretion about how they…
Attractions: Fall-O-Ween at Coney Island
Coney Island’s Fall-O-Ween is a delightful autumn festival for kids. With trick-or-treating, a petting zoo, live Halloween shows, a mild haunted house and a maze, there are hours of activities for the most precocious kid. A gaggle of carnival rides keep things interesting for adults, too. Spooky characters like the Headless Horseman prowl the park…
Cincinnati Film Festival: Bigger and Better?
The Oxford International Film Festival is about to embark on another transitional year. Now officially called the Cincinnati Film Festival following last year's move south, the fest features its largest slate of films to date (100) presented over nine days (Oct. 8-16) in 11 different venues across the Tristate (primarily at the Esquire Theatre in…
Literary: Brock Clarke
The Cincinnati literary scene suffered a blow when Brock Clarke recently moved to Portland, Maine, to take a job at Bowdoin College. Through his work as a writer (via two short-story collections and two novels, including 2007's hilarious and well-received An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England) and educator (he taught creative writing…
Events: Kennedy Heights Arts and Music Fest
Look, listen, dance, dine, get involved and enjoy your community in a whole new way. Bring friends and family to the third annual “progressive party” in Kennedy Heights/Pleasant Ridge this Saturday — whenever and wherever it works for you. You can start the day at 10 a.m. in Kennedy Heights with free dance classes, art,…
Onstage: An Evening with David Sedaris
America’s preeminent humorist David Sedaris is back by popular demand Sunday at 7 p.m. at the Aronoff Center downtown. Like Pepsi and Kleenex, he's been branded as the standard of the literary world. His sardonic wit and incisive social critique are what pack the house. Sit back and laugh as he slices through cultural euphemisms…
New Dawn for Cincinnati Film Festival
Leland Orser's Morning is the type of film that often falls through the cracks in today's depressed distribution landscape: a small, challenging passion project that makes no concessions to commercial cinema. It needs to find an audience via artist-nurturing outlets like the Cincinnati Film Festival, where Morning makes its regional premiere at 9 p.m. Oct.…
Brandon Flowers, Richard Barone, Bachman & Turner, Jukebox the Ghost and More
As I write these words, the 2010 MidPoint Music Festival is already a vivid and exhaustive memory. Sweet fancy Moses, I love those three days. For a music maniac of my admittedly staggering proportions, it’s the equivalent of a junkie’s long heroin weekend in Bangkok. And now I’m teetering between the afterglow of a succession…
Events: Popopolis
Pop-lock and drop it or whatever your jig of choice might be as Fountain Square presents Cincinnati’s Pop Rock music event, Popopolis. Don’t fret if you’re not in tune with the Queen City’s homespun music scene — there will be cutting-edge riffs that will suit everyone’s musical appetite 7-11 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday.…
Music: The Thermals
Let’s flash back to the summer. Westin Glass is sitting in his downstairs neighbors’ apartment. He pops in The Thermals’ forthcoming release, Personal Life, and awaits their feedback. Perhaps they listen to the whole record, or perhaps Glass skips around, touching on crunchy AltPop tracks like “I’m Gonna Change Your Life” and “I Don’t Believe…
Events: TEDxCincy
I’m sure most CityBeat readers have at least one friend who has said something like, “Oh, you have to listen to this TEDTalk,” or “This is my favorite TEDTalk.” Now if those phrases leave you questioning who the hell TED is or why he’s so interesting, know that TED is not a human but a…
Art: Embracing the Yin at Cincinnati Art Galleries
Fans of Kevin T. Kelly’s controversial, sexually charged paintings have a surprise in store for them at Cincinnati Art Galleries (225 E. Sixth St., Downtown). His current exhibition, Embracing the Yin, calms and soothes the soul with ethereal, tranquil landscapes. Filled with gorgeous color gradations, the deceptively minimal compositions capture the agricultural monumentality of the…
Music: Greg Dulli and Craig Wedren
The Greg Dulli/Craig Wedren appearance at the 20th Century is a fascinating and perhaps unintentionally appropriate pairing of artists. Although both will be in solo form on this brief tour, Dulli and Wedren share a couple of interesting bullet points on their résumés: They were both members of acclaimed if somewhat underground bands in the…
Events: Hops on the Ohio
If you aren't a fan of exercising along the Purple People Bridge, you're in luck. It's finally being put to a more fun, alternative use than just an interesting way to get that morning run in. Hops on the Ohio is the nation's first state-to-state beer festival. Cross the river by way of the Purple…
Popopolis
Pop-lock and drop it (or whatever your jig of choice might be) as Fountain Square presents Cincinnati’s premier Pop Rock music event, Popopolis. Don’t fret if you’re not in tune with the Queen City’s homespun music scene — there will be cutting-edge riffs to suit everyone’s musical appetite this Friday and Saturday night from 7…
Music: forgetters
In the 1990s, Blake Schwarzenbach established his rep as one of the most mature and incisive lyricists in Punk Rock and early Emo. Over seven years, the guitarist/singer’s Bay Area-based breakthrough band, Jawbreaker, explored subjects both dismal (death, loneliness, destroyed relationships) and lighthearted (the politics of Punk, moments of falling in love) over evocative, carefully…
For Turner, Women’s Health Depends on Education and Choices
Even when she's saying something that's been heard before, one can’t help but listen when Kathleen Turner speaks. The Academy Award-nominated actress won her fame through a mix of stage prowess, femme fatale looks and a deep, sultry voice that's as unforgettable as it is bewitching. Turner, who just completed a month of performances at…
Rituals, Routines and Ruts
I don’t want to get all goofy on language use and what’s really being said when it comes to words, but if I do get goofy, try to cut me some slack. Here’s how this all started. On most mornings while at the bus stop downtown to catch a Tank Bus over to Northern Kentucky,…
Comedy: Ty Barnett
There are some comedians who squander their down time, but Ty Barnett isn't one of them. When he had some open spots in his tour this past summer, he hunkered down to work on a number of projects. “I’ve got two pilots that I’m working on,” he says. “I just finished a script for one,…
Onstage: Skin Tight at Know Theatre
Gary Henderson’s Skin Tight is as much a piece of lyrical poetry as it is a play. It’s also likely to be the most physical performance — wonderfully staged and choreographed by director Drew Fracher — you’ll see onstage in this Cincinnati theater season. Know Theatre’s 2010 opener is brief — about 60 minutes of…
Blog Slams Enquirer’s Flawed Poll
There it was, splashed across the front page of Sunday's Enquirer in big, bold letters: “Poll Puts Chabot in Lead.” The headline used for the Internet version was, as usual, even more excitable: “Poll: Chabot Leads Big Over Driehaus.” The article was about a poll that Cincinnati's only daily newspaper commissioned on Ohio's 1st Congressional…
Tea Party Leader Skips TV Forum (Updated)
**UPDATE AT BOTTOM** It's 72 hours and counting. That's how long it has been since CityBeat e-mailed Mike Wilson, a Republican candidate and Cincinnati Tea Party leader, to learn why he skipped a planned appearance at a candidates' forum Wednesday night in Forest Park. So far, we've received no reply.—- CityBeat wrote Wilson and his…
The Thermals
Let’s flash back to the summer. Westin Glass is sitting in his downstairs neighbors’ apartment. He pops in The Thermals’ forthcoming release, Personal Life, and awaits their feedback. Perhaps they listen to the whole record, or perhaps Glass skips around, touching on crunchy AltPop tracks like “I’m Gonna Change Your Life” and “I Don’t Believe…
Art: Yamini Nayar
The Lightborne Artist-in-Residence and Lecture series is in its fourth year, and — as always — it is doing an amazing job at bringing renowned, internationally established photographers with very contemporary, compellingly innovative practices to Cincinnati. This year’s Lightborne AIR is Yamini Nayar, a Brooklyn-based artist who photographs installations and collages to achieve her final…
Greg Dulli and Craig Wedren
The Greg Dulli/Craig Wedren appearance at the 20th Century is a fascinating and perhaps unintentionally appropriate pairing of artists. Although both will be in solo form on this brief tour, Dulli and Wedren share a couple of interesting bullet points on their résumés — they were both members of acclaimed if somewhat underground bands in…
forgetters
In the 1990s, Blake Schwarzenbach established his rep as one of the most mature and incisive lyricists in Punk Rock and early Emo. Over seven years, the guitarist/singer’s Bay Area-based breakthrough band, Jawbreaker, explored subjects both dismal (death, loneliness, destroyed relationships) and lighthearted (the politics of Punk, moments of falling in love) over evocative, carefully…
August: Osage County (Review)
Critic's Pick Tracy Letts’ searing, dark comedy about an outrageously dysfunctional contemporary family, August: Osage County, is having its regional premiere at Wright State University’s Festival Playhouse in a co-production with Dayton’s Human Race Theatre Company (HRTC). The play, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award in 2008, is an anomaly: three acts, more…
The Thermals Sing a Simple Song
Let’s flash back to the summer. Westin Glass is sitting in his downstairs neighbors’ apartment. He pops in The Thermals’ forthcoming release, Personal Life, and awaits their feedback. Perhaps they listen to the whole record, or perhaps Glass skips around, touching on crunchy AltPop tracks like “I’m Gonna Change Your Life” and “I Don’t Believe…
Evita (Review)
Cincinnati Landmark Productions has converted a one-time West Side cinema into a fine theatrical venue, the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts, and the group’s ninth season kicks off with an ambitious production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita, the tale of the charismatic, controversial Argentine first lady Eva Perón. The Covedale benefits…
Voter Registration Ends Today
Today is the last day you can register to vote in the Nov. 2 election. You can register in person at any county board of elections, or you can mail in your registration to your county board of elections or to the Secretary of State, but make sure the postmark is no later than today.…
Friday Movie Roundup: The Flowering of David Fincher
What's up with David Fincher? After giving us only one film (2002's Panic Room) in the eight years following 1999's gleefully subversive, zeitgeist-capturing Fight Club, the notoriously meticulous filmmaker is back with The Social Network, his third effort in four years following 2007's excellent Zodiac and 2008's out-of-character — it's essentially a straight-up love story —…
JJ Grey & Mofro: Georgia Warhorse
There was a time when James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone and Otis Redding and all of Motown roamed the airwaves and Funk, Soul and R&B were a part of the overall sonic fabric, and it was good. JJ Grey might not be old enough to remember those days from firsthand experience but…
Richard Thompson: Dream Attic
Exactly how much more praise can we lavish upon Richard Thompson before his head explodes? How many more times can we hail his fluidity and invention as a guitarist in both acoustic and electric settings, his elegant brilliance as a songwriter, his honey-with-a-double-bourbon-chaser voice and his almost supernatural consistency before he turns into a pile…
Stage Door: Backstage, Musical Stage
There are a ton of shows out there this weekend, so you can hardly go wrong when you buy a theater ticket. If you want a thoughtful, creative comedy, you should head to the Cincinnati Playhouse for The Understudy. On the surface, it's about some actors in a rehearsal — and there's a lot of…
Acclaim for Playhouse’s “Understudy”
Theresa Rebeck's comedy The Understudy (at the Playhouse through Oct. 17) has earned the first two nominations of the Acclaim Awards 2010-2011 season. CityBeat's Cincinnati Entertainment Awards recently joined forces with The Acclaims, and I'm working closely with the process. The Acclaims handed down during the season serve as nominations for awards that will be…
Whitewater Gorge/Cardinal Greenway Hike
Key At-A-Glance Information Length: 6.1 milesConfiguration: Point-to-pointDifficulty: ModerateScenery: Cityscape, forest, waterfall, Ordovician fossils, and West Fork of the East Fork Whitewater RiverExposure: Mostly shadedTraffic: Moderate-heavyTrail Surface: Paved, mowed, and soilHiking Time: 5 hoursDriving Distance: 1.5 hours northwest of CincinnatiSeason: Year-roundAccess: Sunrise-sunsetMaps: USGS Richmond; Cardinal Greenway TrailWheelchair Accessible: The Cardinal Greenway Trail. Sections that lead off…
A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (Review)
Acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, House of Flying Daggers) pays homage to Joel and Ethan Coen’s noir-tinged debut Blood Simple, shifting from the Western to a Chinese noodle shop in an isolated desert-scape where the owner Wang (Dahong Ni) plots to murder his wife (Ni Yan) and her lover Zhang (Honglei…
Let Me In (Review)
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Matt Reeves' remake of Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson's atmospheric vampire thriller — both of which are based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s horror novel Let the Right One In — might not be as restrained or as poetic as its predecessor. Like the earlier film, though, Let Me In's take on the…
Who’s Right in Billboard Brouhaha?
An anti-abortion group is defending the claims it makes on billboards criticizing Congressman Steve Driehaus (D-Price Hill), but comments from a prominent Catholic bishop appears to support Driehaus' stance.—- The Susan B. Anthony List will erect four billboards in the next few days around the city including high-traffic spots along Interstates 75 and 74. The…
Westwood Group Strongarms Summit
When CityBeat heard the Westwood Civic Association was planning a so-called “West Side Summit,” the group's leader responded that he was seeking input from various West Side neighborhood groups and that they could help set the agenda. A recent e-mail exchange between WCA President John Sess and a Community Press reporter, however, in which Sess…
Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman (Review)
Critic's Pick In the Cincinnati Art Museum’s new exhibition Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman, I learned a new word. “Demireps” were women with less-than-respectable reputations. They were actresses, singers, dancers, courtesans and mistresses who rejected the accepted notions of femininity, made their own money, gambled, left their husbands and — gasp — wore French…
Don’t Fool Yourself, the Economic Game is Rigged
If you're a typical Republican or a Tea Partier, then you must think the average CEO in the United States works 344 times harder than the average worker. Or, at the least, that the average CEO is worth 344 times more than the worker. The latest findings of the U.S. Census show the gap between…
The Social Network (Review)
The Social Network is not the unvarnished true story of Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. But it seems as if one of Zuckerberg’s friends should have posted that on his little social network because he sure is acting like people might think it is. If the various reports bouncing around the Web are…
Rumors, Lies and General Misunderstandings
• Cincinnati Hip Hop cleaned up at the fifth annual Ohio Hip Hop Awards Sept. 18 in Cleveland, taking home many trophies in some of the event’s biggest categories. Local crew Beat Gang won “Best Group” and “Best Single” for its track “Mr. Miyagi” (the group’s B. Luck also won “Best Graphic Designer”). The Remedy…
Molly Navin [Operations Director, Parish Kitchen]
The Parish Kitchen (143 Pike St., Covington, 859-581-7745) serves meals 365 days a year. The only other place to eat in Covington that’s open that often is the Anchor Grill, but at the Parish Kitchen, there’s never a charge — and in this time of economic crisis, that means business at the Kitchen is booming.…
Sept. 22-28: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY SEPT. 22 In today's digital world politicians have to be careful about what they say — there's no way to tell if a reporter is using a cell phone for Twitter or adjusting the recorder settings to better catch the things you say under your breath (sometimes they're just selling their Beanie Babies on…
Gamble House and Joanne Kemmerer
[LOSER] “PLEDGE TO AMERICA”: Same old, same old. That's what the Republican Party's supposedly new “Pledge to America” is, merely the repackaging of the same policies that caused the economy to crash and allowed big corporations to act recklessly. More importantly, though, it also includes flat-out lies. As the nonpartisan FactCheck.org noted, the pledge “…
Stay Positive
(Exiled from Main Street XXXII: for Myself) The irony wasn’t lost on me: Mere weeks following my debut in these pages, the alternate title to which might have been “In Defense of Suicide,” I almost died by my own hand. I don’t remember much, admittedly — although history would suggest alcohol, anger, being of Irish…
You Again (Review)
You Again roams the realm of broad comedy (somewhere between a rom-com and what could be confused with a dramedy, if it had a positive IQ) involving the reunion and revisitation of high school class warfare as a social misfit (Kristen Bell) comes to grips with her brother marrying the popular cheerleader (Odette Yustman), with…
The Hyland Road
Andre Hyland is tall and thin with an untamed mop of curly brown hair, relatively unassuming in dress and appearance but with a certain edge, like a slightly reformed adult skate punk. It’s perfect for the Cincinnati native/L.A. resident, an improvisational comic whose guerrilla style finds him inhabiting a broad range of fringe characters, disturbing…
A Simple, Rough Life
A gentle autumn sun warms scores of tents along the Cincinnati riverfront. The smells of grilled meat mingle with those of sweat and city streets. The setting is idyllic and welcoming as the crowds gear up for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats football team to face off against the Oklahoma Sooners. The temporary residents of…
Augusten Burroughs Lives Through Words
Writing saved Augusten Burroughs' life. Literally. As anyone who's read Burroughs' 2002 memoir, Running with Scissors, will attest, the guy has led a challenging life informed by a deeply dysfunctional childhood that included a broken family, drugs, alcohol and a sexual relationship with a man twice his age. Hilarious and haunting in equal measure, Scissors…
Joe’s Diner (Review)
Joe’s Diner is a place where the neighborhood meets for a meal. We talked to guests in a neighboring booth about I Love Lucy as it played on the TV above the counter seats, and a friend stopped by for a milkshake. The back dining room is retro in design, with white booths and blue…
The Many Moods of MidPoint
We had joy, we had fun. We had some frustration and anger, too. Such has been the way of the MidPoint Music Festival since its origins in 2002. But, in the end, MPMF’s 2010 edition proved to be the most successful yet, drawing thousands of music lovers to downtown, Over-the-Rhine and Newport over the course…
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (Review)
Based on the best-seller by Kathryn Lasky, this animated adaptation “from the studio that brought you Happy Feet” seeks to kick off an epic adventure franchise for kids, but it suffers from unfamiliar vocal performances (from indie world and television B-listers like Jim Sturgess, Joel Edgerton, Abbie Cornish and Anthony LaPaglia) and the startlingly violent…
Caribe Carryout (Review)
So you want to bring something home for dinner but you can’t stand the thought of another pizza or bucket of chicken. You’ve had a million nights like this, right? Or you need a fast lunch but something more flavorful than the usual fast food? I have a great suggestion for you — Caribe Carryout.…
The Virginity Hit (Review)
Think of The Virginity Hit as a prequel to The 40 Year Old Virgin that, while focusing on the late high school days of a crew of geeky virgins, mines the same terrain of Miss March (the out-and-out raunch) and She’s Out of My League (although with none of that film’s considerable goodwill toward its…
Some Enchanted Evening
The current touring production of South Pacific at the Aronoff Center offers a rare treat: an orchestra of 25 musicians. According to the production’s conductor Lawrence Goldberg, “A typical band on the road is 15.” When this revival of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s 1949 classic was assembled two years ago at New York City’s…
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (Review)
It’s a battle of the iconoclasts when Werner Herzog (Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Grizzly Man) and David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks) come together for a fascinating, often frustrating crime-drama/horror amalgam packed with the quirks, oddball characters and creepiness that imbue each filmmaker’s respective works. My Son is based on the true story of…
