Dead Man Talking
Into the Abyss, Werner Herzog’s curious look at a Texas triple homicide and the long march to the fatal gurney for the young men involved doesn’t bang the gong too loudly for anti-death penalty legislative action. Still, the movie is refreshingly devoid of politics, even if that also means it’s devoid of conflict. Herzog examines…
The Black Keys Unveil Five Songs From Their New Album
Yeah, we know the Black Keys don’t call Akron home anymore. But they had a good run here, and we still love them. We’re also totally excited for their new album, El Camino, which comes out on December 6. And if you’re anything like us, you probably can’t wait another six days to hear the…
Better Make Room on the Shelf for All Those Awards, Take Shelter
Take Shelter, the apocalyptic drama shot in Northeast Ohio and one of our favorite movies of the year, is starting to pick up award nominations. Not that we’re surprised. The movie has been generating buzz ever since it premiered at some prestigious film festivals earlier this year. But with all the year-end critics’ list and…
MMPI Will Be Held to the Lowest of Low Standards
Cuyahoga County taxpayers footing the bill for the Med Mart and convention center have long been assured that adequate performance standards are built into the contract with project developer MMPI. But it turns out it would take a near-catastrophic failure on the part of MMPI before the county could withhold rent payments or find a…
Local Cleanup Crew Gets National Reality Show
Reality TV has yet to come calling for The Real Housewives of Cleveland — though who wouldn’t delight in the adventures of six Parliament-smoking moms bombarding Marc’s with coupon-stuffed fannypacks, then retiring to the Parma Cafe for happy-hour High Lifes? For now, we’ll have to content ourselves with Catastrophes, Inc., a forthcoming show featuring Cleveland’s…
The Quality of Cleveland Life Report
Your guide to living in fabulous Cleveland. Ohio: Stick to the North Side: Ohio’s next license plates could feature images of Cleveland’s orchestra and West Side Market; competing attractions from Cincinnati include Jethro Rainey’s Big Mound o’ Tires and Cousin Leo’s NyQuil Lab of Wonder. Millionaires Woe: Councilman Jeff Johnson opposes Cleveland State’s plan to…
Someone Left a Headless Dead Rooster at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center
Black magic at the Juvenile Justice Center? Perhaps. Tune in this afternoon with 19 Action News first at four to find out! Just kidding. But that promo from Northeast Ohio’s own tabloid news is bound to make its way to air today.Scott Taylor reports that Sheriff officials confirmed that a box containing clothes and a…
Majority of Ohio License Plate Slogan Suggestions Are Patently Stupid
Ohio is getting a new license plate design, again. And it will come with a new slogan. A little history first. In 1973, Ohio plastered a slogan on the license plate for the first time, and it also might be the first and only slogan in the history of license plates to include a question…
3-Year-Old Lakewood Kid Shoots Up the House
“What part of ‘Bob the Builder’ don’t you understand?” Ask any Lakewood resident and you’ll hear some form of the same refrain: What the hell’s happening to this town? The Detroit Avenue storefronts are gettin’ purty, but the rap sheets are getting uglier by the day. Or maybe they’re just getting better publicity. Our police…
Changes at Reddstone
Things are heating up in the kitchen at Reddstone, the Battery Park watering hole that opened in 2007. As of Thursday, December 1, co-owner and executive chef Josh Kabat is out; Kabat’s long-time sous chef Jeff James is in. While the food at this funky fun stop has always been above average, James says the…
Video: Black Friday at Victoria Secret Looks Fun
From Southpark Mall in Strongsville from Black Friday. Lord help those employees.
Science Proves Bengals Player Flopped
By now you’ve probably seen this massive WWF performance by the Bengals’ Jerome Simpson from Sunday’s game against the Browns. Video below if you haven’t. Now, Wired.com has broken down the physics of the “altercation,” using weight, speed, trajectory, and equations to prove that Simpson is a big fat fake lying faker. See? There’s more…
Chris Hodgson and Scott Kuhn to Take Over Zinc Bistro Space
For weeks there have been rumblings of a major restaurant shake-up in downtown Cleveland. It finally can be revealed what that news is all about. Chris Hodgson, owner of Dim and Den Sum and Hodge Podge food trucks, has paired up with Scott Kuhn, owner of Washington Place Bistro and Welshfield Inn, to open a…
John Kasich Doesn’t Read Ohio Newspapers
The theme of this morning’s blog posts: Ohio is really f&*king strange, and without a doubt, winning the “Ohio or Florida?” game this week. Next stop: Columbus. The governor of Ohio doesn’t read Ohio newspapers. That’s fact, straight from the mouth of John Kasich himself. The exact quote: “I don’t read newspapers in the State…
Ohio Man Asks God for Permission to Attack Girlfriend
The theme of this morning’s blog posts: Ohio is really f&*king strange, and without a doubt, winning the “Ohio or Florida?” game this week. Our first stop: Sandusky. Police there say they’re on the lookout for 33 year-old Scott Sims. Why the interest? It seems he pinned his girlfriend down and attacked her with a…
Concert Review: Beirut at House of Blues
While much of the city was still recovering from the long weekend, a special show was taking place at House of Blues last night. For a little more than an hour, Beirut captured a filled room with its Balkan sounds, a complex cross of today’s ’80s-influenced indie rock and Eastern European world music. It’s rare…
Black Friday in Cleveland, 1959
We’re suckers for NewsNet5’s video archives. Glimpses of Cleveland from decades ago simply tickle us in the right spot on a Monday morning after a long holiday weekend. This time they’ve posted clips from Black Friday in Cleveland in 1959 — yeah, it may be more crazy now, but it’s certainly not a new phenomenon…
Pic of the Day: A Very Cleaveland Christmas
Snapped by Twitter all-star Mike Butz this weekend. How festive.
Best Grub We Ever Had: Staff Edition
In honor of this week’s feature story on Cleveland foodies’ all-time favorite flavors, we bring you the recollections of our ever-ravenous staff. In this installment: Kyle Swenson … Shaking down Cleveland for the Best Grub Ever undoubtedly produces answers about meals and dishes that are quintessentially Cleveland. No brainer, you say. I’m talking about corned…
Concert Review: City and Colour at House of Blues
“Spellbinding.” That’s how one woman in the audience described Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter Dallas Green’s performance last night at House of Blues. The sold-out gig was a raw, epic, and emotional tour de force — the kind of awe-inspiring live effort that will soon make Green’s City and Colour a household name. On the surface, Green…
Best Grub We Ever Had: Staff Edition
In honor of this week’s feature story on Cleveland foodies’ all-time favorite flavors, we bring you the recollections of our ever-ravenous staff. In this installment: Elaine Cicora … Over the past 13-or-so years I’ve had the chance — both professionally and avocationally — to sink my teeth into the best dishes that Cleveland has to…
Best Grub We Ever Had: Staff Edition
In honor of this week’s feature story on Cleveland foodies’ all-time favorite flavors, we bring you the recollections of our ever-ravenous staff. In this installment: Vince Grzegorek … Anyone who’s lived and eaten through Cleveland for two decades has a laundry list of best grub ever, and they fall into a million categories. That, besides…
Best Grub We Ever Had: Staff Edition
Mmm … compost. In honor of this week’s feature story on Cleveland foodies’ all-time favorite flavors, we bring you the recollections of our ever-ravenous staff. In this installment: Staff writer Anastasia Pantsios … Somewhere along childhood’s path I acquired a taste for chocolate-covered candied orange peel. I probably got brave and tasted one of the…
Best Grub We Ever Had: Staff Edition
They don’t make ’em like they used to. In honor of this week’s feature story on Cleveland foodies’ all-time favorite flavors, we bring you the recollections of our ever-ravenous staff. In this installment: Editor Erich Burnett … Somewhere over the last 30 years, our nation got way fatter and our military handed our all-you-can-eat buffet…
Best Grub We Ever Had: Staff Edition
Cheezeburger. In honor of this week’s feature story on Cleveland foodies’ all-time favorite flavors, we bring you the recollections of our ever-ravenous staff. In this installment: Maude Campbell … I pretty much dismissed the most popular fast-food burger place on the planet by the time I was in fourth grade. Cholesterol had not yet become…
Ohio Lawmakers Devise New Way to Screw Public Schools
Grumpy voters who defeated more than half of all school levies on the ballot in Ohio earlier this month aren’t going to be happy to learn about the legislature’s latest gimmick to yank school funding and necessitate — yes! — still more levies. It recently introduced HB 136, which would make vouchers to attend private…
Concert Calendar
City and Colour Are Pink and Green a new fashion statement? Don’t judge Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter Dallas Green on his affiliation with pop wash-up Pink. The former frontman for the Canadian hardcore band Alexisonfire supported the “Get the Party Started” singer on her U.K. tour last year, and they collaborated on “What Makes a Man”…
On Stage
At Cesear’s Forum: My Life With Cranky Pants Playhouse Square’s smallest resident professional theater company, Cesear’s Forum concludes 2011 with a take on Joanna McClelland Glass’ Trying. Set in 1967, the thoughtful two-person drama was inspired by the playwright’s own experience as a fresh-faced secretary to the cantankerous 81-year-old Judge Francis Biddle, a towering legal…
Film Capsules
The Muppets (PG) The Muppets is slavishly devoted to the old guard’s property and reputation, and it’s enormously ambitious. Star and co-writer Jason Segel brings the rapturously joyful felt creatures to life via bouncy, catchy musical numbers, big colorful costumes, and a swirling miasma of pop-culture references and Hollywood cameos — just like old times.…
House of Payne
Alexander Payne has this thing for midlife crises. Whether he’s pitting an exasperated high-school teacher against a scheming overachiever in his 1999 breakthrough Election, dropping Jack Nicholson and a naked Kathy Bates in a hot tub for About Schmidt, or setting a pair of wine snobs loose in his last movie, 2004’s Sideways, the writer-director…
We Get Mail
Dear Occupy Morons … My stock answer to the “Occupy” morons: No, you are not the “99 percent.” Of anything. [“11 Arrested at Occupy Cleveland,” from the Scene & Heard blog]. You’re a hell of a lot better off than the generations of Americans who built and protected this country through mass immigration in the…
CD Review: Mild Mannered
Mild Mannered is a clever name for an alt band whose style has fallen out of fashion. The Cleveland quartet’s toothy, guitar-embittered power pop recalls Sloan or the slicker side of Hole that never really got to develop beyond Celebrity Skin. Believeland is fancy: “Applehead” incorporates a kiddie choir, staccato piano parts, and a trumpet.…
Wet Dreams
Somewhere in The Plain Dealer archives is a wonderful city. Its lakefront is teeming, there is a waiting list for restaurants yet plenty of space at the bars, which look out over a shimmering lake filled with graceful sails and romantic sunsets. The glass walkways invite a stroll along the water, even on stormy nights.…
CD Review: The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones’ last perfect album arrived at a crossroads for the band. They were coming off a string of disappointing albums in the wake of Exile on Main St., their greatest achievement, and, in a turn of the tides lost on no one, disco had replaced rock & roll on the charts and radio…
Local Band in Focus
Meet the Band: Michael Crawley (vocals, guitar, bagpipes), Pat Mulloy (vocals, guitar), Paul Kirk (fiddle), Matt Sofranko (bass), and Mark Whalen (drums). Drunken Destiny: The friends decided to put together a band while hanging out at the Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival two years ago. “I guess that’s what happens when you drink too much Guinness,”…
Wheels of Misfortune
Celebration” might not be the first word one would think of when surveying Stacy Gibboni’s Junkyard Essays at the Old Stone Church Gallery. But it’s certainly what the artist had in mind. A photographic survey of wrecked cars from New Jersey salvage yards, it is a collection of once-useful devices viewed at the end of…
Let It Snow
Chris Allen is all about tradition. As a founding member of the Boys From the County Hell, he spends every St. Patrick’s Day playing Pogues songs all over town. And as the brains behind the Ohio City Singers, he’s written, recorded, and released Christmas albums every year since 2003. This year’s offering, Snow Days, is…
On View This Week
Bonfoey Gallery: The Dream Is GoneBonfoey Gallery’s inaugural exhibition of works by Clevelander Frank Oriti opened last week. Featuring oil and acrylic paintings on canvas, Return examines the rugged power and solemn mein of America’s young, male, blue-collar workforce. In the process, Oriti (himself a one-time steelmill worker from Parma) uncovers moments of character not…
Savage Love
Dear Dan: I’m a 26-year-old guy in a polyamorous relationship. As this is my first kick at the poly can, I wasn’t dying to tell my family, “Hey, I’m dating a married woman!” However, through the magic of Facebook, my brother found out that the girl I’m seeing has a husband. Once I was “busted,”…
Bogs & Dogs
Late-night noshers, rejoice! There’s a new pig-out option in Ohio City. Opened earlier this month by chef Nate Williams, who for a dozen years worked in the fine-dining kitchens of Flying Fig, Bogtrotters Doorstep will dispense high-quality, hand-crafted sandwiches until 3 a.m. on weekends. “I’ve always wanted to do something fun like this,” says Williams.…
Once More, With Feeling
It’s been almost four years since Marketa Irglova, then 19, became the youngest person — and the first Czech — to win an Academy Award for music, sharing Best Original Song honors with her Once co-star (and then-boyfriend) Glen Hansard. At the Oscars ceremony, her acceptance speech was famously cut short by a premature orchestral…
At the Arthouse
Burke and Hare The great Simon Pegg teams up with Andy Serkis (who played both Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies and the lead monkey in the new Planet of the Apes) in a comedy about a pair of 19th-century grave robbers who sell corpses to a medical school. This is the first…
Get Out!
Thursday | 24 Fresh Air Free Fun at the Zoo Take a break from eating animals today and go see them: Admission to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is free between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., plus the fresh air and exercise will no doubt do you good. During your visit, you can see actual lions,…
CD Review: Chris Cornell
Just when you thought his 2009 collaboration with Timbaland would be Chris Cornell’s all-time biggest misstep, the huge voice behind Soundgarden and Audioslave returns with a solo acoustic live album that recasts him as a guitar-strumming troubadour. But without Soundgarden’s heavy-metal thunder and Tom Morello’s waka-waka-waka backing him, Cornell sounds harsh, tentative, and out of…
The Joy of Fried Guts
In a town filled to bursting with prime flavors, we wondered what it was exactly that the local food glitterati crave. So we asked them: When you think of a favorite meal — past or present, fancy or bargain-priced — what is it that you recall most fondly? Their responses were both predictable and utterly…
Home Movies
12 Angry Men (Criterion) It’s not often that “courtroom drama” and “gripping movie” share a sentence — something to do with all those people talking and, um, talking. But this classic courtroom drama is indeed one of the most gripping movies ever made. Sidney Lumet directs and Henry Fonda stars in this 1957 masterpiece about…
Stay In!
The Bad Seed (Warner) This creepy 1956 thriller about an eight-year-old girl who’s secretly an evil killing machine can still freak you out after all these years. It not only serves as a launching point for the psychological horror movies of the ’70s and ’80s, it’s also a probing look at parents’ blind love for…
CD Review: Kate Bush
More than 30 years ago, Kate Bush became the airy godmother of earnest and challenging piano pop, softening the ground for the likes of Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and a veritable Lilith Fair of like-minded female artists. In recent years, Bush has contented herself with raising her son (her last album was 2005’s Aerial, which…
