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1 week ago | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
The rock band Magnetic Fields released its three-disc magnum opus, 69 Love Songs, back in 1999, and it was recognized immediately as a classic. The Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop Critics Poll, the most influential at the time, ranked it the year’s second-best album, while the poll’s creator, VV critic and author Robert Christgau, ranked it first.
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1 week ago | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
Val Kilmer had both a thrilling acting career with many memorable hits and a tough luck one. He died on April 1 at age 65, officially from pneumonia, but the damage from the throat cancer first diagnosed in 2015 had left him struggling to speak. As Diane Janicki did after David Lynch’s and Gene Hackman’s recent deaths, she’s remembering Kilmer’s life with a film retrospective at the Esquire Theatre in May.
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1 month ago | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
Just in time for the start of the Major League Baseball season, the Mariemont Theatre is showing a movie that should elicit joy from fans of that sport and, if the reviews are any indication, from those who like good indie movies as well. Perhaps this and other new-to-market indie films will help take the sting out of Sundance’s announcement to relocate to Boulder, Colorado, instead of Cincinnati.
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2 months ago | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
This year’s Over-the-Rhine Film Festival (March 6-8) features several major art/indie films you wouldn’t be surprised to see at a higher-profile international festival. Like Sundance, for instance. This upgrade represents an evolution for the event, which was once known as the Cincinnati ReelAbilities Film Festival because it was focused on films primarily about people with disabilities and their challenges.
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Jan 31, 2025 | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
February is an extremely busy month on the Cincinnati (and regional) art/indie movie circuit, with excellent festivals, retrospective screenings, and arrivals of more Oscar-nominated titles. Personally, I don’t remember so much going on locally in the way of art/indie films since the days of The Movies and the Cincinnati Film Society at their 1980s peak.
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
January starts the best time of year for lovers of serious—and seriously good—art and indie films with the arrival of leading candidates for Academy Awards. While some strong candidates have already arrived here (A Real Pain, Anora, Flow, Queer), lots more are enroute.
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Dec 16, 2024 | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
Of the many, many books written about rock icon Bob Dylan to date, it’s probable that none have made a connection between his rise to fame and a stenographer shortage in Cincinnati when he first performed here in 1965. None until now, that is. It’s a key point that Graley Herren, an English professor at Xavier University, makes early on in his book-in-progress, tentatively titled Dylan in Cincinnati. He’s detailing every local concert appearance by Dylan to date.
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Nov 29, 2024 | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
Improbable as it may seem, John Waters has become a Cincinnati holiday tradition. A filmmaker, writer, artist, and sharp-witted comedian/social critic who delivers his often profane sarcasm with a warm smile, he began his seduction of Christmastime Cincinnati last year with a sold-out show at Clifton’s Ludlow Garage. He returns to the same venue for two shows this month, December 13 and 14. As of this story’s deadline, there still were some tickets left for the first show; the second is sold out.
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
November is a really exciting month for indie/specialty films and special screenings in Cincinnati, with the action starting right on November 1 thanks to two significant events at the Esquire Theatre in Clifton. One is a special 10 p.m. screening of a new idea that seems perfect for the independent theater circuit: pairing classic silent movies with music by top adventurous rock musicians. The program is called Silents Synced, because the music is timed to the action in the film.
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Oct 2, 2024 | 
cincinnatimagazine.com | Steven Rosen
The October 4-6 Yellow Springs Film Festival should be of keen interest to anyone wondering what a hip, sophisticated big-name film festival like Sundance is like. And given that Cincinnati is now one of the final three candidates to be the home of Sundance when its contract with Park City/Salt Lake City expires after 2026, everyone here should be developing interest.
