A friend recently asked my opinion about what films the Academy might nominate for Best Picture this year. “Uh, I have no idea,” I responded. It's pretty late in the year to be saying that, but, of course, I rarely think about the Oscars until I absolutely have to. Then there's the fact that few of the films released so far this year seem to possess what typically piques the Academy's interest (note that anywhere from five to 10 films can now be nominated).   

Lou Barlow is a direct guy. The 45-year-old founder and main frontman for lo-fi Indie Rock stalwarts Sebadoh doesn’t mince words or waste time — a fact easily discerned when listening to his band’s concise, emotionally direct songs. It makes sense, then, that Barlow would be similarly to the point when discussing Sebadoh’s return via the “Bakesale/Harmacy Remembering Time Tour,” which stops at the Southgate House Thursday.  

Lou Barlow is a direct guy. The 45-year-old founder and main frontman for lo-fi Indie Rock stalwarts Sebadoh doesn't mince words or waste time — a fact easily discerned when listening to his band's   

A pair of worthwhile documentaries that got criminally brief local theatrical runs hit the street this week via DVD/Blu-ray. Each is a nice stay-at-home viewing option on a crappy, rain-infested day like today.  

West-side Cincinnati native David Bell was a voracious reader as a child, spending much of his free time at the Westwood Public Library taking in such books as his favorite, Mabel Louise Robinson's King Arthur and His Knights. It was no surprise, then, when Bell took a creative writing class at St. Xavier High School, which in turn spurred him to study English at Indiana University.  

Dennis Lehane’s distinctive, often disturbing visions have made their way into 10 novels, including his ongoing series of crime thrillers featuring the working-class detective duo Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, the widely acclaimed Mystic River and The Given Day, a dense, well-researched historical novel set, like nearly all of his narratives, in the author’s hometown of Boston.   

Just a heads up that Cincinnati World Cinema tonight continues its screenings of The British Arrow Awards, a collection of British television commercials (or, as they're called across the pond, adverts) that put their American counterparts to shame.In fact, as I wrote the other day, there is often more creative energy in one of these 90-second British adverts than in a two-hour Hollywood effort.   

The Ides of March is nearly here. George Clooney's political thriller, partially shot here in Cincinnati, opens wide tomorrow, and the film's publicity blitz is now in full effect with TV spots flooding the airwaves (you know, the ones pimping Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers' typically overly exuberant blurbage) and Clooney himself doing a few selected interviews. While CityBeat unfortunately didn't get one of those interviews (our bribe of complimentary CB T-shirts and a pass to the MidPoint Music Festival apparently weren't sufficient enough to sway his handlers; we instead talked to Ides actor Max Minghella), Clooney will appear on tonight's episode of The Charlie Rose Show on PBS to discuss the film. It's probably no surprise, then, to learn that Clooney's character in Ides — an articulate liberal Pennsylvania governor who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination — appears on Rose's show in the film.  

Max Minghella is no stranger to film sets. As the son of the late filmmaker Anthony Minghella, the now-26-year-old Max would watch as his dad worked with a bevy of capable actors and crew on such films as The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain — experiences that still inform his own approach as an actor today.   

  The Emery Theatre is finally on its way back. After years of dormancy, the 100-year-old Over-the-Rhine venue is in the midst of a restoration that will allow artistic endeavors of varying stripes to grace its stage. The Emery Center Corporation Board and The Requiem Project — the nonprofit brainchild of Tara Lindsey Gordon and Cincinnati native Tina Manchise, a duo intent on restoring the Emery's historic legacy — announced over the weekend that the Emery has secured two architects to take on the renovation: locally based John Senhauser Architects, and Cleveland-based Westlake Reed Leskosky, a firm that specializes in opening closed arts venues.