Screenwriter Nick Pustay is coming home to Ohio to share his Hollywood success story, one that he couldn't have written any better himself. Pustay, 42, will be in town for the Canton Film Fest, taking place Oct. 5 and 6 at the Canton Palace Theatre. The event will feature film screenings and workshops along with educational resources and networking opportunities for aspiring movie makers. Most of Pustay's family lives in Canton, so he will have a friendly audience on hand for a screening of the 2009 film "Ramona and Beezus." Pustay wrote the screenplay as an adaptation of Beverly Cleary'...
As far as rock 'n’ roll origin stories go, The Bleeding Feathers' formation has a certain rustic charm. The trio met for the first time in December 2011 during a jam session in a rusty old horse barn on the edge of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The three young musicians, each with unique styles and influences, jammed for four hours, almost instantly concocting a chemistry that led them to forming and playing their first gig together at JB's in Kent a month later. Even their pedigree is cool, based on an introduction by Charles Auerbach, father of The Black Keys' singer/guitarist Dan ...
Art in the Square has always been the celebration of a neighborhood; it’s an event that brings together musicians, artists, theater groups and other culturally-minded folk for a day of entertainment in Highland Square. Due to various factors, including the structural re-evaluation of the volunteer Highland Square Neighborhood Association (HSNA) that helps plan the annual get-together for the bustling Akron urban district, Art in the Square has been postponed until 2013. Don't go slinking off to change your calendars just yet, folks. A recently formed grassroots group has been busy taki...
The “psychedelic garage country” of “Ohio Joe” Tokarsky evokes sepia-toned images of some tired old party sitting in a dusty honkytonk in Ames, Iowa, or Bell Buckle, Tennessee, sipping a whiskey neat and thinking about all in life he’s lost. Tokarsky, 31, doesn’t mind if his lo-fi country blues stylings — influenced by Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, among others — makes listeners want to reflect on such tear-wringing topics as loneliness, doomed relationships and, in the case of his song “Drinkin’ With a Killer,” unknowingly sharing spirits with a gunpowder-stinking wif...
Akron promoter/business owner Bob Earley is a little stressed the day before the opening of Rockin' on the River, the free outdoor concert series now in its 26th year in Cuyahoga Falls. He slept in on the morning of our phone interview, quickly returning a voice mail while nurturing excited but anxious visions of the hard work ahead. "It's like getting laid for the first time," says Earley of his feelings surrounding the planning taking place at the festival site at Falls River Square, right alongside the Cuyahoga River. Preparations include the erection of 80 tents, as well as oversight of...
Josh Bazell’s novels are one part hard-boiled dark comedy, two parts Encyclopedia Britannica as written by a foul-mouthed Carl Hiaasen. Bazell’s latest concoction is “Wild Thing,” which continues the frenetic adventures of mob-hitman-in-witness protection Dr. Pietro Brwna. When we last saw our hero in “Beat the Reaper” (spoilers ahead, folks), he had barely escaped the murderous clutches of a Mafia hit squad that had tracked him down at the dreary Manhattan hospital where he was hiding out from his former bosses. Now a junior physician on a cruise ship, Brwna’s (pronounced “...
“Powerful” and “majestic” are perhaps two of the most common descriptors of El Anatsui’s large-scale metal wall and floor sculptures. The Ghana-born artist transforms discarded objects into colossal, shimmering constructions that sometimes dwarf the patrons who view them. Visitors to the Akron Art Museum will get to see exactly how much size matters when “Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui” premieres Sunday, June 17. The collection, at the museum through Oct. 7, features a dozen metal wall and floor sculptures made up of Anatsui’s most recent work. The exhibit...
Every U.S. region carries an image, good or bad, among the rest of the country, believes Robb Hankins, president and CEO of the Stark County nonprofit ArtsinStark. Whether fair or not, Northeast Ohio is still looked upon by some outsiders as a slow-moving, culturally challenged Rust Belt area, an image that ArtsinStark is working hard to change. The genesis of that transformation is the 20/20 Vision project, an ambitious 10-year project combining arts and economic development in Canton and the surrounding region, with the ultimate aim of shaping areas like education, business, tourism and ...
Cleveland is a city that proudly touts its rock ’n’ roll legacy. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum website paints a cozily nostalgic picture of post-World War II teens packing downtown record stores to shell out money for the latest tunes. It details the Beatlemania frenzy that led then-Mayor Ralph Locher to ban the mop-headed Brits from Cleveland in the mid-’60s. Even the term “rock ’n’ roll” was mainstreamed locally, thanks to Record Rendezvous owner Leo Mintz and deejay Alan Freed, or so the legend goes. Elvis Presley, the O’Jays, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springst...
Nostalgia time, folks. Remember sitting at the breakfast table as a kid, eating your favorite pre-sweetened cereal and reading the back of the box? Whether shredding the roof of our mouths with Cap’n Crunch or wondering just what the hell riboflavin was for, not many mornings went by without some brand of cereal filling our bowls. Indeed, cereal is a quintessentially American staple, one that evokes a feeling of childhood enjoyment. As kids, our impressionable brains were bombarded with images of sweet breakfast treats hawked by colorful mascots like Count Chocula and Tony th...
As a fan base so familiar with professional sports disappointment that we’ve named our failures like they were pets, we still shouldn’t overlook those great, exciting and altogether tremendous moments mixed in with the headline-grabbing horrors of “The Drive,” “The Shot,” “The Mesa Meltdown,” “The Decision” and so on, ad infinitum. Memorable moments in sports, as in life, are often determined by the time and place they occurred, so the five magnificent snapshots of sweet Cleveland fan joy offered are enormously subjective and not presented in any specific order: 1: Fo...
These NFL greats should live forever... The 17 finalists aiming for enshrinement into the 2012 Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton are an impressive lot. Sparkling with the twinkle of tacky Super Bowl rings and a football-field length’s worth of notable accomplishments, the group will ultimately be pared down to between four to seven members by the Hall’s selection committee on February 4 in Indianapolis, the site of Super Bowl XLVI. Who among the hopeful candidates will be wearing the eggnog-colored nightmare called the Hall of Fame club jacket? For answers, here’s Buzzbin’s Five ...
Anyone following Esquire columnist Scott Raab’s Twitter feed (@ScottRaab64) on or about July 8, 2010, knows that the native Clevelander carries a rather, um, robust disdain for one LeBron Raymone James. Raab’s vitriolic tweets caned Northeast Ohio’s native son for the egomaniacal dog-and-pony show that was James’ summer 2010 free-agency bid. Those righteously angry missives even came with their own lurid hashtag, one seeming to echo the region’s cheated disgust at the knife-twisting gall of James’ nationally televised “Decision.” “The Whore of Akron” is no longer just...
Stephen King has spent the past 20 years of his career moving steadily away from the mean, if not so lean, horror tales that made him his name. The shambling, under-the-bed terrors of “Pet Sematary” and “It” have been eschewed for meditative dark fantasy (“Duma Key”) and bloated morality tales (“Under the Dome”). As its title suggests, “11/22/63” is the author’s first full-length foray into historical fiction. This tale of a time-traveler who attempts to foil the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is also King’s best novel in years. Still, fans hoping fo...
Looking Ahead at the Cavs’ 2012 Season The Cleveland Cavaliers were unquestionably in a terrible place at the beginning of last season. Trapped between the egos of their departing superstar and a slightly unhinged owner looking to stick it to said superstar as well as the league at large, the franchise started the campaign with hallucinatory thoughts that it would be able to compete with a roster of overpaid veterans and a wafer-thin bench. Dreams of an eighth playoff seed and rude first-round ouster were quickly and thankfully snuffed by the harsh realities of a 26-game losing streak. A...
