Livin’ la vida loca
Club Internacional is a rough-and-ready glimpse of one face of the wild, wild Southwest….
Hollywood High
With few exceptions, the latest teen flicks are riding on retreads, kicking back in the unreal….
Second take: Mummies, mammies and true lies
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is protesting the portrayal of Arabs in Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy as foul-smelling, money-grubbing cretins who would barter their brethren for a bag of gold. Who knows what The Mummy’s makers were thinking when they concocted this tangle of worn-out plot lines, special-effects masturbation and – without a doubt – bald-faced…
Troubled but promising
Detroit and Flint are at a place no city wants to be: the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s list of “double trouble” cities. To make the roster, a city must have an unemployment rate far above the national average combined with population decreases and/or persistently high poverty rates. Detroit and Flint, both of…
Forever and… ever?
Big screen sci-fi in the late ’90s tells a tale of endings….
Big bard-on
Brushing up their Shakespeare, film adaptations of the classics make a perennial comeback….
1+1=3
Detroit duo White Stripes mixes basic elements into simple beauty….
Film fixations
Hollywood High by Serena Donadoni With few exceptions, the latest teen flicks are riding on retreads, kicking back in the unreal. Big bard-on by Norene Cashen Brushing up their Shakespeare, film adaptations of the classics make a perennial comeback. Following the Jedi path by Alisa Gordaneer The power of the Force is more than just…
Fun control
We’re bundling up our Red Wings flags and finally throwing the Yzerman jerseys into the washer, and the Lizard of Fun is looking uncharacteristically dejected. "What am I gonna do?" it asks, stuffing a "Three-peat!" banner into the trash. "No playoffs to watch. I’ve finally seen Phantom Menace. And all that’s left of ‘Melrose Place’…
In one ear
HOME? AWAY FROM HOME Larval chief Bill Brovold has been busy recording and producing at his new Koko Studios in Royal Oak. Along with his own music, Brovold has played producer for Poignant Plecostomus, ex-Modern Lovers guitarist John Felice, John Lamb, and the sound track for a documentary on mercenaries. But Brovold and band will…
A LABEL’S STABLE
As Detroit continues to gain steam as hip hop’s next hot spot, its surrounding cities are ensuring that they catch some of the windfall as well. Ypsilanti’s ReAL Entertainment has as good a chance as anyone of gaining national recognition, with its recent signing of the Dirty Dozen and Five Ela, whose members include Proof…
Bring back the USSR!
When we were young, we all knew the USSR was the main source of everything bad. That’s right. The Soviet Union. The mother lode of godless communism. They were, we were told, scheming to bury us. For my generation there was Nikita Khrushchev, bald, missing teeth, warts, grinning evilly, banging his shoe on the table.…
Netropolis
Big business has moved online. Now they’re taking down Web users’ names to be used for cannon fodder in the marketing battle of the millennium. And apparently, the Motor City wants to buy into the action. That was the message brought home by last week’s "Digital Detroit" conference, sponsored by the young upstart Detroit New…
Pitch’d
BETTER DAYS SITUATION BETTERED Following a police raid and subsequent closing, Woodward Village’s premier after-hours club — and the city’s greatest beatdown house stronghold — Club Better Days, will re-open this weekend, minus the Friday night promoters whose party occasioned the recent police raid and shut-down. According to Saturday night resident DJ Mike Clark and…
Following the Jedi path
For the faithful, the opening of Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace has been likened to having a new chapter of the Bible – the one explaining the mystery of life and the origin of God – delivered in THX sound on a giant screen. And while Francis Ford Coppola was mostly joking when,…
Ferndale sets its own course
From the retro funk of Cinderella’s Attic to plans for more gay-owned businesses, Ferndale is establishing itself as one of metro Detroit’s more hip, open-minded and growing cities. The recent announcement of plans to open two gay-owned businesses – a nightclub and a combined restaurant and entertainment center – in Ferndale was enough to prompt…
Playing with a symbol
The day was cool, wet and gray, but spirits were as bright as the yellow rain slickers that dotted the playground at Harms Elementary School in Detroit on Saturday. This Monday, for the first time in more than 50 years, the children who attend this school will have something more than hula-hoops and games of…
DETROIT-CITY BLUES
Perhaps one of the hardest things about being as good as Johnnie Bassett in Detroit is being in Detroit. This is a hard town in which to be acknowledged as a star in the same way that Buddy Guy is an acknowledged star in Chicago. Consequently, when Mr. Bassett comes out with yet another superb…
Balkan visionary
When you consider the great national cinematic traditions – such as Italian Neorealism or the French New Wave – Yugoslav cinema doesn’t readily come to mind. Yugoslav cinema barely existed until after WWII, when a nascent industry began putting out a series of patriotic war epics depicting rugged partisans engaged in a heroic struggle against…
Prayers, peace & protest
As the war continues in Kosovo, some metro Detroit organizations are sending prayers and aid to those suffering, while others are calling for an end to the NATO bombings. According to reports, about one million ethnic Albanians have been forced to leave Kosovo since Serbian aggression began. Vicki Robb, medical coordinator for Southfield-based organization Life…
Trekkies
So, how do you say “to be or not to be” in Klingon? Register for a crash course in Klingon composition – “Klingon for Dummies” – at the Interstellar Language School in Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, and you’ll find out. Be warned: Instruction is tough. From a distance, teachers and students look like they’re gonna…
The Love Letter
Even when they can’t make a movie that’s good, at least the major Hollywood studios provide a certain level of technical competence. So while it’s not a surprise that The Love Letter fails to achieve the romantic whimsy it aims for, what’s stunning is how poorly constructed it is on the most basic narrative level.…
Rediscovered Randiness
The mercurial Lee Hazlewood was born in Oklahoma in 1929 and has been in motion ever since. Hazlewood discovered Duane Eddy in the mid-’50s and became the creative force behind Eddy’s infamous guitar twang. Establishing himself as an innovative producer with a knack for success, Hazlewood is best known for his work with Nancy Sinatra…
Tea with Mussolini
Although director Franco Zeffirelli adapted this film from a chapter of his autobiography, this story isn’t told from an Italian perspective. Instead, Tea with Mussolini is about that very specific love affair the English have with Italy as a place and an idea, an ardor which doesn’t necessarily extend to Italians themselves. There’s a scene…
Neo-Classical Results
Life must be pretty surreal for singer-songwriter and former swimming pool-pump repairman Jack Logan. Plucked from Athens, Georgia, bar band obscurity by members of R.E.M., Logan’s critically hailed 1994 debut Bulk chronicled the best of some 600+ home recordings he’d leisurely assembled while still a nobody. Now — three albums and as many record deals…
An alternative American dream
Dear Vanya, I’d just finished Jerome Segal’s Graceful Simplicity when Hannibal the Cannibal’s words came to my mind. "First principle: simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius: Of each thing ask what it is in its nature." How methodical the good doctor is! How refined. How elegant. Is elegance a synonym for simplicity? Lawrence Slobodkin (Simplicity and Complexity…
Agitated Guitar Music
In many ways, the politics of being Fugazi overshadows the band Fugazi. Hailed and revered for its independence, ideals and integrity, Fugazi’s influence can be found throughout the DIY movement that the band helped build and continues to inspire. Forming at a time when Punk and Hardcore in America faced the dilemma of growing up…
Down Time
According to recent interviews, Underworld vocalist Karl Hyde has sobered up since the days when the band’s single, "Born Slippy," was clocking time as the junkie opus on the Trainspotting soundtrack. There’s no detecting the change on Beaucoup Fish, however — Hyde’s jumbled up, stream-of-consciousness monologues still constitute the most recognizable element of the Underworld…
