Who doesn’t love this war?
Yes, there are people who aren’t convinced our glorious war on terror is the greatest idea since the electric toothbrush. And The Green House is helping to bring them together.
A Beautiful Mind
Ron Howard’s simpleminded movie reduces the complex, prickly life of a troubled, real-life mathematician into easily digestible mythology. It’s a cheap, pandering tactic, but one whose narrative power is impossible to deny — with Russell Crowe and a breakthrough performance from Jennifer Connelly.
Detroit: Its own provider?
Could Detroit help end its citizens’ cable nightmare by becoming its own provider?
Impostor
This pessimistic view of a future under constant siege by an enemy who can infiltrate from within is a chase film that director Gary Fleder (Things To Do in Denver When You’re Dead) keeps going at a relentless pace — with Gary Sinise, Vincent D’Onofrio, Madeleine Stowe and Mekhi Phifer.
Kilpatrick’s promises: smoke & character
It’s good to have somebody young and hip in the mayor’s office …. this city needs some youth power. But will Mayor Kilpatrick be able to keep our hopes alive?
Fat Girl
The main topic here is a cold and detailed wallow in the quagmire of adolescent sexuality, something director Catherine Breillat views as an opportunity for abuse. But in the end, whether in the name of radical formalism or righteous rage, she means to freak us out. You’ve been warned.
Inside voices
Ida — that semipermeable collective of morose ’n’ melodic New York musicians — gets shushed, Time Stereo-style.
Frontier men
If you visit Yosemite National Park, you can take your children to a dramatic re-enactment of the historic discussion between John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt that resulted in the addition of Yosemite Valley to the national park. Together the founder of the Sierra Club and the Pioneer President look out from Glacier Point and…
Mega hurts
Detroit city staffers complains loudly about Comcast’s service and technology. But their bosses have done nothing to require reforms.
Guts, glory and pathos
The life of writer John Fante reads like a Greek tragedy, and biographer Stephen Cooper captures it vividly in all of its guts, glory, and pathos. Fante, best known for his quartet of novels revolving around his literary alter ego Arturo Bandini (including Ask the Dust, which Charles Bukowski called “the finest novel written in…
Fallen god
Honoring the memory of Chuck Schuldiner, father of death metal and inspiration to countless fans….
Distressed Gentlefolk
The eclectic British songwriter known as the Jazz Butcher (Pat Fish) is one of the great lost musicians of our time. Unlike his countryman Robyn Hitchcock, who earned a modicum of international renown by sticking to a strict diet of surreal folk-rock and pop, Fish has charted a serpentine musical course that resembles one of…
Inaugural excess
At least our new mayor really knows how to party….
Blind Pig Records 25th Anniversary Collection
You’ll get your money’s worth and then some with this set from a record company that began in an Ann Arbor watering hole. Now based in San Francisco, Blind Pig offers a two-CD retrospective plus a CD-ROM of video, performance and interview clips, all for the price of a single disc. It’s an entertaining hopscotch…
Der people’s car
Volkswagen’s product line endowed with benevolent godlike powers (or so they say)….
A Scandal in Bohemia
The eclectic British songwriter known as the Jazz Butcher (Pat Fish) is one of the great lost musicians of our time. Unlike his countryman Robyn Hitchcock, who earned a modicum of international renown by sticking to a strict diet of surreal folk-rock and pop, Fish has charted a serpentine musical course that resembles one of…
Kudos for Conyers
John Conyers attacks Ashcroft’s assault on the Constitution….
I Love Serge: Electronica Gainsbourg
Singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg was a poet of scandal, always unshaven enough to give French audiences a frisson, often wearing his shirts seriously unbuttoned (an outré gesture in the late ’60s) and incrementally smoking himself to death (which arrived from heart failure on March 2, 1991 — he was 63). Although his public persona — including…
Councilmembers, disband!
Here’s an idea: Let’s scrap Detroit’s City Council and start all over…
Napoleon News II
Updates on Benny Napoleon’s political plans….
Pretty Together
Sloan took a completely different approach from the production style of its previous albums this time around, working together on tracks for more than a year rather than coming together for three days of studio time with a “you play this how I wrote it” attitude. Thus, Pretty Together should have been the band’s best…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Picture thousands of drooling fans shrieking in adoration as a 30-foot high image of you appears on a video screen. If you’d like this to be a part of your future, put $20 in an envelope and send it to me. Did you fall for that? I was being a devil’s…
Abandoned house of the week
Airy two-story home at 1496 Helen on Detroit’s east side, abandoned since being condemned by the city in August 2001. Fully gutted, partially charred and highlighted by sporadic sections of avocado-green aluminum siding. Amenities include floors covered with clothing abandoned by previous occupants and a garbage-strewn back yard that features a late-model Pontiac Grand Am,…
A hairy situation
Q: We recently set up a facial and hair-removal salon in my home’s basement. I am in my early 40s and have been married for 10 years to a wonderful man who is not aware that I am bisexual. I have very strong feelings for black women and have a serious problem with my female…
Mount Clemens mic swap
Special sets from Detroit’s best MC groups and DJs … A rock-pop showcase featuring Detroit Music Award winners An eclectic mix coming up at the Trumbullplex … & Blair and other urban folksters come together.
Only laugh when it hurts
The Royal Tenenbaums turns sadness into comic relief….
Miracle man
Avant-garde jazz drummer Tani Tabbal recuperates (and we are all grateful)….
Romeo can’t die
Rome & Jewels transports the epic tale of doomed love to the hood — it’s a hip-hop, break-dancing hybrid of Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I predict that after Castro dies in 2003, Cuba will become both a haven for American corporations seeking cheap labor and a more exotic version of Nevada, featuring legalized gambling and prostitution. A booming tourist trade from its northern neighbor will ultimately turn the island nation into a wealthy “paradise of…
When the flesh is weak
Don’t be a loser. Find out how to make up when you can’t get up. PLUS: Untying his tubes is a knotty matter.
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
Airy two-story home at 1496 Helen on Detroit’s east side, abandoned since being condemned by the city in August 2001. Fully gutted, partially charred and highlighted by sporadic sections of avocado-green aluminum siding. Amenities include floors covered with clothing abandoned by previous occupants and a garbage-strewn back yard that features a late-model Pontiac Grand Am,…
Letters to the Editor
Fear of flights The expansion of City Airport was stopped years ago because of the many dangers surrounding an airport in a densely populated area ("Whither City Airport," Metro Times, Dec. 12-18). City Airport was opened as a noncommercial airport with no large aircraft flying in. Detroit tried to expand this airport to handle the…
TLC at M&M
Tender loving care, dished up along with great food, and served in spacious and attractive digs. The menu is a mix of American and a smattering of Lebanese choices: hamburgers, chef salad and turkey sandwiches, kafta, hummus and laban. A clever cook, Maurice Lteif does equally well whatever continent he’s cooking from. The grilled shrimp…
