Abandoned Shelter of the Week
The Detroit riverfront just east of the Renaissance Center is home to its fair share of abandoned buildings. Among these is the crumbling brick remains of a 13,560-square-foot warehouse at 1461-1469 E. Atwater. The building, identifiable only by the words “Ambassador Steel Shipping and Receiving,” is currently owned by the City of Detroit. It’s part…
Architecture lecture
Riverfront promise The Detroit riverfront just east of the Renaissance Center is home to its fair share of abandoned buildings. Among these is the crumbling brick remains of a 13,560-square-foot warehouse at 1461-1469 E. Atwater. The building, identifiable only by the words “Ambassador Steel Shipping and Receiving,” is currently owned by the City of Detroit.…
Envy
Where mod meets future. Commit your favorite cardinal sins at Envy.
Are you experienced?
Beauty, the truism says, is in the eye of the beholder. The “eye” doing this beholding is symbolic of the “I” inside each of us, which is supposedly separate from the physical body. Especially nowadays (as a result of the reduction of physical artworks to pure ideas by 1960s conceptual art), we’re said to exist…
20th century boys
Punk pioneers the Torpedoes regroup and remember….
Small town, giant talent
Wanna know what city has some of the most talented artists in the state of Michigan? C’mon, say it with me. Ann Arbor. No, seriously. They’ve known what I’m telling you for years. Check the résumé. Shaky Jake. S.U.N. (from Ypsilanti, but with a large A2 following). Subterraneous (not all from A2, but heavily represented…
Mute point
Women in Black quietly denounces Bush and bombs….
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): As an astrologer, I’ve been able to study my own horoscope to discern what qualities I lack, then try to correct those shortcomings. For instance, I have no planets in Aries in my natal chart. But I’ve worked for years to develop the strengths you Rams are famous for — a…
Moan for the holidays
A few weeks back I invited readers to share their most horrifying true stories of desperate and/or depressing holiday sex. The author of the best horrifying true story of holiday sex — as determined by me — wins a $75 Toys in Babeland gift certificate. See if you can spot the winner before you get…
After the flood of memories
A postscript to ‘The Bones of Clouds: Some Recent Experiences of Chance.’…
12 blue bars
“My jail cell had 12 blue bars. Pretty damn funny, isn’t it? For two days I looked at 12 blue bars and tried to calm myself down. Tried to have some grace. Tried to have some patience. But it was hard. There was a junkie who was getting really sick right across from me. It’s…
Minimalist memoir
John D. Freyer has found a fresh answer to the existential question, “What am I going to do with all this crap?” The filmmaker and graphic designer was in graduate school in Iowa two years ago when he had an epiphany: The piles of junk he’d collected from thrift-store shopping and compulsive collecting were determining…
Dec. 25-31, 2002
26 THU • ART "Artists of the People: Mexican Prints Through the Twentieth Century" — This small exhibition of 15 prints has been borrowed directly from the University of Michigan’s Museum walls. A small installment of enormously powerful visuals, these starkly beautiful and contemporary works fairly map out the artistic development of the often-ignored richness…
Singin’ in the Rain
A fabulous tale told in pictures bursting with colorful action, fantastic musical numbers and fantastic romance, this ironic Tinseltown satire is one of Hollywood’s greatest gifts to cinema. Today, 50 years after its original release, it’s still giving — with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor.
Avant pictionary
If you’re looking for a word that combines art and the unknown with unbridled sex and radical politics, it could only be surrealism. Though for most of us the origins of the 20th century movement are shrouded in mists of the past, we often sling the adjective “surreal” around as a marker for weirdness, perversion…
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Australian director Phillip Noyce’s heart is in his camera lens when it comes to this film’s simple premise — the governmental kidnapping of half-caste Aborigines to be trained as servants. Every scene seethes with intensity and outrage as it displays this true account of textbook colonialism — with Kenneth Branagh.
Al Gore: The real story
Democrats got what many of them appeared to think was a wonderful Christmas present last week when Al Gore took himself out of the presidential race. Well, as some great prophet once said, be careful what you wish for. Want to know something you aren’t ever likely to see in the mainstream media? There are,…
Over troubled waters
JET’s Visiting Mr. Green takes on the intolerance gap….
About Schmidt
Neither a flat-out comedy nor a straight-faced drama, this low-keyed character study balances its tone between the whimsical and the tragic. Jack Nicholson’s carefully calibrated performance as a smaller-than-life man trying to find some corner of peace makes the film as good as it is, which is very good indeed.
Croonin’ and swoonin’
These days in Detroit, you go to a bar to get drunk, with a sneer on your face and a chip on your shoulder. You go to a show to hear thundering, howling chords that punch you in the face and knock you over. You pick up the latest issue of Rolling Stone and read…
On Guard
In the spirit of Voltaire and Molière, director and co-writer Philippe de Broca (King of Hearts, 1966) volleys great wit and deadly gestures in a milieu of lush apparel, landscapes, captivating music and 18th century lacy sleeves. An impressive, swashbuckling spectacle — with Daniel Auteuil.
Bold resolution
Detroit nightlife takes some nice turns for the naughty….
They think they can
Visions of rail service between Detroit and Ann Arbor coming into sharper relief….
Stage left
Soldiering away at the Detroit Repertory Theatre….
Letters to the Editor
Look at the numbers Jack Lessenberry and Keith A. Owens both covered the Trent Lott fiasco ("Why Lott matters a lot" and "Lott’s true colors," Metro Times, Dec. 18-24). All of the mention of racism and segregation refers to the Southern states. What about Michigan? Master Engler and company just decided that democracy can’t work…
Fanning the fire
Boozing with the boys of Electric Six….
A guy and his pies
Home made dough & fresh toppings make the difference. Big guy’s is the best pizza you will ever taste. we are a family onew and opperated business. we take great pride in bringing you a great pizza. we are open for lunch and dinner, even a late night snack. come in and enjoy a great…
Two Weeks Notice
The bang-bang nature of the dialogue and plot keeps the energy flowing, and Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock, stuck with ineffective costars so many times before, have great chemistry to go with the great material they have to work with. It’s a lovely surprise just enough removed from reality to work.
Spellbinding
Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock’s San Francisco puts its focus in its title. Authors Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal zoom in on three films by the Master of Suspense that feature the Bay Area — Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Vertigo (1958) and The Birds (1963) — and a half-dozen of those (from Rebecca…
Born in blood
This panoramic historical drama, in its immensity, is a departure for Martin Scorsese, one that’s too unwieldy to be entirely successful. But if this isn’t a great Scorsese movie, it’s definitely a classic Daniel Day-Lewis one, and that makes it one of the best of the year — with Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz.
Adaptation
This painful recognition-of-self comedy written by Charlie Kaufman (who wrote one of the most twisted movies in recent memory, Being John Malkovich) stars Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman, who is writing a movie about Charlie Kaufman not being able to write a movie — with Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper.
