Field of schemes
Has the city been a fair referee on Tiger Stadium?
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Over the last four films, we’ve watched Harry grow from an insecure neophyte marveling at the wonder of magic into a focused young man who understands that sorcery is something dangerous. Director David Yates underlines this realization by delivering the gloomiest installment in the Potter series yet. Embracing the essential Englishness of Rowling’s stories and…
The seven deadly sins of kid culture
“Are you trying to turn her into a weirdo?” my sister asked me. Define “weirdo.” Define “trying.” But sometimes the question echoes through my head as I spend quality time with my daughter. I seem to hear my sister’s voice when the kid and I listen to Japanese songs from Godzilla films, or watch the…
Between two lines
Cooper Holoweski’s series of large-scale prints, “Mediations on Colonization,” results from weeks of trial and error; a process that almost defies progress, one not limited to erasing, layering, tearing down and rebuilding. Basically, Holoweski creates something, screws it up, does it again, repairs it (maybe), and spreads out to conquer more canvas. There’s method to…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Splish splash, Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #127 is rakin’ in the cash! ATTENTION PUBLICISTS: Due to increased operating expenses, I will no longer be able to continue favorably reviewing your clients’ records for the current sum of $15 per disc. Therefore, effective immediately, you are now required to enclose a $20 bill in each individual…
Night and Day
Wednesday • 11 Alley Cat Bike Race DIY SPORTS A raggedy band of reckless bikers overtaking the streets of Detroit? If that sounds threatening, bear in mind that they’re riding bicycles. And instead of roughing up teenagers and breaking vending machines, they’ll be racing through the streets on a scavenger hunt-relay rally. After an hour…
Bordello a-go-go
Eugene Hutz, ringleader of gypsy punk-rock cabaret act Gogol Bordello, swears — a lot. In between broken-English diatribes against consumerism, conformity and rationality — spiced with some of the dirtiest, sexiest swagger this side of Johnny Depp — Hutz uses the word “fuck” at least 15 times. But that’s Hutz — and Gogol Bordello. Since…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Press play
All My Babies Image “I want you to meet Miss Mary Coley, a midwife who lives in Albany, Ga.,” intones the measured narration at the start of All My Babies. “This is a story about how she helps people.” Documentary filmmaker George Stoney was recruited by the Georgia Department of Public Health in the early…
Menjo’s mojo
Ever wonder what debauchery unfolds in Metro Times’ very own Wildside? Consider the ad titled “Love Slave,” sandwiched between “Seeking Hermaphrodite” and “Tongue Lashing.” The simple piece reads, “SWM, 40, good-looking, tall, slim, oral, well hung. In search of women or couples to be their discreet love slave.” Tonight we get the inside scoop from…
A downloading don’t
Q: I’m pro-sex, bisexual and GGG. I’m also a mother. I have a 14-year-old son, and when I type a Web site address into our home computer, a million porn sites pop up. I’ve had lots of lovers, watched my share of porn, I masturbate, blah blah blah. But something about my baby looking at…
Alcoholiday!
I call artist Jerome Ferretti and tell him we’re starting this new column. The idea, I explain, is for a Metro Times writer to take someone interesting out to lunch and write about the experience. “I thought you’d be just the guy to get things off to a good start,” I tell him. Then I…
Take shelter
Kate Levant and Michael Smith’s untitled exhibition of untitled works presents an engaging meditation on movement, stasis, and the ways one informs, even becomes, the other. The pieces — except for one collaboration — are made by the artists individually, but installed together, transforming Ferndale’s Susanne Hilberry Gallery into a stage set. Lights are turned…
Highway to hell
From trudging alongside the father-and-son protagonists of Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel to riding shotgun in Mad Max’s armor-plated jalopy, there are many ways to travel on the lawless road of humanity’s bleak, postapocalyptic future. But why wait for the bomb to drop? A quick trip down Elvis Road, a 24-foot long comic strip by Swiss…
Motor City Rides
A bicycle club emulates Lee Marvin.
No self-important songsters!
Ann Arbor folkie Chris Bathgate is a perfect anomaly: His great songs don’t sound too folky, his backing band (the epic Great Lakes Myth Society) can sound more like Radiohead and Sonic Youth than the New Bohemians, and his voice is a deep-elm burr that can sound like Nick Drake with a cold and still…
Too reel for words
Rock ‘n’ roll has produced few mystery men as inscrutable as Tom Verlaine, the guiding light behind the seminal art-punk rock band Television. Early on, CBGBs compatriot Patti Smith sealed his fate as a keeper of secrets in an October 1974 issue of Rock Scene when she wrote that Verlaine’s “long veined fingers” were “reminiscent…
Ghetto Blaster
Something Romantic is boy-girl trash-rock that’s delicate and shit-kicking — similar to Royal Trux or Jucifer junkie-rock, but too damn sweet and joyous to be tagged as such. Keith’s (no surnames here) vocals boast a snottiness that borders the Dead Milkmen’s Rodney Anonymous; but where the Milkmen could get tiresome quickly, Keith’s are tempered by…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Ghetto Blaster
Hard house hardass Armand Van Helden has been dance music’s enfant terrible for years now. His releases tend to lean to the left of the dancefloor — he once sampled the Scorpions, for god’s sake. But like any great DJ, he knows a good, if off-center, dance hook when he hears one. (His particularly grimy…
Heady art
Among the obsessively searching self-portraits in Craig Paul Nowak’s engaging solo show at Ferndale’s Next Step Gallery, one may typify all that he’s about as an artist and person. As if floating over us in an impressive athletic leap, or perhaps floating in existential ether as he searches for his identity, Nowak depicts himself lit…
Northern comfort
Upscale soul food? Yes, the Southern Hospitality Group has brought catfish and fried okra to the plush confines of the Fisher Building. Most of the Café’s offerings merit the “upscale” label only in price. The results are uneven, with some fantastic traditional dishes and some that simply reiterate a debased version of Southern cuisine.
Under a spell
“We’re more popular than Jesus,” John Lennon said about the Beatles in 1966. Too bad Lennon died before the creation of Harry Potter — that new world personal Jesus. See, unless you’ve been living in a hut outside of, say, Banjul, you’re aware that J.K Rowling’s series about a quirky boy-wizard has taken pop culture…
Pocketful of Posey
Parker Posey is Nora, a hopelessly lonely gal clinging to youth and still fraying fabulously at the edges. Among her many doldrums are a well-paid but un satisfying job, a love-life wasteland and a failure to reap the benefits of better living through antidepressants. She’s an overmedicated, undernourished disaster, but still better off than her…
Bush vs. America
George W. Bush is more and more frequently referred to as “the worst president in the history of America” by those who know the background and pay attention to what’s going on. However, that description may be too mild. We may need an entirely new classification. For more than five years we’ve had an administration…
Transformers
How much you dig an action flick that sees giant robots blowing up each other (and everything around them) will depend on your ability to lower your IQ to that of a can opener. As the opening shot makes clear, Bay expects you to do just that: A military helicopter flies above rolling desert sand…
Blueprints go green
As Lawrence Technological University students register, visit tutoring centers and meet with advisers in the Southfield school’s Student Services Center, they’re bathed in natural light that’s filtered by UV-protective glass throughout the 42,000-square-foot building. Inside paneling is made of bamboo, a rapidly renewable material, and outside landscaping requires minimal water. At Affirmations community center in…
Private Fears in Public Places
This flimsy bit of Gallic melancholy fails to enchant despite the impressive talent involved. A handsomely made, hopelessly wistful romantic roundelay about six lovelorn characters in snowbound Paris who circle each other in elliptical orbits of unhappiness, it’s the sort of alleged comedy piece that’s more admirable than enjoyable.
Tour de Troit
We darted around Campus Martius in downtown Detroit on a warm Wednesday evening amid traffic, streets and sidewalks dotted with pedestrians. I leaned left into a long sweeping turn, pedaling furiously with a teammate on my tail, my shirt flapping in the wind. Heading into Cadillac Square I misjudged a right turn and my pedal…
From the Vaults
Congrats Thailand; with the release of this heartwarming tale of an explosives loving, rocket surfing, kickboxing farmer-superhero, you’ve officially eclipsed Hong Kong as the leading exporter of utterly insane action films. Kudos also to indie distributor Magnolia, which has recently imported other wild Thai gems, the stunt happy films of star Tony Jaa and the…
Letters to the Editor
Can’t stomach it As a parent of a 4-year-old boy, I found the cover of your June 20 magazine, with two men with protruding stomachs (as if they were pregnant), very distasteful. Those types of images may cause sexual confusion and identity problems for children. As a society, we have a moral obligation to educate…
License to Wed
Mandy Moore can’t get a break. Here, the darling singer-turned-actress is cast as the underdrawn female lead, Sadie, in a movie about what it takes to make marriage work. Co-starring John Krasinski as her fiancé, Ben, and onetime funnyman Robin Williams as Reverend Frank, License’s premise is simple: Frank won’t marry the couple unless they…
