CHRISTMAS IN THE MITTEN…
Our friend Brandon Zwagerman wrote to point out that in our recent post about Deastro and Rodriguez coming in number two and number three, consecutively, on eMusic.com’s year-end list of the best albums of 2008, we didn’t mention two other Michigan acts that made the list: Benoit Pioulard came in at number 87, while Breathe…
Good & plenty
Lovers of excess, or lovers of meat, or lovers of excess meat: the Brazilian churrascaria (steakhouse) is your type of restaurant. At Gaucho, it’s rodizio style, meaning all you can eat, and you don’t even have to get up from your chair: a parade of servers offers sizzling skewers of beef, pork, lamb and chicken,…
Pile it high
American Pie 11557 12 Mile Rd., Warren, 586-578-0156, $; A pizza buffet? It’s true: As each fresh pie is brought out of the oven, a bell rings to alert guests of the new addition. Whether it’s their signature "mac and cheese" pizza or the conventional pepperoni, pizza aficionados will not be disappointed with these hot…
Night and Day
FRIDAY • 26 THE MEATMEN PUNK ROCK SAUSAGEFEST In the early 1980s, inspired by the emerging hardcore scene and earlier music like Frank Zappa and the Fugs, a 6-foot, 5-inch dude called Tesco Vee created the Midwest’s most over-the-top punk band, the Meatmen. Unlike such illiterate shock-rockers as G.G. Allin and El Duce, Vee’s devastating…
People who died
Death took its usual toll this year, and seemingly then some. Genocide, war, terrorist attacks, disease — yikes. But for the purposes of this tribute to influential cultural notables whose deaths deserve a little extra note, it was a terrible harvest. In addition to the loss of A-list names like Paul Newman and Heath Ledger,…
Papers in crisis
Detroit’s dailies gamble that grandma wants to download the paper
Ball droppers
SOPHISTICATION & SPLURGING The Book Cadillac A $200 million rehab restored this Motor City landmark, which celebrated its grand opening in October, to its original 1920s glory, but with all the addictive amenities that the 21st Century offers — flat screen TVs, high-speed Internet access and stocked mini-fridges. After a night of ripping it up…
Perfect bodies
The summer before entering college as a pre-med student, artist Robert Schefman prepared himself by working in a morgue dissecting corpses for autopsies, or a diener for short. For a guy fresh out of high school, gazing and dismembering lifeless humans is a creepy summer job (wasn’t this an episode in a Philip Roth novel?),…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Platform for peace
As we wait anxiously for the new administration to take office and finally begin dealing with the economic meltdown, Americans should not lose sight of our no less fragile military and foreign policy situations — and the connection between the two. Despite his stirring pre-nomination statements, President-elect Obama’s appointment of Hillary Clinton, Gen. James Jones…
Dumping grounds
Dan urges quick breakups, takes aim at ‘abstinence education’
Ignore their roar
Ain’t democracy fickle? Given the collapse of, well, just about everything lately, you have to wonder how many people would actually cop to voting for Bush four years ago. Similarly, you have to wonder how many Academy Award voters would confess to punching the ballot for Roberto Benigni as best actor in 1997. On the…
Motor City Cribs
Warren Defever’s studio space at the UFO Factory
Lessons not learned
At Detroit Public Schools, Connie Calloway ousted, same old problems remain
Drawn wrong
The sick and twisted animation festival that wouldn’t die
Twins, longing
The Sisters Lucas release an album at the Lager House
Food Stuff
GO RAW — If the holiday’s heapin’ piles of home-cooked ham leave you feeling all pigged out, the new year offers an excellent excuse to turn over a new leaf. Our friends over at Detroit Evolution Laboratory have cooked up — er “prepared” a schedule of January courses on raw and vegan food. The fun,…
The Tale of Despereaux
A ship rat named Roscuro (voiced by Dustin Hoffman) accidentally causes the death of the Queen of Dor when he falls into her soup. The king, heartbroken, outlaws the annual Soup Festival, banishes all rodents, and causes the country to fall into despair. Enter Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), an unnaturally brave little mouse with ginormous ears…
The Reader
The story, set in 1958, concerns Michael Berg (David Kross), a 15-year-old German who falls in love and begins an affair with Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) a sexy but sullen thirtysomething trolley attendant. Naïve and inexperienced, Michael rides a rollercoaster of elation and torment as Hanna repeatedly beds him then emotionally withdraws. Only when the…
Doubt
John Patrick Shanley’s big-screen adaptation of his award-winning play Doubt kicks things off, and while he probably should have handed directing duties over to someone with subtler touch, the movie boasts enough fiery theatrics and lip-smacking scenery-chewing to satisfy adult audiences. Set in Brooklyn in 1964, the metaphorical fisticuffs fly as tyrannical Catholic school principal…
Seven Pounds
Smith embodies an inquisitive IRS agent named Ben Thomas, but something seems wrong right away. He rattles off the numbers quite easily to the people he cheerily approaches to announce that they’re being audited, but seems more interested in discussing their medical conditions and determining whether or not they’re “good.” Even though Smith employs his…
Bedtime Stories
In this kid-oriented picture, Skeeter Bronson (Adam Sandler) is an overlooked good guy ala The Wedding Singer (1998), albeit one who never outgrew his childish impulses, much to the chagrin of his tightly wound sister, Wendy (Courtney Cox). The principal of an elementary school scheduled for closure, Wendy heads out of state for job interviews,…
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Born an old man, Benjamin Button’s (Brad Pitt) mother tragically dies in childhood. Horrified, his father, a wealthy button-manufacturer, abandons him on the steps of a New Orleans nursing home. Here Benjamin is discovered by a loving black employee (Taraji P. Henson) who decides to raise him among the elderly residents. With his arthritic joints…
Just say yes
As Carl, a negative, closed-off bachelor-banker who makes excuses to everyone, Jim Carrey stars as a man who vows to say yes to every opportunity. Most of his friends are roughly 15 years younger than him, led by blandly handsome nonentity Bradley Cooper (Wedding Crashers) as the perfunctory best pal, with hipster Danny Masterson (That…
Marley & Me
John Grogan (Owen Wilson) and wife Jenny (Jennifer Aniston) are so bland, their challenges so commonplace, that they need the anarchy of the Labrador retriever who will not be tamed (or shamed) to shake them out of their comfort zone. But in adapting the Detroit-born Grogan’s best-selling 2005 memoir, screenwriters Scott Frank (a great interpreter…
