Bienvenido, Ricardo!
Trippy, minimal techno-house crossover star Ricardo Villalobos is coming back to Detroit for the first time since 2002. The Chilean-German producer/DJ has been confirmed to perform at the Movement Electronic Music Festival ending weeks of rumors of his appearance, a major coup for Ferndale-based promoters Paxahau. Villalobos was among a handful of artists who reportedly…
Backfired!
Q: I’m a 27-year-old gay man. I had a really great first couple of dates with a guy, so for the third date I invited him to stay over. I cooked a nice dinner, we watched a movie, and we had a lovely time in bed together. In the morning, we had another romp. At…
The Joneses
Steve (David Duchovny) and Kate (Demi Moore) Jones move into an affluent suburb with their model-perfect teenage kids Jenn (Amber Heard) and Mick (Ben Hollingsworth). They’re perfect. Charming, attractive and obviously rich, they quickly enchant neighbors, golf club members and kids at school. Before you know it, the whole community is, wait for it ……
Nutritional Value – Readers’ Picks
Best New Restaurant Best Steakhouse — Wayne County Roast 1128 Washington Blvd., Detroit; 313-961-2500 The "beast masters" at this hip new downtown restaurant — inside the renovated showpiece that is the Book-Cadillac Hotel — have earned their honors. First, it’s no ordinary steakhouse. Yes, they offer several cuts, all naturally raised and dry-aged a minimum…
Butt-kickin’ time
Dave Lisewski (Aaron Johnson) is a sweetly gawky teen who lives in a dinky little Brooklyn bungalow not unlike the one Peter Parker grew up in, who hangs around the comic-book store day-dreaming with nerdy pals. All that four-color ink goes to his head, and with nothing more than some clubs, a catalog-ordered wetsuit, and…
Best of Detroit 2010
How do you find the best in metro Detroit? Well, if you’re an MT staffer or fellow traveler, you keep your eyes peeled through the year for the new shop, the new trend, the odd observation, the old corner of our four-county neighborhood that could use a little more attention. And you ask your friends.…
Dead on arrival
Gathered together for his father’s funeral, Chris Rock’s extended and unwieldy family quickly falls into petty bickering and resentment-filled confrontations. There’s his self-absorbed younger brother (Martin Lawrence), unappreciative mother (Loretta Devine), foul-mouthed uncle (Danny Glover), hypochondriac friend (Tracy Morgan), interracially engaged cousin (Zoe Saldana) and a cadre of clichéd acquaintances and relations. Oh, and there’s…
The Real Deal – Readers’ Picks
Best Indie Women’s Clothing in Detroit Best Indie Men’s Clothing in Detroit Showtime 5708 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-875-9280 Piles of punk rock and rock star "fashion," from imported creepers to sexed-out knee-high platforms to vintage racks stuffed with one-of-a-kind shirts and T’s to those made to look like that. There are aged bomber jackets, pink…
City Island
Andy Garcia tweaks his intense image, starring here as Vince, a native of a Bronx seaport enclave, and a corrections officer with a gruff exterior concealing a heart of pure, sticky pudding. He’s so guarded that he tells his hair-trigger tempered wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies) that he has a weekly poker game, while he sneaks…
A Detroit thang?
There was a moment at this year’s Detroit Music Awards last Friday, April 16, when all of the stars aligned and cosmic synchronicity — nay, beauty — was achieved, at least from this writer’s perspective, through the delivery of a heartfelt speech. It wasn’t a nonsensical Oscars-like display of tears, or a hammy, over-the-top gesture…
Craptastic!
A Sundance reject, this flick has become a cult breakout mostly because of its amazing trailer, and the Internet’s bottomless desire to be smugly sarcastic. Making fun of a hopeless nincompoop like first-time director James Ngyuen seems a bit like kicking a puppy, until you consider the unintended consequences of crowds flocking to and laughing…
Hello, Dr. Death
Certainly you’ve pondered the question at least once or twice: If Hollywood ever decided to do a movie on your life, who would they pick to play the lead? In the case of You Don’t Know Jack, the big-ticket HBO Films biography debuting at 9 p.m. Saturday on HBO, you’ve got to believe that not…
It’s a family affair
The annals of stories surrounding records made by or about father and son relationships are full of the bittersweet, the coulda-been and after-the-fact recriminations and reconciliations. Rock ‘n’ roll musicians thrive on a culture where a rift between generations creates tension that results in artful expression. And then there are those rare occasions of intergenerational…
Ganging up on Matty
Things got so bad for Matty Moroun last week that the state’s oldest amphibian had to send his normally invisible wife, Nora, out to try to defend him. Looking a trifle haggard, she clearly feared she and Manuel might be down to their last billion or so. "Is this the end of the American dream?"…
Cheat Code
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 EA Games Xbox 360, PS3, PC The need for proper cover is common to first-person shooters. Running out in the open will likely invite a slug, so survival often depends on hiding behind something while you carefully pick your shots. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 takes this time-honored format and kicks its…
Night and Day
THURSDAY APRIL 22 John Telford Running and Run-ins Back 19 years ago, John Telford’s maverick efforts promoting social justice and racial diversity in Rochester Schools made him an MT cover story. Hate mail, death threats, bullets fired at his home and his resignation were all noted along with his clashes with residents and the powers…
Remembering Ravitz
Some members of the Detroit City Council become well known because they are crazy, crooked or both. But Mel Ravitz became famous during nearly 30 years on the council by acting smart. He was also contrarian, and always prepared, and he defended the poor and criticized the powerful and never stopped coming up with new…
Public Square – Staff Picks
Best Detroit Old-School TV Reporter Al Allen Monster smashup on the Lodge? There’s "Al Allen, FOX2 News," reporting from the overpass. Coldest day of the year? There’s our Al, shivering under his trademark leather cap. Why do they put that poor old man outside in all kinds of weather? Because he wouldn’t want to be…
Metro Retro
26 years ago in Metro Times: Bill Rowe delves into heavy metal with part two of his Night of the Living Headbangers. "The superior attitude and posturing … is essentially the same as the man who cracks sexist jokes and sexually harasses the women in his office. These men revel in their ability to control,…
Nutritional Value – Staff Picks
Best New Restaurant — Upscale Café Via 310 E. Maple Rd., Birmingham; 248-644-8800 The menu at Café Via is eclectic, and all details are well attended to, from the excellent sharp yellow olive oil that starts the meal to the look of each dish on the plate. The menu ranges from the hearty, such as…
Letters to the editor
On the X axis Re: Bill Holdship’s cover story on Bob Mulrooney, aka Bootsey X ("The ballad of Mr. X," April 14), Bob introduced me to the punk scene through the Ramrods and Bookie’s Club 870 on McNichols Road (it burned down in the ’90s) and I was their soundman during the first year or…
Public Square – Readers’ Picks
Best Local Music Festival Movement paxahau.com/movement Last year’s festival was a testament to the electronic vein that has run through Detroit for decades now. It was a return to form, a catapult for this May’s throwdown. No other atmosphere is as authentic as Detroit for an international celebration of beats-per-minute, sound-wave tweaking and subsonic pounding.…
MT wins SPJ kudos
The Metro Times has received six awards — including top honors in two categories — in an annual contest held by the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Competing against the city’s two major daily papers, MT arts & culture editor Travis R. Wright won first place in the criticism category for his…
Nightlife – Staff Picks
Best Leather Daddy Bar R&R Saloon 7330 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-849-2751 Do you like your dudes mustachioed, tatted, uniformed and carved like Eastern European weightlifters? Are you into gloves and tons of biker leather? Enter the R&R Saloon, a simmering den with attendant darkness and laughter. It’s where gay guys find real men meeting here…
Cross winds
As a recreational sailor, Rep. Tim Bledsoe (D-Grosse Pointe) is familiar with the challenges of sailing on Lake St. Clair on hot summer days. Drifting is more like it, as the lake, affectionately known as "Lake St. Stupid," often doesn’t offer much breeze. On the stillest of days, there can be late afternoon wind on…
The Real Deal – Staff Picks
Best Record Store — East Side Melodies and Memories 23013 S. Gratiot Ave., Eastpointe; 586-774-8480 OK, there ain’t a store like this in the whole country. Even Hollywood’s mighty Amoeba Records doesn’t have a thing on Melodies because, well, besides sporting the country’s largest lunch box collection, the Motown history here is sick: Martha Reeves,…
Hit and hit again
While most eyes were focused last week on the collection of powerful politicians, civic leaders and union officials who gathered in support of the Detroit River International Crossing, the main opponent of that new bridge — Grosse Pointe billionaire Manuel "Matty" Moroun and his Detroit International Bridge Co. — was suffering yet another setback in…
Nightlife – Readers’ Picks
Best Place to See a Mainstream Film Birmingham Palladium 250 N. Old Woodward, Birmingham; 248-644-3456; uptownentertainment.com Maybe it’s the swanky downtown Birmingham address, but something about a night out at the Palladium feels like a throwback to movie palaces of old. The vertical layout offers two floors of frolic, and 12 high-quality screens, packed with…
The Detroit Lives dude
You can catch longhair Phillip Lauri filming indie docs about Detroit’s urban farmers, community activists, artists and transplanted brains. You’ll see him painting cartoonish murals adorned with his "Detroit Lives" logo on derelict Detroit structures, the same logo he silk-screens onto consumer goods, such as pillows and hooded sweatshirts. And if you scan such Detroit-centric…
