“THANKS, MOM!”
In case you missed this info elsewhere, the 17th annual Detroit Music Awards were held last Friday night, April 25th, at the Fillmore. You can find an entire list of the winners by clicking here. One of the highlights of the evening — at least for us — came when Crud’s Danielle Arsenault thanked her…
A FEST FOR THE SONICALLY ADVENTUROUS
Occasional Metro Times contributor Mike Ross is presenting the third installment of his biannual Curare Festival this coming Saturday, May 3rd at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (CAID), located at 5141 Rosa Parks in Detroit. With only one act hailing from outside the city (the Netherfriends from Chicago, to be exact), the fest has…
IGGY POP EXPLAINED
Our old pal — and former MOJO Magazine editor-in-chief — Paul Trynka will be at the Detroit Public Library this Wednesday night (April 30th) to discuss one of this area’s favorite sons and the man who basically invented punk rock, Iggy Pop. Trynka is the author of Open Up and Bleed, due out in paperback…
PORCHSLEEPER HEADED FOR HIATUS
Porchsleeper’s gig at Jacoby’s this coming Saturday night (April 26th) will be the band’s last performance for, according to their e-mail, “a very long time…maybe even longer than that.” The band will be opening the evening for the Spitting Nickels (featuring our pal Eddie Baranek on drums and vocals), as well as the brand spanking…
RESTO RESURRECTION
One of the highlights of tomorrow night’s Detroit Music Awards at the Fillmore should be Detroit-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger and producer Luis Resto — perhaps better known to the rock mainstream for his songwriting collaborations and performances with Patti Smith, Eminem and Was (Not Was) — previewing his new band. (And if you’re reading this…
Garment district
Photographer Cybelle Codish has this incredible 10,000-square-foot studio in this warehouse over on Holden Street. One day recently, after a meeting about Metro Times’ fashion issue, we decided to scope out what goes on in the rest of the place. Talk about multi-use. Besides her studio, the building houses Recy-clean, the city’s main recycling facility,…
Beaufort
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers guarding Beaufort in southern Lebanon could just as easily be on a remote outpost of some post-apocalyptic landscape. Writer-director Joseph Cedar directs this taut script by Ron Leshem following an IDF unit’s final days at Beaufort. As eternal as their duty may seem, they’re actually short-timers: It’s 2000, and…
Motor City Rides
MC-producer Ohkang’s 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham.
The First Saturday in May
The Kentucky Derby is often described as “the most exciting two minutes in sport.” But, stretched to fill out a 90-minute documentary, it starts to feel like a long slog across a muddy track. First-time filmmakers John and Brad Hennegan set out to chronicle the hype, hoopla, foolishness and escalating tensions leading up to the…
Rising from the ooze
The “Frustrations House,” which sits on a quiet street in northeast Ferndale, is as textbook a suburban punk palace as one could hope to find. The enclosed front porch, brimming with empties and other detritus, has just enough open floor space for a few bodies to hang. Inside, ashtrays are full to overflowing. A 4…
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Star and writer milks humor out of emotional nudity and flaccid manhood, both metaphoric and real. This is Segel’s first crack at a leading role, and to prove his commitment to the craft he drops his towel and plays the opening scene in the buff, as his Peter Bretter, a shlubby TV composer, gets abruptly…
Getting off the street
Covenant House helps Detroit’s at-risk teens get it together.
Baby Mama
When Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were named the first female anchor team on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” they became the news. Written and directed by their SNL colleague, Michael McCullers, Baby Mama is tailor-made to their strengths and sensibilities. The comic personas of this odd-couple mesh perfectly with their characters: The uptight Fey,…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Emilia Valentina
What is your current state of mind? What do you mean? What is your idea of good fashion sense? Knowing the rules and knowing how to break them properly. When did you begin designing clothing? Technically, when I was in high school. My mom is an incredible seamstress and would make some of the stuff…
Solidarity forgotten
Dearborn fracas is an injury to all.
Adam Vitick
What is your current state of mind? Chaotic. What is your idea of good fashion sense? Knowing what looks good on you. Confidence in your own sense of style. When did you begin designing clothing? I started coming up with ideas for clothes my senior year of high school. I didn’t start sewing, though, until…
Battle of the burn
City Council wants incinerator shut down.
Geoffrey LaRue
What is your current state of mind? I’m just trying to make sense of everything going on around me while still having time to chill and have fun with my life. What is your idea of good fashion sense? Being true to yourself in fantastic color combos. What is the trait you have that has…
Back slaps
MT awarded writing honors.
Couch Trip
Blonde and Blonder First Look Pictures Forget about the tree falling in the forest — what good’s making the world’s worst movie if no one can sit through it? You hate to bring personal proclivi-uh-titties into a DVD review, but does executive producer Pamela Anderson take even less care and consideration choosing movie scripts than…
Letters to the Editor
Won’t be burned again I was stopping by a friend’s place to say hi. While I was waiting on the porch, I glanced down to find the newest edition of Metro Times sitting in his recycling bin (a better place for it than in the incinerator) with the cover story staring me in the face.…
Holding Court
Ash Nowak and Jon Dones as interviewed and edited by Rebecca Mazzei. Photos by Lauren Montgomery. Haute to Death is a black patent leather mess with fingerprints, lipstick and booze stains. It smells like teenage lust and your mother’s liquor cabinet. Coco Chanel is flirting with Raymond Pettibon, so neither notices that the record has…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY • 23 AMINA FIGAROVA SEXTET FROM BAKU TO YOU Azerbaijan-born, Berklee College of Music-trained and Netherlands-based, Amina Figarova is another of those classically trained, turned-around-by-jazz cases. Her work has elicited reviewer comparisons to the great tone-colorist Maria Schneider (and through her, by implication to her influences, Gil Evans and Bob Brookmeyer). The comparisons are…
Newest of new
Brashly billing his debut solo show as The Newest Work by Laith Karmo, this ceramic artist and Cranbrook grad trumpets his brand-spanking-new sculptures with all the (mock) ego of an established blue-chip art star. Words like cheeky, futuristic (in a retro-Jetsons sort of way) and zany come more readily to mind when first encountering Karmo’s…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Can’t jail a revolution
Can a movie change the world? Probably not. But it can inspire conversation, which is exactly what former eBay president Jeff Skoal hoped to do by forming socially minded Participant Films. Since 2004, the studio has produced an impressive roster of documentary and mainstream movies with a decidedly political or social agenda. From An Inconvenient…
Asian influences
As the only pan-Asian restaurant downtown, the target customer is American, resulting in not-too-exotic versions of Asian dishes, or Asian versions of Western dishes, or Western dishes using ingredients with Asian names, that will please intended customers. The food is inspired by Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Filipino cuisine, but aimed right at middle America.
Cold-blooded
You have the lizard kink? You can’t do anything …
Pacino’s big bust
It’s not just that this craptacular serial-killer thriller doesn’t make sense; it’s that it’s a prime example of incompetent filmmaking. Jack Gramm (Pacino) is an FBI forensic psychologist and Seattle college professor. His testimony sent serial killer Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) to death row. When a series of copycat murders arise, Forster not only gets…
Werner Brothers
Herzog double-feature stars a superman and a cipher.
The Forbidden Kingdom
Watching any Jackie Chan and Jet Li spar is fascinating. Unfortunately, the lazily connected elements and dangling plot points will keep the many viewers amused but perplexed. Michael Angarano is Jason, a dweeby Boston kid whose Bruce Lee obsession is supported by the kindly elderly antiques dealer (Chan). Enter the bullies who make Jason a…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Music and comic books, together again.
Chicago 10
Watching Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10, one can’t help but long for the days when American citizens actually believed that political activism mattered. For those familiar with the unrest that surrounded the 1968 Democratic Convention, Chicago 10 is both slippery and superficial, ignoring much of the period’s historical context and putting the focus on history as…
Road rage
Mayor and council skirmish over Livernois makeover.
Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?
The genial Morgan Spurlock conveys a savvy intelligence and aw-shucks guilelessness, and his ability to be simultaneously calculating and sincere distinguishes him from other filmmakers who put themselves at the center of documentaries. In this, his latest fusion of the personal and political, Spurlock is prompted by impending fatherhood to find the $25-million-dollar man, thereby…
