Is it because Ben Stiller hates the handicapped?
After two weeks Tropic Thunder has pulled in $55 million. Which is respectable but hardly earth-shattering for a comedy that cost nearly $100 million to make and stars three pretty popular actors. When you compare it to Stiller’s last flick, the craptacular Hearthbreak Kid ($37 million), I have to wonder why this one didn’t bring…
SILVERGHOST HEAD TO SILVERLAKE AND BEYOND…
Our friends Deleano and Marcie who comprise Silverghost have been a busy pair as of late. Not only are they headlining/closing the final night of the Summer Smash festival (see item below) tomorrow night, August 23rd, at the CAID and not only did they just release their first 7-inch single on Dave Buick’s Italy Records…
KRAMER TO RAGE AT THE DNC…
Well, y’all must know that the Democratic National Convention kicks off in Denver this coming Monday, August 25th — and, hopefully, it’ll be the one that gives us our next president although after Bush, I’d vote for Spot the Fucking Wonder Dog before I’d vote for John “Hey, I defended Charles Keating and I don’t…
Role models
Even Third World dictators step down, but not Kwame
Trauma calling
Rich Vettraino’s job didn’t begin as a childhood dream. After all, who’d ever think to become the guy who cleans up blood, body parts and fluids after messy accidents, murders and suicides? “A lot of the jobs that we go to are suicides or natural deaths … and the family doesn’t know what to do,”…
From Prussia with love
If you combine youthful vigor with a respect for ’60s soul, a tie-dyed tee, and frenetic, tireless energy, you’re apt to get Detroit’s Prussia. Dear Emily, Best Wishes, Molly, the band’s first full-length release, comes after a year filled with well-attended gigs and an earned distinction as one hell of a frantic and unpredictable live…
Legal limits
State can’t prosecute suspect in 1994 rape for which wrong man did time
‘Everybody’s got to wipe’
A jazz club piano player took the stage the other night, and announced that a guy from Metro Times was in the house looking for folks with out-of-the-ordinary jobs. “I’ve got an interesting or unusual job,” said a sports-coated gent perched on a nearby barstool. “I sell toilet paper. Toilet paper? “Everybody’s got to wipe…
Man on Wire
There’s a palpable tension running through James Marsh’s high-wire documentary, a sickening sense of dread that has nothing to do with French provocateur Philippe Petit or his 1974 tightrope walk between Manhattan’s newly built Twin Towers. It comes from the knowledge of what will eventually happen to the World Trade Center that haunts Man on…
Letters to the Editor
Expose pols’ hypocrisy Dear Jack: I am a big advocate of personal privacy. But your assertion that the sex lives of politicians should be “off the table” doesn’t hold any water with me. I’ll concede a right to privacy for any politician who introduces legislation calling for the repeal of all laws regulating the private…
Luck of the Lions
Fur, football and frolic are major parts of Mark Klemish’s job. So is Febreze. Klemish is “Roary,” the Detroit Lions’ mascot. In addition to entertaining fans at games and making other public appearances for the team, he’s got to care for the heavy, warm costume he often wears for five-hour stretches. “I’ve got tons of…
Elegy
There’s a sexy beast lurking beneath the smooth respectability of academic David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley), one he doesn’t try to hide, even when being interviewed by Charlie Rose. Elegy opens with Kepesh plugging his new book, which details how the Puritans suppressed sexual freedom in America. He laments that it wouldn’t flower again until the…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Dawn of the tramp
He spins a surreal, exaggerated exchange with a Woodward panhandler, uttering no words as he tiptoes with jerky, skittish movements around a streetlamp as if pretending to abscond. With an eerie white facial complexion, a center-parted black wig peaking from under a derby hat, heavy eyeliner and penciled-in Hitler ‘stache, you can almost see the…
The Singing Revolution
In a moment of cinematic synchronicity, this documentary about the long struggle for Estonian independence arrives in theaters at a time when Russian tanks are rolling across the declared border of Georgia, another former state of the Soviet Union. The timing provides an added resonance to The Singing Revolution, a sobering reminder that history is…
Inner-city sanctuary
For people growing up in poor neighborhoods in the city, nature is usually something ugly, little more than the weeds smothering fields or sprouting from sidewalk cracks. Eight years ago, Detroiter Tom Milano, 60, wanted to show his eastside neighbors a glimpse of the beautiful side of nature by creating a thick pond garden in…
Listen here, kid!
How to intervene with a homophobic nephew? Let him have it!
Stealing America: Vote by Vote
It’s not just that Dorothy Fadiman offers no explanation for those who seriously question the results of the 2004 presidential election (and I count myself as one), her documentary should have been an eye-opening, gut-twisting expose of American voting practices gone horribly wrong. Lord knows, there are enough of us waiting for someone to show…
Floating on the top
For Dave Pittman, what he calls the “a-ha moment” regarding his career choices came during his college days as an art history major at Iowa State University. Pittman, who lives in Royal Oak, knew from a young age that he wanted to be an artist. What he didn’t know was how he’d be able to…
The queen of odd jobs
My friends and family consider me the queen of odd jobs. It’s true, I have worn various and sundry hats, which currently include singer, artists’ model, CPR and first aid instructor, swimming pool manager and lifeguard. Past gigs had me retouching safety signs, cleaning offices and delivering appellate briefs. I’ve sung madrigals in royal garb…
Vicky Christina Barcelona
A nice European vacation can work wonders — just ask Woody Allen. His 40th feature is a breezy travelogue of Spain, as pleasant as a mild summer afternoon and just about as laid-back and relaxed as the king of uptight comedy has ever been behind a camera. Like his two title heroines, college pals living…
Dog-Tied
You know those people who dress their dogs in sweaters and other miniature clothing, which rankles so many of us? Meet Pat Jackson, their enabler. Jackson’s the owner of Uncle Rah Ree’s Doggone Ties, makers of a full line of dog clothing. She operates it from her east side home with business partner Candy Cook,…
Asleep at the switch
Lansing pols’ ‘renewable energy’ bills would give DTE and Consumers a virtual monopoly
We are family
Using research and interviews on the streets of Detroit, Ileana Cortez is trying to figure out how her city has changed over time. She is learning about the past from older residents who have lived here their whole lives and is hoping to apply their lessons to the future. Through Michigan State University, from which…
He comes in colors
The highest-rated entertainer on Detroit prime-time television is rarely seen on camera. He broadcasts almost every day from April to October, ad-libs most of his dialogue and gives cable viewers distinctly new definitions to words like “filthy,” “cheese” and “elevated.” Unquestionably, Rod Allen, the Detroit Tigers’ color commentator on FSN Detroit the past six seasons,…
No brown M & M’s!
It’s no urban myth. On their early tours, Van Halen demanded that all brown M&M’s be removed from backstage bowls at their concerts. The person in Detroit responsible for removing those candy-coated chocolates was Liz Butsicaris Jackson, owner of Queen of Cups Catering, the biggest caterer for rock and pop concerts in the area, with…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY • 20 JAM WITH LARRY THE BOP BACK KID Five years after being sidelined by health woes, and in time for his 65th birthday, Larry Smith is headed back to the stage. Actually, he’s been taking the stage to jam with greater frequency of late, blowing up his trademark Parkeresque storms on alto, so…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Hoohah! It’s Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #185! The Usual Gang of Idiots — MAD #493 (EC Publications) :: Bill Gaines is gone. Harvey Kurtzman is gone. Will Elder is gone. Norman Mingo, Don Martin, Dave Berg, John Putnam, sadly all gone. So if you haven’t read an issue of Mad lately, you might think that…
TV thriller
WDIV’s Paula Tutman pens a page-turner
On the Download
I don’t wanna bust all Bob Talbert here, but I’m outta my Wednesday moanin’ mind! No, wait, what I meant was, there’s a few stray digital notions floating around in the ether that I’ve been meaning to touch on that will now appear magically before your eyes in hopefully-not-too-scattershot fashion. To wit: So, I’m flipping…
First water
The somewhat kitschy setting of checkered tablecloth, faux grapevines and strings of small red and green lights don’t prepare you for the quality of service. Whether you’re dining in the dark and boisterous front room or the more sedate and well-lit back, you’re sure to be impressed by the efficiency of the waitstaff. Children are…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Fly Me to the Moon
It’s the summer of 1969, and these three teeny malcontents take a break from buzzing the scrap heap and munching on dung long enough to listen to Nat’s doddering Grandpa (Christopher Lloyd) rattle on about how he once rode shotgun with Amelia Earhart. Somehow this tale inspires the boys to flap over to the Kennedy…
Witness to an exhumation
My friends and family consider me the queen of odd jobs. It’s true, I have worn various and sundry hats, which currently include singer, artists’ model, CPR and first aid instructor, swimming pool manager and lifeguard. Past gigs had me retouching safety signs, cleaning offices and delivering appellate briefs. I’ve sung madrigals in royal garb…
Henry Poole is Here
Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) has recently overpaid for a run-down house in his bland, aging suburban L.A. neighborhood, where he holes up all day on his black leather couch accompanied by his buddies Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. Despite his insistence that he “won’t be here that long,” his super-perky real estate agent Meg (Cheryl…
Revenge of the nerd
The guy who made the world safer for four-eyed freaks and brainiacs, as the definitive dork-turned-icon, Office star Rainn Wilson, readies for a big-screen close up in his first leading role as a middle-aged shlub turned over-night pop sensation in The Rocker. On a recent local press tour we spent a few quality moments with…
Couch Trip
Privilege New Yorker Video “We want the world and we want it now,” cries Jim Morrison at the climax of “When the Music’s Over.” The dude wasn’t kiddin’ around. The ’60s were winding down and they were strange days indeed; the kids were revolting (in every sense of the word), struggles that made for fine…
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Finally, by going totally CGI, George Lucas can spin his sparkly tales of galactic conflict without the nuisance of human actors gumming up the works. In lieu of flesh and blood we see stiff CG marionettes, who fly about the screen with dizzying, ADD swiftness but who sport faces as rigid and unchanging as action…
Graveyard shift
Suzanne Baumann likes to describe herself as a career temp worker. Graduating from Kalamazoo College with an art degree, she’s had about 50 jobs since, including a well-paying stint in design at K-Mart’s children’s clothing department and a one-time gig illustrating Metro Times’ astrology column. But possibly the most serious eyebrow-raiser in the collection was…
Son of the street
Big Sean — the latest addition to Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. (Getting Out Our Dreams) Music record label — has always had skill. But he insists that the people who pushed him to take music seriously are just as important; without them, he claims, he may not have pursued a career in music. “They’re the ones…
Back with the band
Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute on “The Office”) stars as Robert “Fish” Fishman, a drab, fortyish tech worker who, 18 years ago, was unjustly ousted, Pete Best-style, from a band on the edge of stardom. The band went on to become Metallica-sized arena rock icons, leaving a wound that just won’t heal. Redemption comes in the…
Nice work
In a burst-bubble economy like today’s, lots of us define a good job as still having a job. But beyond that, we want to be reasonably well compensated … and, well, we want our work to be good conversation. We want the little beam of limelight that goes with hearing, “Wow, you do that for…
Artistic bent
On the opening night of Gender Agenda, the He-Bops kicked out a short set of Clash-style Cyndi Lauper covers that got a flamboyant crowd dancing. Against a backdrop of pop art collages held together with blue tape, the irreverent dude trio made noise as harmless yet ironic as a teen garage rock band with something…
Arkona
Encased inside black metal’s already principally European and nationalist heart is a group of acts committed to reviving the traditional folk tunes of their respective homelands. Unfortunately, too much of this “folk-metal” is just bland renditions of folk songs amplified over unfitting metal histrionics. But Poland’s Arkona lays down a proudly strutting epic with Ot…
Kwame’s role models
It wasn’t long ago that we were hoping Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick could live up to the standard set by Elliott Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York who resigned almost immediately after it was disclosed that he’d been playing black-socked footsie with a hooker. Rather than put the Empire State through the agony…
