Mondays in the Sun
Javier Bardem smoldering character propels a tale of desperation among dysfunctional blue-collar Spaniards who have no prospects and little desire for prospects. Gritty, poetic indignation and self-pity ensue.
Labor and other pains
There won’t be any Labor Day parade this year. Nobody much noticed, but the Michigan AFL-CIO canceled it this summer, saying the union would instead put all its energies into its “LaborFest” celebration two weeks later at Ford Field. Whether that was the right decision, I don’t pretend to know. What I do know is…
Stone Reader
Mark Moskowitz’s documentary of his search for the author who wrote one novel — a forgettable tome for everyone but Moskowitz. The quest to find and/or understand Dow Mossman, enigmatic author of The Stones of Summer, should resonate among bibliophiles.
Serious Bell
The pre-teens and teens in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Civic Jazz Orchestra are taking Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “The Star-Crossed Lovers” from the top, then from this bar and that, when Marcus Belgrave bustles into the room. He’s wearing a Sun Ra T-shirt, khaki pants and a straw golf hat with the brim riding…
Chaos
Helene struggles with a deteriorating marriage while launching a guilt-induced crusade to nurse a prostitute who unexpectedly parachutes into her life. A seeming serio-comedy with real depth.
Big names & beyond
Marquee names make a festival for the masses, and this year’s free Ford Detroit International Jazz Festival has those for its 24th year. There are crossover names that have left some diehards scratching their heads: Chaka Khan, Roberta Flack and Natalie Cole! There are elder statesmen of the mainstream such as saxophonist James Moody, vibraphonist…
The Magdalene Sisters
A wrenching journey into Ireland’s Magdalene system, a church-sponsored network that essentially imprisons and punishes wayward girls. Writer/director Peter Mullan paints a dark world in which the church is morally and financially corrupt, and thousands of women are left to die without hope.
Survival and song
The Hamtramck Labor Day Festival didn’t happen in 2001. Few seem to want to discuss why, but for Cathy Gordon, longtime owner of the New Dodge Bar, the answer is obvious. “Arrangements with the city weren’t made in time,” she says. Just like that, an annual event that brings tens of thousands of people to…
Gigolos through the ages
Yeah, it’s a coffee-table book about male prostitutes. While that alone might get a hearty guffaw, dismissing this book with a world-weary snort would mean missing out on some very compelling (if often frustrating) reading on a subject that few know anything about. If you’re like most straight folks (and a lot of gay folks),…
Line of growth
Constitutional law develops in a line of growth. The Supreme Court’s decision in one case serves as a precedent for its decisions in later cases, and constitutional rights can be extended in the line of growth. The court’s 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, striking down racial segregation in the public schools, was…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Mars is now closer to Earth than it has been in 60,000 years. It’s shining 85 times brighter than it did a year ago, and it will be the single most brilliant light in the night sky this week. Is the red planet therefore beaming an intensified dose of its charismatic,…
Ashcan politics
The only thing missing from John Ashcroft’s dog-and-pony show is the pony. There’s a sweet-looking black Labrador in the corner, but no frisky Shetland. The pooch’s taciturnity is reassuring. It’s Aug. 21, and the conference room at Cobo Center is crammed with cops. The crowd is predominantly white, overwhelmingly male. Testosterone wafts like Aqua Velva,…
Almost famous
“I never expected this many people for poetry. I guess I should know better by now,” said Marc Smith as he looked out at the hundreds of bodies crowding the aisles and sharing seats in Chicago’s cultural center. They were there for the opening ceremonies of the 14th annual National Poetry Slam (NPS) on Aug.…
Digging for truth
For more than a year, the City of Detroit Policemen & Firemen Retirement System has stonewalled Metro Times and others trying to find out exactly how much money the pension fund has loaned a company that wants to inject up to 50 million gallons of hazardous waste annually into the ground beneath Romulus. Until now,…
Embers of sympathy
They burned his house down. Just when I was starting to feel good about how well things had gone in Detroit during the blackout, I got a call from a buddy who asked if I had heard what happened to R.J. Spangler. I hadn’t heard a thing. My phone hadn’t been back on for…
Blackout Post script
An article in the Washington Post is still gnawing at our innards. Filed by Post staffer Robert E. Pierre last week, the story gives “hip-hop mayor” Kwame Kilpatrick a big ol’ wet kiss for his masterful handling of the blackout. But right from the get-go, Pierre got a few things wrong. First, the article noted…
Santorum quorum
Q: Take the advice of a doctoral student of communications: If you want your message to stick, you need to repeat it over and over. Therefore, if you want the new meaning of the word “santorum” to stick — that frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex…
Letters to the Editor
Highs and lows The “It’s All Good” poem and story by John Sinclair were ridiculous (Metro Times, Aug. 13-19). There is nothing worse then seeing a viable paper being bogged down by some born-with-a political-silver-spoon-in-his-mouth has-been. He takes the rudimentary route of automatically labeling the other side as bad, then goes on to fluff up…
Jazz Fest Schedule
FORD DETROIT INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FEST Saturday, Aug. 30 FORD MOTOR AMPHITHEATRE Noon: Northview High School 1:15 p.m.: IAJE Reading Band 2:30 p.m.: Marion Hayden Bass Summit 4 p.m.: Russell Malone & Benny Green 5:45 p.m.: Nnenna Freelon 7:30 p.m.: Ron Carter 9:30 p.m.: Chaka Khan STANDARD FEDERAL PYRAMID STAGE Noon: Kenny Green 1:30 p.m.: Jackie…
Straight eye for the queer guy
By now even you’re tired of it. Despite the fact that “metrosexuality” — and ill-conceived term to denote the fey leanings of wealthier men embracing their vanity and their overnight bags — reaches nary an iota of the general populace outside of sushi-sick San Francisco and nightlife-nauseous New York, press pundits are bandying about the…
I don’t wanna grow up
Ask any parent who’s got even a faint cultural pulse and they’ll tell you: The single biggest threat to their sanity is the focus-group-tested, lobotomized soccer-mom-approved drivel that passes as “children’s music” these days. Children’s music is in a shit state of affairs, chock full as it is of condescending aging hippies with acoustic guitars…
Ant-iversary
According to Hal Soper, it all started out as a chaotic race against time. The grand opening of the Planet Ant coffeehouse had been rushed to coincide with Hamtramck’s 1993 Labor Day festival. Ever since the industrial powerhouse, Dodge Main, closed in the ’80s, the annual event aspired to “cheer up” those hit hard by…
Never drink alone again
The U.S. Beer Drinking Team is looking to recruit you! Site: U.S. Beer Drinking Team Contact: Become a Member Site Unseen is a new feature at www.metrotimes.com. It highlights any sites that provoke weird, enlightening, introspective, eerie or downright repugnant reactions. Happy thoughts also frequent the piece. If you have clicked on an amazing site…
From the choir to the charts
This story is for the ones who knew it the first time they heard him sing “Sad & Lonely” from the Can’t Figure U Out EP. This is for the congregation at Renaissance Unity, the ones who cried because they’d never heard anyone sing “Thank You, Lord” so sincerely. This is for the people who…
Urban alehouse
Atwater is back, both the name and the concept of a great brewery with great food. Expect the original Atwater beers with “very, very good pub food.” That will mean regional and seasonal specials and such German specialties as wiener schnitzel.
Le misanthrope
When Michel Houellebecq’s second novel, The Elementary Particles, was published in France in 1998, it was considered something of a scandal. Houellebecq is the kind of writer who seems to be intent on offending everyone and Particles was, not unjustly, accused of being racist, misogynist, pornographic, misanthropic and just plain unpleasant. Even more impudent, for…
Mick Collins sings the booty electric
Lost in the wash of mutton-chopped, white-belt-wearing, truck-cap-sporting fashion victimization is the fact that there are some genuine iconoclasts in our midst on this, thee Detroit Rock Scene®. They don’t get any more iconoclastic than one Mick Collins — Dirtbombs head man, erstwhile Gories howler and ardent boundary-ignorer. The Voltaire Brothers, the latest missive from…
Dances with clichés
Kevin Costner’s Open Range is a straightforward and unapologetic rendering of the classic Western, replete with stereotypical heroes and villains. Beautifully photographed by James Muro.
Sweet spot
Driving to Alinosi’s — Detroit’s oldest confectioner, circa 1921 — is not easy. I sputter back and forth past the East McNichols shop for 15 minutes without seeing it, distracted by yards with pretty flowers surrounded by barbed wire fences. I stop a teenage boy on a bike in front of a party store. “Know…
American Splendor
Inspired by Harvey Pekar’s comic of the same name, this irascible but seemingly unremarkable author chronicles modern life in all its weirdness. A cleverly constructed bio-pic.
August 27-September 2, 2003
27 WED • FUN FOR ALL Mars Viewing Events — Few things are more breathtaking than the Michigan sky at night. And mother universe will be putting on an extra show this month. On Aug. 27, Mars will come within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be the brightest object (except for the moon) in…
