ANOTHER CRITIC, ANOTHER LIST….
I guess I’m one of those haters Corey’s talking about because while I found Up In The Air fine in a Jerry Maquire sort of way, I think it’s a pretty superficial film that wants to pretend it actually has something to say. For me, the top films of this year were the ones that’ll…
PJ’S LAGER HOUSE FEATURED ON CNN MONEY…
Late last week, PJ’s Lager House, one of D-Town’s favorite rock haunts, was spotlighted in an incredibly interesting feature story on CNN Money, titled “How To Lose Money Fast, Start a Business.” The story deals with the trials and tribulations of running a bar and musc venue, especially in the depressed climates of the Motor…
Brittany Murphy Essentials
Two Brittany film essentials that went unnoticed: It’s a tragedy that Brittany Murphy’s dead. Maybe not only because she was young and beautiful and had a suitcase pimp of a hubby, but because she was a mighty skilled actress, a fact that’ll likely be overshadowed by her ditzy film personas. See, beyond the Clueless, Just…
Have a Very Scary Christmas, it’s the bloodiest time of year …
Cartoonist Sean Bieri set out to deck the halls with blood and horror last holiday season, but we thought his carnal cartoons worthy of another go-round as we head into 2010. Check out Bieri’s 12 Days of Zombie Christmas project, which he launched last Dec. 22. Each morning, till the second of January, Bieri posted…
WDET 101.9 fm shakes things up heading into 2010
Just taking this decade into consideration, Detroit Public Radio (WDET-FM 101.9), has seen its fair share of programming tweaks, shifts, and flips. Come December 26, the station will transition programming once again, implementing substantial changes to both weekday and weekend broadcasts. With one year as general manager tucked under his belt, J. Mikel Ellcessor says…
UPCOMING COOL SHOWS: SOUNDS AND SPIRITS, ROCK REVIVAL…AND PATTI!
*In case you aren’t aware yet, the annual Detroit Sounds and Spirits benefit show is scheduled for this coming Wednesday, December 23rd. at the Magic Stick, and not the earlier date we mentioned in our annual Christmas music roundup in the issue two weeks ago (that’s what we get for trusting Facebook!). It’s a great…
DETROITERS WERE THE DECADE’S BEST-SELLING ARTISTS…
We’re approaching the end of the year — and, of course, the end of the decade — so the next several weeks will be nothing but lists, lists, lists, and more lists all over the place. But as our city continues to get a bad rap via the national media in other parts of the…
From Russia with ill-fated love
Comrades, we’ve good news coming out of the state education sector this week. For the past nine years, the rupturing of higher-learning institutions has progressed with budget cuts, tuition hikes and the elimination of programs such as the Michigan Promise Scholarship. During this time, Wayne State University’s Department of Theatre instituted, and kept alive, a…
All hot air?
It’s going to rack up a boatload of Oscars and it doesn’t deserve them. Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air has all the right ingredients: a clever script, great acting, recession-era issues and a feel-good story tinged with just enough reality to make you think it’s a lot more profound than it is. Glance at…
Guts or total derangement?
As animation continues its long, slow slog out of the showbiz ghetto, and with Pixar masterpieces such as UP nabbing awards buzz and massive box-office receipts, it’s nice to see that good-old perverts Spike and Mike are still working overtime to drag cartoons back to the gutter. The average toon in this granddaddy of subversive…
Borders on greatness
I write this review knowing that most metro Detroiters aren’t going to brave the border for a burger, no matter how singular. But might they for a bit part in a feature film? When we visited Motor Burger early one Saturday evening, the Canadian Film Board was there with a camera, continuing its yearlong documentation…
Cheat Code
Stoked: Big Air Edition Bongfish Interactive Xbox 360 Man, fuck winter. Between shoveling snow and the douchetard in the SUV zipping down the freeway (and usually into the embankment), winter is quite possibly the dumbest season ever. The only two redeeming factors to this wretched season are Christmas and snowboarding. Nothing beats carving down the…
TV Motown
The massive American Jewelry and Loan on Greenfield, whose 50,000 square feet of everything from watches and rings to cars, boats and things make it one of the largest pawnbrokers in the nation, is accustomed to accepting virtually anything of value. How much value they’ll receive from being America’s newest reality TV stars, they’ll find…
Food Stuff
Nice legs — Downtown Detroit’s new wine business, MotorCity Wine, will hold its second holiday tasting, with 20 wines for $20, as well as hors d’oeuvres, artisan cheeses and charcuterie. It happens 6-9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 18, at MotorCity Wine, 608 Woodward Ave., second floor, Detroit; 313-483-7283; motorcitywine.com. Buon Natale! — Cafe Cortina will celebrate…
School daze
By now, the nation knows Detroit kids can’t add but what we learned — or re-learned — from the reaction to the now-infamous National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) results is that adults involved with the district have mastered politicking on the platform of educational failure. After the dismal test results were announced last week…
Where the kinks are
Q: I’ve been married four years and have a beautiful baby boy with my husband. I enjoy sex a lot, even a bit of BDSM. My husband, on the other hand, isn’t "driven by sex," as he likes to put it, and will try tying me up if that’s what I "really want." You’d think…
Assume the position
News Hits got its hands on a copy of The Kwame Sutra, a new pocket-sized book compiling former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s "musings on lust, life and leadership" compiled by Freep Pulitzer Prize-winners M.L Elrick and Jim Schaefer. There’s not much really new in the slim volume, but it’s still a hoot the way Elrick and…
Carping criticism
You probably know far more about Tiger Woods’ sex life than you do about large Asian carp. That’s a serious indication of what’s wrong with journalism today, and maybe this nation. Here’s what you need to know about Tiger Woods: Almost certainly, he is not going to come to your house and have sex with…
Fast times in Washington, D.C.
Striding across the gleaming marble floors of a congressional office building in Washington, D.C., Thomas Mahany does not look like a man who hasn’t eaten for nearly a month. He’s moving too fast. And he doesn’t rest, hitting office after office. The spacious hallways of the Cannon Building, a Beaux-Arts marvel completed in 1908, are…
Letters to the Editor
Kick the bums out Good that Jack Lessenberry is going after the toxic lawmakers ("SOS: Save our state," Dec. 9) in Lansing, but the sad fact is that too many run for office with no shame and an absence of knowledge of how to formulate public policy. They shortchange Michigan each and every day they…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Best defense
If the Michigan Legislature doesn’t reform the state’s system for defending indigents, the federal government or the courts just might, says the guy who chairs the state House Judiciary Committee. "It’s obvious we have to do something," says Mark Meadows (D-East Lansing), who held a committee hearing at Wayne State University on Monday to discuss…
MT’s Top 10 stories of 2009
We didn’t count perennial favorites such as our Best Of issues from this year or recent years, or such Web classics as our articles on the Hair Wars phenomenon ("Tressed to kill" from 2004) or vaginal reconstructive surgery ("Does this make my labia look fat" from 2005). But for stories written during 2009 (so far) these…
Couch Trip
Doomsday 2012 A&E Home Video Plucked from the History Channel’s Decoding the Past series and repackaged to coincide with the release of Roland Emmerich’s 2012 blockbuster, Doomsday 2012 is a compelling compendium of apocalyptic prophesies foreseeing the world’s end, coming in three short years. The doc explores the Mayan Long Count calendar at length to…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 16 Green Initiatives Detroit! GREEN FIGHTERS This free evening of environmental discourse focuses on a number of organizations currently working to make Detroit a little greener. Groups on hand will include the Green Garage, Jeff Klein’s Classic Landscaping and the Detroit Evolution Laboratory, as well as representatives from the Coleman Young Municipal Center…
East side feast
Andiamo Lakefront Bistro 24026 E. Jefferson Ave., Harbor 9 Marina, St. Clair Shores; 586-773-7770: Almost 13 years ago, Joe Vicari made the old Lido on the Lake into part of his Italian dining empire. And it’s quite a space, sprawling over two floors, with a marina out back and outdoor seating in good weather. Upscale…
Detroit’s inferno
The devil came to my hometown Made everything fall down If you ain’t seen chaos and destruction Just take a look around The frigid weather that swept in this past week has folks zipping up their overcoats, slipping on gloves and pulling their hats down tight. Which in Detroit begs the question: Has hell frozen…
Transmission
This is quite odd. Novada has spent the past six years developing an epic sound that assaults the senses through a lavish and infectious combination of early U2, such ’80s Brit electronica as Depeche Mode and New Order, classic indie rockers like Echo & the Bunnymen and the Psychedelic Furs, with the contemporary edge of…
Into the light
Music videos don’t have the same cachet or traction they once had, not in an era when MTV’s seminal video countdown show Total Request Live has been canceled and BET’s 106 & Park no longer registers with a lot of music fans. Hell, MTV doesn’t even broadcast all that much music these days. As a…
The Leftovers Unmixedtape
Fans who were complaining about the sparse output from Slum Village member eLZhi were forced to eat those words these past two years. In 2008, the slick-tongued Detroit emcee circulated a CD titled Europass to coincide with his then-upcoming tour before releasing his official debut solo LP, The Preface. He also announced plans at that…
A beast rising
You rarely, if ever, hear stories of American indie metal and hardcore labels keeping their respective visions alive against the backdrop of a hostile economy and generally disconnected metal scenes. You don’t hear about them, because metal labels, especially those in Michigan, usually can’t muster up the cash and support to keep the gig afloat.…
… A Little More Time: The Very Best Of
Spotlighting the yearning, brrr-ning, clenched-throat vocal stylings of Norman (a.k.a. General) Johnson — who wrote and sang the 1961 rock anthem "It Will Stand" and the title-tells-all cult-jam "39-21-46" back when he fronted the Showmen — this two-CD, U.K. import sports 36 songs, cherry-picked from the four albums that the Chairmen Of The Board (Johnson,…
A glimpse at Saw Her Ghost bands
And The Sky Went Red/Signs of Collapse Split (2006) ATSWR were among the first bands to sign with Saw Her Ghost. A group that disbanded in 2007, their sound was hinged on common metalcore traits; meaty, chugging guitars and an utterly scything bass. Detroit’s Signs of Collapse, another recently disbanded group, had more steel on…
Piece Of Her Heart
Erma Franklin is best-known for singing the tower-toppling, original 1967 Top 10 R&B version of "Piece Of My Heart" that Janis Joplin — then fronting Big Brother & The Holding Company — turned into a No. 12 pop hit in ’68. She’s also Aretha Franklin’s eldest sister, and it’s she and sibling Carolyn singing background…
Slammin’!
Ain’t no party like a roller derby party, ’cause a roller derby party don’t stop! Well, actually, it does stop, following two action-packed 30-minute periods that are filled with hot skating ladies jamming and blocking and occasionally shoving bitches the hell out of the way. The Wonder Twins had rink-side seating to the second bout…
Invictus
In perhaps the most inevitable casting decision in Hollywood history, Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela. Besides the resemblance, Freeman’s certainly the right man to capture Mandela’s gravitas and calm moral authority, and he also nails his oddly commanding yet wavering voice; you could plant a garden in the pauses between his words. Mandela held together…
Confession confusion: More from the Provience case
The confession of Eric Woods was good enough for Wayne County prosecutors when they successfully tried him for murder in 2003, but now they want his statement withheld from another man’s retrial in a different killing. Why? Because it would help the defense of Dwayne Provience, a man whose case Metro Times has been following…
STOOGES FINALLY IN HALL OF FAME…
The Stooges will finally be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the 25th annual ceremony on March 15th at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC. It’s about freaking time…although it took so long for this to happen, it’s almost anticlimactic at this point. Nevertheless, the good news is that we’ll probably get…
