Smoke screen
There may be light at the end of the tunnel vision after all. Despite continued braying from the likes of Clinton drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey and Attorney General Janet Reno about the dangers of “mixed messages,” voters in five states managed to overcome anti-drug hysteria and closed-minded politicians by casting their ballots to legalize…
Year in review ’98: A gift at year’s end
The DIA’s new 20th-Century Galleries are (almost) just what we needed….
Arsenic maps delayed
Oakland County residents are still waiting for the county to issue maps showing where arsenic and other contaminants have been found in wells that have been tested over the years. The maps could alert concerned residents about troubled areas nearby. Earlier this year county officials said the maps would be distributed in November. Now they…
Predict the future! Win big!
Last year, in a desperate effort to woo readers back from Isadora, I kicked off my first-ever annual predict-the-future column. (Check out the answers on our Web site.) Truth is, I expected to ace it, though I denied this with proper false modesty. After all, it was my own quiz, and I am such a…
Water off, dispute on
"Turn on the water!" This was U.S. Rep. John Conyers’ final statement last week to Highland Park Mayor Linsey Porter, who has refused to turn on the water of about 400 residents who are unable to pay their bills. Nearly 35 residents and public officials gathered at the Highland Park library Dec. 23 to talk…
Second Annual Future Shock Quiz: Jack’s Predictions
1) What will happen, pray tell, with the Greatest Trial of the Century? A) Mr. Bill resigns on the point of conviction. B) They work out a deal for censure. C) Mr. Bill toughs it out, is acquitted. D) New revelations lead to his actual conviction.My guess: B. 2) Moving along from tragedy to farce,…
Balking at protection for gays
In a year that saw a national outcry over the murder of a gay college student, gay activists in Michigan were disappointed by the Legislature’s failure to strengthen penalties for hate crimes against gays. The bill, which would have added sexual orientation to the state’s ethnic intimidation law, passed in the House but wasn’t taken…
Goddess for the world
Last week, I was ruminating about who the perfect man would be. It didn’t take much speculation. I had figured out long ago that the perfect guy, in fact or fiction, is Gomez Addams. Not a GQ model, perhaps, but what style, what enthusiasm, what panache with a tango. With Gomez you would never experience…
Top Ten Films
Desiree Cooper The Apostle – Robert Duvall Beloved – Jonathan Demme Buffalo ’66 – Vincent Gallo Bulworth – Warren Beatty One True Thing – Carl Franklin Slam – Marc Levin Slums of Beverly Hills – Tamara Jenkins Smoke Signals – Chris Eyre There’s Something About Mary – Farrelly Brothers The Truman Show – Peter Weir…
The year in BPM culture
Electronic music continued to find its way into the mainstream. If you weren’t there, here’s how it happened….
The Year in Review: 1998
NEWS & CULTURE: ’98 kaboom Another year has blown by in state and local news. And when you look back on 1998, it becomes apparent that a definite theme has emerged. Wish you hadn’t asked that When it comes to sex, millenial America says, "Don’t ask, don’t tell." The year that blew When it comes…
The year that blew
"The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind." —The Starr Report, Appendix XVI, Vol. 23 Back in the days before clichés, old-timers would emerge after the latest cyclone saying, "It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good." This year, their drivel was proven true. The nation reeled from the double effect of El Niño,…
Society of Spectacle
Whether it’s a case of synchronicity, or just a fluke brought on by a lack of new ideas, 1998 saw the release of two films about the disco era (The Last Days of Disco, 54), two big-budget, asteroid disaster movies (Deep Impact, Armageddon) and two World War II epics directed by filmmakers weaned on Vietnam,…
Top Ten Music
Our reviewers pick the best and most important releases of 1998….
Wish you hadn’t asked that
Thirty years after the sexual revolution, sex is back with a vengeance. But it’s just not the same. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, love was free in America. Everybody was discovering sex and couldn’t wait to talk about it. Which explains why Candy, The Joy of Sex, The Story of O and The…
Blown out of proportion
Some years are better than others. There are years that seem to soar on gossamer wings, taking us to new heights. (OK, I can’t actually remember such a year, but the law of averages says they have to occur now and then.) There are years that are memorable only for mediocrity. And there are years…
The Faculty
“What I want to do with the science-fiction genre,” screenwriter Kevin Williamson confesses, ” is the same thing as Scream. I want to attack every single genre. That’s my goal in life.” Intelligent and entertaining in Scream and Scream 2 — both scripted by Williamson — the attack is, however, disturbingly juvenile in The Faculty.…
Netropolis
Several years ago I began a tradition of piling media clippings collected throughout the year into one very large drawer in my filing cabinet. Then, the last week of the year, I make a big pot of coffee every morning and begin sorting and rereading the stacks. From those shreds of yellowed paper and computer…
Mighty Joe Young
True to the spirit of the original, while taking liberties with its plot, this remake of a 1949 minor landmark in special effects is more a fairy tale than a monster movie, a kinder, gentler variation on its obvious source of inspiration, King Kong (1933). Unlike Kong, who was at heart a homicidal maniac, Mighty…
Pith’d
GIVE A FUNK Besides the now-packed Better Days "Go Deep" party Saturday nights, area househeads wanting to soak up the soul-tinged, post-disco funk of Dee-troit beatdown house need look no further than Eastern Market’s Johanson Charles Gallery tonight, Dec. 30, when area house fixture Theo Parrish spins an evening of intelligent grooves for a New…
Patch Adams
What came first, the invention of saccharine or movies like these, whose cloying, false sweetness leaves a bitter aftertaste? Perhaps the most unnerving thing about both Patch Adams and Stepmom is that it’s not difficult to see the good intentions behind the mediocre end results. When he first appears onscreen, Hunter Adams (Robin Williams) hardly…
Blowout of the year
Blow. It’s a noun, a verb, an expression of disgust. And it has so many othernuanced meanings, too. So, in the name of looking back at the year that was, we decided to give the word — be it blow, blew or even blue — a blowout of a workout. Heck with the old lists…
Stepmom
What came first, the invention of saccharine or movies like these, whose cloying, false sweetness leaves a bitter aftertaste? Perhaps the most unnerving thing about both Patch Adams and Stepmom is that it’s not difficult to see the good intentions behind the mediocre end results. When he first appears onscreen, Hunter Adams (Robin Williams) hardly…
Death Watch ’98
The bets have been tallied in office celebrity dead pools around this vast, cynical land of ours. Obituaries have been written (and, in some cases, written and written and written). The TV news crews have all gone home. "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" has an added poignancy. "Riding high in April/Shot down in May"…
Shakespeare in Love
Amid the heyday of Elizabethan entertainment, two rival theaters: the Curtain and the Rose compete for Shakespeare’s newly scripted work. ’Tis rare in one so young to find such talent! What if the muse bids him adieu and runs away? What if sweet love’s regrets are out of stock? What if — to put it…
A Gift at Year’s End
In a year that saw the birth of three innovative downtown spaces — detroit contemporary, foundation and JRainey Gallery — as well as the arrival of administrative “good guys” Michele Spivak at the Center Galleries and James Steward at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the top story has still got to be the…
Robert Noll Blues Mission
Very, very loud…but good. If you dig volume with your electric blues, you’ll probably have a great time, particularly if you dig power trios. Noll has a consistent and loyal following around the Detroit area, which he has earned. He is one of the best blues/rock guitarists on the local scene. Worth seeing.
’98 Kaboom
Some years are better than others. There are years that seem to soar on gossamer wings, taking us to new heights. (OK, I can’t actually remember such a year, but the law of averages says they have to occur now and then.) There are years that are memorable only for mediocrity. And there are years…
Uncle Jessie White & the 29th St. Band
Uncle Jesse is considered by many to be the elder statesman of the local blues scene. Back during the days when blues musicians could barely find work in this city, Uncle Jesse was known to reach out and take many an aspiring blues artist under his wing and teach them how real blues should sound.…
Risky Knock-Outs
You’ve probably seen it, preceding a late-night televised classic or prior to a feature on AMC — a large radio tower poised on top of the world, chirping frenetically and sending out concentric rings of light. That beeping tower is the corporate logo of Radio-Keith-Orpheum Pictures, better known as the RKO Studio. Founded in 1928,…
