This Left Feels Right
No, this left feels like veering wildly and driving straight off a cliff into a flooded ravine some 100 feet below. It’s the sound of men who are dangerously pussy-whipped — by Heather Locklear, Calista Flockhart, who knows? — and have been taking some bad medicine, er, advice. Granted, MTV’s Unplugged made it acceptable for…
Letters to the Editor
More on halftime show Re: Super Sluts (Metro Times, Feb. 4). I’m glad to see someone finally pull the rug out from under MTV. I feel the same way and believe that the degeneration of decorum a la MTV is something that needs to be exposed, especially when they don’t even ’fess up to their…
Nothing So Strange
“Wait a minute, is Bill Gates dead?” barks my husband as I watch a faux-documentary chronicling the search for facts in a pretend Gates assassination, replete with repeating footage of his shooting. I’m about halfway through and, for a moment, I’m unsure. Maybe that’s the goal of the Florida indies who created Nothing So Strange.…
Art for adults
It is nearly 8 p.m. on a Wednesday and Aurora Price is hard at work under fluorescent classroom lights. Her shoulder-length coppery hair falls over an eye as she deftly measures and trims a swatch of stiff fabric. She is creating a test pattern for the corset of her wedding dress, partly inspired by Victorian…
Meanwhile, back at the raunch
I went to the fifth annual Dirty Show thinking, OK, I’m probably not going to like it. I went last year, when the show of supposedly erotic art was at downtown’s Museum of New Art, and I was, for the most part, grossed out. I found it misogynistic, just a bunch of pornography in paint…
Sushi downtown?
Curries, fried rice, Thai salads and noodles all done in authentic Thai style. Squid and scallops, pork, beef and chicken Thai dishes. Extensive appetizer selections and tasty soups. Vegetarian entrees also. Lively setting.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): On February 1, six big-name entertainers took control of the Super Bowl halftime show. The result was a histrionically boring spectacle of robotic sexuality and fake emotion. If there was any saving grace amidst the monumental emptiness, it was Janet Jackson’s climactic unveiling. In a New York Times article, Alessandra Stanley…
The French Ass
Many critics regard this as one of the best films ever made. Any chance to see a Robert Bresson (1901-99) film on the big screen is bound to make most cineastes’ mouths water. Balthazar’s titular character is a donkey. The film follows his short and brutish life from an idyllic farm to cruel owners who…
Folk Elegance
Perhaps all that space was making her homesick. —Louise Erdrich Carrie Mae Weems, an internationally celebrated visual artist, recently came to town to launch her show at the Susanne Hilberry Gallery in Ferndale. The artist has said that the focus of her work is “to describe simply and directly those aspects of American culture in…
The Dreamers
The MPAA no doubt bestowed the dreaded NC-17 rating on this film because Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci’s latest picture displays penises for longer than a few seconds. Bertolucci, best known in America for 1972’s Last Tango in Paris, this time employs three young and beautiful film buffs who sulk and rage against the bourgeoisie and…
What’s inside a girl?
Q: When I was young, I naively assumed that since male orgasm was accompanied by ejaculation, female orgasm must be too. When I finally asked a friend about “girl come,” I was corrected. So for years I ignored talk of female ejaculation, just as I ignore talk of Bigfoot sightings. But now I’ve found myself…
Hukkle
Hukkle, the directorial debut of Hungarian director Gyorgi Palfi, is an odd little movie that seems, for about half its short running time, to be a psychedelic nature film. It starts with an old man sitting on a bench at the side of a village road, hiccupping. Watching a beekeeper from a bee’s point of…
Under the Underground
If you’re a social climber, it’s best to keep John Nelson at arm’s length. At a time when the local cool club carries a nearly exclusive subscription to ’60s soul rock, John Nelson is singing the praises of Canadian alternative bands from the ’90s. At a time when the up-and-coming scene cowers in the two-fisted…
Miracle
Everyone knows the ending, but director Gavin O’Connor and screenwriter Eric Guggenheim do a fine job of telling the story within the story of how the U.S. hockey team beat Russia in the 1980 Olympics. Fabled coach Herb Brooks is played with macho, stony-eyed intensity by Kurt Russell. Miracle does a good job of keeping…
N&D Center
18 WED • MUSIC Music from the Wires for Ears Vol. II — Matthew Dear makes his live debut this week. Sure, he’s done live sets from his laptop before, but this time is unique because he’ll be singing through a Vox to create a true techno pop performance. Dear’s recent album, Leave Luck to…
50 First Dates
It is not taking pity on Adam Sandler, who recently suffered the loss of his beloved bulldog, Meatball, to say this is one of the few recent comedies worth the price of a movie ticket. The movie doesn’t achieve the slapstick hilarity of Happy Gilmore or the touching humor of Big Daddy, but nonetheless it…
Romancing the tone
Paul Keller appears to be happiest when he’s playing the standup. Perched on a stool with the bass propped against his shoulder, and thumping strings like his fingers are made of velvet, you can see the joy in his eyes, in his movements. The standup bass is a formidable instrument, to be sure, but Keller…
Postmodern undone
Paul Auster is an artist with many talents. In addition to several volumes of poetry and 11 novels, the Brooklyn writer has also written screenplays for the indie films, Smoke, Blue in the Face and Lulu on the Bridge, which he also directed. His Collected Poems brings together decades of poetry, translations and a small…
Quick pick
Annie Quick is panting. A self-proclaimed lousy sleeper and workaholic, she is preparing for yet another American tour and by the sound of her poorly masked loss of breath, it’s obvious that she’s slammed for time. “I spend about half of my life on the road,” says the unheralded rock ’n’ roller, adding with a…
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
They sample the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil” and use it with brazen uncredited impunity — and they don’t get sued! They steal, note for note, John Barry’s underwater music from Thunderball and take full credit for it — and they don’t get sued! Robvira Zombie rips off their patented B-movie sound track shtick…
Anatomy of a smear
Late last week, much of the nation’s “respectable” media went frantic over a “breaking” new story that they were dying to nail down so that they could lead the pack in reporting the breathtaking slimy details … just as long as they didn’t have to do it first. Here’s what was going on: CBS and…
Van Hunt
Van Hunt’s debut album is damn good. Especially considering that homeboy writes and produces his own stuff, which is, in fact, a glorious throwback to Prince’s heyday and Curtis Mayfield’s golden era. What sucks is this guy’s timing. He drops this jewel of an album at a time when everything about the music industry is…
Small wonders
It is no great challenge to describe what can be seen. You see a skyscraper and you say “tall.” You see an ocean and you say “vast.” You see Carrot Top and you say “not funny.” It can be a more difficult assignment to describe those things which we cannot see. How do you describe…
Rocket Redux
High energy ain’t dead, dad. So say the Rubber City Rebels. These Akron semi-legends return from a 20-year hiatus (history lesson: they were a glam cover band that started doing revved-up, bad taste originals, opened a club in Akron where Devo, Bizarros and Pere Ubu did early shows, signed to Sire, moved to Los Angeles, worked…
Teacher’s pets
Sarah K., 31, sits in a restaurant, her infant son, Max, next to her playing quietly in a baby seat and staring at passersby. She can’t help but smile whenever their eyes meet. The boy helps her to smile a lot these days, but he also reminds her of her responsibility to nurture and protect…
Pierce my Brain
Rubber City Rebels – Pierce my Brian Rocket From the Tombs – Rocket Redux High energy ain’t dead, dad. So say the Rubber City Rebels. These Akron semi-legends return from a 20-year hiatus (history lesson: They were a glam cover band that started doing revved-up, bad taste originals, opened a club in Akron where Devo,…
Dope beat
If you don’t watch your step walking through the door of DJ Dan Winberg’s bedroom-turned-studio, you’ll stumble on the pile of records blocking the doorway. And if you’re not careful when you sit down, you’ll crush a heap of loose albums on the chair. In fact, there isn’t much room to move at all; in…
Greatest Palace Music
As one of the most enigmatic and enduring voices in the American underground, Will Oldham’s name is synonymous with desperate, renegade folk music. His string of hipster must-haves in the ’90s (Viva Lost Blues, Arise Therefore and Joya) came under a number of names (Palace Music, Palace Brothers and finally Bonnie "Prince" Billy) and made…
