How green is your candidate?
Environmental group’s scorecard rates pols; one from Michigan gets a ‘zero’
Is This Me?
It takes some courage to title a new song “Promised Land” in 2008. Carolyn Striho’s “Promised Land” isn’t the best track on her new four-song EP. It may be the one, however, that best expresses its message via its mood in no uncertain terms. It isn’t at all reminiscent of Springsteen’s hope-in-the-face-of-despair anthem in its…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Since there are those who insist they prefer Bob Dylan’s songs sung by someone else, there are probably also people who would prefer Nick Cave’s music without his singing. As the kingpin of “Morgue Rock” (which I just coined to describe a genre of rock music that befits a funeral home), Cave obsesses on damnation…
Traffic jam
New Livernois median angers residents and small business owners.
Greatest Hits
Q: Which Spice Girl is currently nicknamed “Old Spice”? A: Which one isn’t? Hah! No, seriously. I’ll tell you what you want, what you really really want. You want to go beyond partisan pop prejudices and give these soccer moms their due. Forget that they gave Simon Fuller a power base to inflict battalions of…
Talking with Obama
Why the Illinois senator just might be ‘all that.’
Diva
Even though it takes place largely in a Paris underworld rife with corruption, there’s nothing gritty about Diva, which is so polished it gleams. French critics derisively dubbed director Jean-Jacques Beineix’s feature debut as cinema du look, but seeing Diva again, it’s clear that style did not trump substance. Moped-riding postman Jules (Frédéric Andréi) loves…
Letters to the Editor
Dues and don’ts Since Jack Lessenberry has taken it upon himself to interpret “The real GOP” (Metro Times, Feb. 20) for all of us, allow me to interpret Lessenberry’s interpretation of the Right-to-Work and Paycheck Protection initiatives. When he says “that means union-busting” and “… all existing unions would be destroyed,” his remarks implicitly admit…
Couch Trip
Mr. Untouchable Magnolia Home Entertainment He was a dimpled black man who smelled good, according to his ex-wife, but admitted ex-junkie Nicky Barnes was a bit more than that. He ran the multimillion-dollar coke and heroin trade in New York City throughout the ’70s, ran it with the aplomb, tact and style of a blaxpolitation…
In dreams
Aki Onda’s brooding, haunting slide show.
Motor City Rides
Miz Corona’s tricked-out 2008 Yukon Denali.
Night and Day
Wednesday • 27 Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin STUCK IN A GROOVE — LOVIN’ IT Hardly the first jazz or rock figure to nick the ’70s minimalism of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, etc., Swiss pianist-bandleader Nik Bärtsch is singularly single-minded about what he calls his “zen funk.” His new disc, Holon, his second for the ECM label…
‘Fashion is not art’
Rei Kawakubo brought her first runway show to Paris in 1981, knowing that, at that point, the fashion world wouldn’t come to her in Japan. That show sent a tremor through the fashion industry. Her models appeared without makeup, wearing flat, comfortable (gasp!) men’s-style shoes and clothing that looked like it had been assembled from…
Just go
The scene last week in the Detroit City Council chamber was deceptively cordial. In a rare appearance before this city’s legislative body, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick once again displayed many of the qualities that helped him become the youngest man to ever lead Detroit. The intelligence and command of facts, engaging manner and the ability to…
Black squiggles and blobs in space
Dissonant sounds, oscillating from somewhere within the heart of the huge room at MOCAD, provide a jarring, abstract soundtrack for the motion and asymmetry of Kawakubo’s garments. The music is Takehisa Kosugi’s score for the 1997 dance “Scenario,” by reknowned modern and contemporary choreographer Merce Cunningham and costumed by Kawakubo. In video excerpts of a…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Triple-threat position
This week, Will Ferrell returns to theaters with yet another sports parody, set in, of all places, lovely Flint. The funnyman takes us back to 1976 and the last days of the American Basketball Association, before four of the ABA’s teams were absorbed by the NBA in a merger, while the movie’s fictional Flint Tropics…
Kwame time
I’d like to say your editorial was very informative and left me pondering quite a few things. One thing I would like to clear up is Hizzoner didn’t deem himself the "HIP HOP MAYOR" — the Media gave him that moniker. I’m not sure if demanding that he steps down will cure all the ills…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
From electric sizzle to … the Kingston Trio?
The big kahuna
For a taste of Hawaiian cuisine, which, as on the Big Island itself, is more accurately described as pan-Asian, Kona offers moderately priced fare in an attractive dining environment. Choices range from sushi, noodles and pizza to beef and seafood, featuring ahi, Maui onions, and macadamia nuts as a genuflection to the islands’ culinary culture.…
Dom for dummies
Should I tell my sex slave about my girlfriend?
Every mother’s son
Billy P. is a precocious, achingly earnest 15-year-old, endlessly talking about Kiss, serial killers, karate, French painters and more. Like a teenage Don Quixote, he cruises streets of his small Maine community, looking for maidens to protect and villains to thwart. Despite his painful vulnerability, you can’t help but be impressed by his eloquence and…
Altared states
Probably everyone, as a mischievous kid or maybe while stuck on hold with one bureaucracy or another, has taken a ballpoint to a magazine and indulged in a little amateur recontextualization. Why the hell not? It’s a safe and harmless way to stick it to the pretty and privileged, and to have a cheap laugh…
Vantage Point
Inspired as much by Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon as the TV series 24, this fractured tale of a presidential assassination attempt pumps the adrenaline by rewinding and replaying its elaborate terrorist attack, rotating the perspective to eight different characters played by an ensemble of veteran actors. As each version unfolds, the movie cleverly rearranges pieces of…
Dear Crone
Dear Ms. Crone: I understand from your reporting that, in the state of Mississippi, it is illegal to own a "three-dimensional device" for the purpose of sexual pleasure, but owning a "three-dimensional device" for the purpose of killing another human being (a handgun) is okey-dokey and much encouraged by your politicians down there. All I…
Be Kind Rewind
This scruffy and inventive film is a cinematic call to make your own entertainment. Mike (Mos Def) is the hard-working cashier of a dispossessed video rental shop in Passaic, N.J. The neighborhood’s clearly working-class and the dingy videotape-only business is on its last legs. Entrusted with watching the store while his boss (Danny Glover) leaves…
Camera obscura
Though Detroit hasn’t been able to sustain a large-scale film festival, particularly the tourist-drawing kind seen in Toronto or Chicago, that hasn’t stopped local arts and cultural organizations from presenting a host of niche fests eager to expose local audiences to the mostly unseen world of truly independent cinema. The Windsor-based Media City — whose…
Charlie Bartlett
Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) is the perfect confidante for his classmates at Connecticut’s West Summit High School, a public institution miles away from the tony private schools that have systematically booted Bartlett for creative misbehavior. At Summit, he stands out as an aristocratic freak, albeit one with a compassionate streak. It’s the way he manages…
Is it his body?
Listening to Detroit psych-pop ensemble the Silent Years is like the childhood experience of being trapped under a rubber raft in a swimming pool: you’re joyful and carefree one minute — your senses embracing the sun, the splashing, and the intoxicating smell of chlorine — then, suddenly, you find your small, child body trapped and…
Soul chillin’
Most of Detroit techno’s recognized royalty are more accomplished as DJs than they are as producers. Carl Craig, on the other hand, came to techno as both a musician and producer, working on early Derrick May tracks and founding his own labels and nom-de-sequencers (Paperclip People, Tres Demented, 69) before he started as a DJ.…
