Valentine
Yet another horror flick attempting to use the Scream formula: Pretty young starlets and dimpled young hunks stalked by a masked psycho killer with a damaged-little-boy past. Though Valentine lacks the wit of the Scream films, it occasionally shocks, when it doesn’t telegraph its gory punches.
Look away, Dixieland …
The History Channel hunts down lingering ghosts of the Civil War….
The Wedding Planner
In this safe, innocuous entertainment, photogenic duo Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey are tossed together in unlikely circumstances and romance is supposed to flower — but the bride and groom are as lifeless as their counterparts perched atop a multitiered cake.
In the name of the son, y’all
Bill Clinton was no liberal, but his successor is not only a conservative, he’s a right-wing extremist — ultraconservative cabinet appointees, an inaugural prayer service and now, an anti-Constitutional blending of church and state.
Apocalypse pow!
Welcome to the rip-roaring, blood-douched, relentlessly rigorous military boot camp of the Echo Boomer generation. Rather than clutter your impressionable videogame optics with the realities of Full Metal Jacket, the inexpensive “Hogs of War” represents the more rapid, more brutal of our two, bulk-carnage highs. Yet, instead of frail humans, chubby swine headline the game’s…
Expert deception
A new book exposes the shenanigans of the public relations industry, which pays, influences and even invents a startling number of news experts.
Corny porn
“The first disaster I heard was on radio,” country crooner Terry Allen once said of a tornado that ripped through his Texas Panhandle community when he was a boy. He wasn’t speaking metaphorically — “They were pleading for blankets and canned goods” over the airwaves — although he easily could’ve been describing the torch ’n’…
Illusions at work
An adaptation of Trust Us, We’re Experts, reveals how the invisible hand shapes mass opinion.
The best and the slightest
As regularly recurring as winter’s chill and generally as predictable as the delivery of tax forms, Houghton Mifflin rolls out its Best American series at the end of each year. Designed for Americans with vacuum-packed schedules and patchy attention spans, the allegedly boiled-down-to-an-essence collections do, despite their very reductionism, serve an ostensible purpose: getting capital-L…
Billboards on a roll
Taking bumper stickers to a new level, companies pay people (in some cases, quite well) to have their cars transformed into moving advertisements.
Delta 88
The perfect sonic companion for lonely nights, tears and beer, Delta 88 softly welcomes you in, dries your eyes and offers a swift kick in the ass to send you on your way back out into the bad, bad world. After only just a few years together, these guys already have the tragic rusty weariness of…
Who’s got next?
George R. N’Namdi Gallery returns to downtown Detroit….
The true roots of jazz
Keith A. Owens talks about Ken Burns’ “Jazz” series, which establishes the fact that jazz music was created by African-Americans. (And it never would have been born if it weren’t for American racism.)
Bach-bop
Late in his life, the Italian novelist Italo Calvino described the essence of his craft as “the subtraction of weight.” “I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all, I have tried to remove weight from the structures of stories and from language.” There’s something similar…
Storm over spirit
Francisco Mora Jr.’s spiritual journey across borders…
Been down low
But things are looking up for (under) groundbreaking trio….
Sermon or mammon?
Master Nuyorican producer Little Louis Vega and Subliminal Records label head Erick Morillo have decided to hock their DJ skills on the double CD House Nation: America, only the second domestic release from Ministry of Sound, Britain’s marquee superclub and lifestyle dance label. As half the house duo Masters At Work (with Kenny Gonzalez), Vega…
Back from the outback
Chef Keith Famie, our celebrity of the pots and pans, is in Australia for “Survivor II,” where he’ll prove his mettle in the outback. Hopefully he’ll return home and share his Aussie food adventures with us.
Decadent delights, naughty bits
Details on the divine debauchery and sexy swinging at Decadence … Beware an upcoming risqué art show … A few fantastic (and free) music shows happening around town … & much more.
Apocalypse pow!
Welcome to the rip-roaring, blood-douched, relentlessly rigorous military boot camp of the Echo Boomer generation. Rather than clutter your impressionable videogame optics with the realities of Full Metal Jacket, the inexpensive “Hogs of War” represents the more rapid, more brutal of our two, bulk-carnage highs. Yet, instead of frail humans, chubby swine headline the game’s…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I like to fantasize about my ideal world. I dream of people being rewarded financially in direct proportion to how much beauty they create. I envision convenience stores that sell sacred books, dream of wise elders who sit around dispensing jocular oracles. I think of what it would be like to…
A new kind of news
The unique web-only news service, Plastic.com, is great for a daily skim. Also- where you can find your very own Monica Lewinsky font!
Mistakes were made
I put on the CD and relaxed only to sit up panicked within seconds. Matthew Herbert (aka Wishmountain, Herbert, Radio Boy, Doctor Rockit) had just dropped a record by Lost Weight, which sampled the sound of my alarm clock. I got over the initial shock and since then, Herbert has taught me to stop worrying…
Sending signals
• Can I use your column to make a suggestion to a problem I’m sure many couples experience? My husband has complained for years about not being sure what I want when we are intimate. I, on the other hand, hate spelling it out in detail. I have a strong libido, but there are times…
Into the light
Writing, reading and listening at Black Mouth Reader’s Theater….
Sharp punch lines
In the grand scheme of things, Mouse on Mars is probably one of the most important musical outfits to which you should turn your cerebral attention. Amid all the clutter and confusion of our world of sound, the duo has somehow, some way managed to consistently create accurate sound tracks that marry the exterior, electronic…
Sound of lovin’
Isaac Hayes’ cookbook is saucy and soulful
On track
Get on board to help plan Detroit’s mass-transit vision….
Something fishy
Most people don’t relish eating scraps off the floor, devouring grade-F meat unfit for normal consumption, licking the wrappers of eaten candy bars. So why should we listen to a band’s musical leftovers, dumbly allowing ourselves to be tantalized by what was left on the cutting room floor? Phish’s album Trampled by Lambs, Pecked by…
Scratch the sauce
Competing pasta toppings from Coppola and Sinatra
Fatal flaw?
A big problem with emergency health care “prize”….
Corny porn
“The first disaster I heard was on radio,” country crooner Terry Allen once said of a tornado that ripped through his Texas Panhandle community when he was a boy. He wasn’t speaking metaphorically — “They were pleading for blankets and canned goods” over the airwaves — although he easily could’ve been describing the torch ’n’…
Sweet treats
Bring home one of these easy-to-purchase gifts for your sweetheart
Pardon me
Flint man receives honor of a Clinton pardon….
Hallucinations in exile
Director-painter Julian Schnabel (Basquiat) reincarnates the memoirs of Cuban author-exile Reinaldo Arenas into cinematic light with significant moments of bold color, his persecution as a poet and a homosexual, and his early death from AIDS — with Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp.
Keep the beat
A real-life love muscle
Window pain
Weathervane Windows sued by laid-off employees….
Dark Days
Hell is underground — and so is home, a world where even the days are dark. Marc Singer’s camera hustles along with the homeless who live underground in New York City, documenting their lives as DJ Shadow’s hip hop drives a sound track of their feelings of loss, regret and guilt.
Under it all
Valentine panties for lovers of lingerie
West Texas hillbully
Sing a song of Boy George (W., that is)….
George Washington
Director David Gordon Green’s debut feature, a portrayal of the dreamlife of young people adrift, is an extraordinarily beautiful, poignant and original film. Using nonprofessional actors, it focuses on a small group of mostly black children in a rural community full of rusting metal and weedy lots.
Letters to the Editor
Another view Many people rely on your music reviews to catch new acts. After seeing Delta 88 at 313.jac, I was disappointed with Carey Wallace’s review of the band ("Watch that swinging door," MT, Jan. 17-23). Here is my review of the performance I saw: “Delta 88 started slow and stayed slow. Danny Kline fancies…
Hey, how’s it going?
Major goings-on in the local music world (and all-star lineups which have fans drooling) — the Motor City Music Foundation, Detroit Music Awards, the Hamtramck Blowout and Mid by Midwest … our music writer attempts to sort it all out for you.
