Dressing for Dr. Phil
Q: I was watching “Dr. Phil.” He was talking to a woman who discovered, after marrying, that her hubby was a cross-dresser. Dr. Phil told her to leave the man because of his “perversion,” and told her that no one could ever be sexually satisfied with a cross-dresser for a husband because he would always…
Pinocchio
Roberto Benigni’s live-action version, filmed in Italian but dubbed in English for American audiences, often feels like a bunch of small stories and situations strung together. And when Benigni opens his mouth and Breckin Meyer’s All-American voice pours out, it’s more than a little incongruous.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In 2003 you’ll be the zodiac’s most ingenious lover. Not only will your passion intensify and become more creative; you’ll be able to experience pleasure in a wider variety of ways. You’ll have a sixth sense about what your intimate companions want, and a seventh sense about how to give it…
Catch Me If You Can
Leonardo DiCaprio’s unwavering suavity carries this movie about a boy so upset by the disintegrating relationship of the most important adults in his life that he runs away and ends up doing a much better job at pretending to be a grown-up than they ever did as real ones — with Tom Hanks.
That’s all folks!
Goodbye to the guv and a year of lowlights too.
Evelyn
This film’s lack of personality permeates all its aspects — from TV movie-esque, affected child acting to the dullest Irish pub scenes ever filmed. Though it’s refreshing to see Pierce Brosnan no longer banished to the mediocre land of neo-Bond, it’s too bad he doesn’t have more to work with.
Porky’s 12-year reign
Leaving behind a state worse for his rule….
Slow Death
The Flamin’ Groovies helped write the power-pop book in ’76 with the release of their master classic Shake Some Action. Before the timeless title track and tunes like “You Tore Me Down,” “I Can’t Hide” and “Yes It’s True” jangled their way into the history books, however, the band was a lean, edgy roadhouse-rock gang.…
Screen sweepstakes
The very best of 2002 as compiled by our five film fanatics….
Guilty As Sin
With Dead Boys-meets-Kiss hooks galore and all the raunchy nihilism and sleazy tough-guy rock action that any snot-nosed punk could ever ask for, Electric Frankenstein was obviously this generation’s Misfits. But for some reason Electric Frankenstein kingpin Sal Canzonieri decided to take a misguided Starbucks/Wal-Mart saturation-marketing approach to rock ’n’ roll (he probably just read…
N&D add
31 • MUSIC Gold Cash Gold — Up from the ashes of Charm Farm, buds Steve Zuccaro and Eric Hoegemeyer are stirring up a healthy D-town buzz with Gold Cash Gold. Don’t be misled by the irony in the band moniker, ’cause self-mockery is not the only thing that makes GCG worthy; rather, it’s that…
Letters to the Editor
Caught on tape Many thanks to Nate Cavalieri for the fine profile of Bob Seeley and also the good photos by Doug Coombe ("Boogie knight," Metro Times, Dec. 18-24, 2002). We have known and appreciated Bob’s great musical talent for over 35 years and are glad to see he is finally receiving some long overdue…
Potent antifreeze
This Friday and Saturday night, the Windy City will be paying a welcome visit to the Motor City for what promises to be one hell of an old-school blues extravaganza featuring some of the best names in Chicago and Detroit blues. For the ninth straight year, the Antifreeze Blues Festival, a fundraiser for the Detroit…
Has a Lott changed?
I don’t usually enjoy being wrong. However, when I heard that Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott had decided to forfeit his position as majority leader — the first time such a thing has happened in the history of the Senate — I must admit I experienced a rather extended moment of joy. Two weeks ago I…
Almost famous
The near-great and obscure who left us in 2002….
Detroit’s year of reckoning
Kwame Kilpatrick was understandably beaming a few weeks ago when he rolled out plans to redevelop three miles of the riverfront, all the way to Belle Isle. This considerably excited the media, though most of the locals I knew yawned. After all, they dimly remember the headlines touting that old margarine pusher Lee Iacocca’s plans…
Group grope
“Elimidate”: Four guys, one girl, 30 minutes of TV….
Apocalypse then
Sick pink booths. Sick pink lighting fixtures. Pink with some brown mixed in. One young girl waiting on 15 tables. But she’s good, everything a fluid stride. She picks up dirty dishes with one hand, grabs the tips with the other. She’s never out of breath, or patience, or suggestions. “Try the Manhattan. People seem…
Lurid Imaginings
Mati Klarwein It is one of the classic discovery anecdotes, all the better for apparently being true. In 1960, jazz pianist Yusef Lateef received a painting from a fan calling himself Abdul Mati. The painting — a protopsychedelic portrait of the musician immersed in flowers — impressed Lateef, who wrote back to the artist with…
Jan. 1-8, 2003
3 FRI • MUSIC "Scheherezade" at the DSO — The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has just the thing for those in need of a musical change of pace this season. Offering an evening of classical reflection as the perfect post-holiday treat, this large and luscious aural aggregation combines a performance of Richard Strauss’ challenging "Metamorphosen" with…
Droll Economy
Howard Thompson Writing about the good and the bad is easy. Writing about everything else — the inane, the drab, the mediocre, the outrageous, the baffling — is the hard part. Movie reviewer Howard Thompson, who passed away this past March 10 from pneumonia at the age of 82, did just that for over 40…
Winning hearts and minds
What’s in the word “enemy”? Certain other words seem like its natural companions, as in “the fucking enemy shows up,” the tongue-in-cheek title of a satire by New York poet Ted Berrigan. But when it comes to enemies we’ve known and loved to hate — the Nazis, the Borg, the Wicked Witch of the West…
Living doll
Ruth Handler Over the course of her 43 years of existence, Barbie — the blandly beautiful, generously endowed iconic doll — has achieved a kind of Vulcan mind-meld with American society, silently infiltrating and embracing, like a symbiotic virus, every cranny of the national psyche, inhabiting our literature, films, art exhibitions, and Web sites, while…
Rhymes with bummer
Joe Strummer (Aug. 21, 1952–Dec. 22, 2002)…
With a clue
Mildred Benson Nancy Drew was cool. Period. She had it going on with her blue roadster and classy wardrobe of sweater sets, pencil skirts, and low-heeled Mary Janes. She had financial independence (thanks to her widowed lawyer father, who let her do whatever the hell she wanted) and two best girlfriends, Bess and George, along…
Prayers of hate
It’s a brisk, clear Sunday morning in a quaint Ferndale neighborhood, just three days before Christmas. Birds are chirping, joggers are wheezing, couples are walking dogs. It’s a scene straight out of Norman Rockwell. Except for a colorful sign that screams “AIDS Cures Fags” in bold black letters. It’s a Christmas card to Ferndale, courtesy…
Spin doctor
Ed Headrick “When we die we don’t go to purgatory,” “Steady” Eddie Headrick was fond of saying. “We just land up on the roof and lay there.” Fitting sentiments from the father of the modern Frisbee and the sport of Disc Golf. Headrick, 78, died from the complications of multiple strokes in his Le Selva…
Our Little Corner of the World: Music from the Gilmore Girls
Musically speaking, TV and film “soundtrackese” is a language unto its own. Neither straight mix tape nor score, if a production deigns to show its musical language to the consumer at large, the compilation has to be both a mirror of the show (in this case) and a self-contained musical universe. Or, in the case…
Fist finds fist
Uziel Gal Contrary to what the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal deems “weapons of mass destruction,” the ultimate threat is not thermonuclear. Neither is it chemical, nor biological. Taken body by body, corpse by corpse over the past half century, the ne plus ultra deadly device is a compact, efficient, accurate 9-millimeter submachine gun that can be fired…
Sex as illegal tender
Director Rob Marshall depicts flashes of thought and lust for fame with spaghetti straps, sequins, rolled stockings, songs through lush lips, gyrating hips and clever segues, as the act of murder blurs into top-notch movie entertainment — with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere.
Queer as folk
Harry Hay There’s a picture of Harry Hay with his lover John Burnside taken at their home shortly before his death from lung cancer at the age of 90 earlier this year. Hay is sitting in his wheelchair, dressed in blue jeans, Hawaiian shirt, rainbow belt, and black leather cap. One of his veined, heavy…
Antwone Fisher
Denzel Washington’s straightforward directorial debut has moments of beauty and power, making it hard not to swallow the sentiments of screenwriter Antwone Fisher’s true story hook, line and sinker. It’s a successful, modern example of pure melodrama — with Washington and Derek Luke.
