Hurlyburly
On the surface, David Rabe’s play Hurlyburly is about Hollywood, specifically the immense self-absorption and disconnection felt by the inhabitants of a company town whose assembly lines manufacture ephemeral fantasies. But scratch a little deeper and what’s exposed is a bloody, pitched battle between the sexes. Rabe’s self-lacerating men know a few things about fear…
Baby, it’s cold outside
It’s winter. And the Lizard of Fun is lamenting the loss of its party companion, because it knows the terrible truth. The moment the snow starts falling, the wind starts blowing or the waters start rising, I turn into a weather report zombie. Nothing — not a Florida vacation (assuming I could get to the…
Concert of Wills
The idea of watching a documentary about the making of the Getty Center, a huge museum complex in California, seems about as appealing as watching an evening’s worth of especially uninspired programming on the Learning Channel. But somehow a trio of established documentarians — Susan Froemke, Bob Eisenhardt and Albert Maysles — have taken this…
The education of Prince Dennis
Lionel Linder, editor of the Detroit News until the paper was destroyed by Gannett in the late ’80s, used to say the city was on its way to becoming our first authentically Eastern European socialist economy. That, I thought, was unfair to Bulgaria, where the kids all did get basic literacy, everybody was drearily fed,…
Mean streets of love
It’s no secret that the more our affluent society projects its wares on the global screen, swamping the world with its vision of happiness choreographed down to the minutest detail, the more it aches to slip itself into the skin of the other. Satiated as we are with the photogenic gallivantings of the rich, with…
Netropolis
The very first time I went online was in 1983. Hair was big. America was Reagan country. It would be years before the Web first appeared. Back then, each online "site" had its own phone number that you had to call directly. If someone else was already connected, the line would be busy. For the…
Black Licorice
Most fans of the Cardigans’ hit “Lovefool” will be surprised that this is album No. 4 for the Swedish pop group fronted by the always sexy, syrupy vocals of Nina Persson. A modern electronica edge that has been the modern rock augmented sound of the last year — see Depeche Mode, Madonna and Bowie’s last…
Pitch’d
PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY After-hours impresario Lee Nolastname has been part of Detroit’s third shift entertainment possibilities for years now at the Red Door, as well as working on last summer’s "Afterburner." Now he’s looking to the city’s progressive dance scene for his latest venture, "Transistor," near WSU. Partnering with superstar scenester Adriel Thornton to book talent…
Fear of Pop
A few years ago, major labels would have shied away from anything that didn’t smack of a Top 40 hit. Why invest hard-earned cash in some experimental effort when you’re mining for the next Celine Dion pot of gold? Could it be that we’re entering the age of artistic freedom? Or could it be that…
Furious funnies
More questions vex the mind of your scribe. In the past three months, three major animated films have been released. We had a remake of The Ten Commandments, complete with R&B dreck, and two films about bugs, one of which — Antz — couldn’t decide what its message was. What gives? The easy answer is…
Failure
John S. Hall and King Missile are back again, but what does that mean? King Missile started out as an offbeat project between Hall, a guy named Dogbowl and that resident studio genius, Kramer, on the latter’s Shimmy Disc label. While the music and the man have matured over time, Hall still performs his freakish…
City of dreams
Do people really need cars? No. Most humans who’ve lived on this planet, including the ones living here now, have not owned cars. (Okay, you could say the same thing about flush toilets, central heating and self-adhesive stamps, none of which I’m proposing to get rid of, any more than I’m proposing to get rid…
Folk implosion
Mojave 3 singer and songwriter Neal Halstead wears his influences on his sleeve: Out of Tune, the British band’s second album, smacks of Richie Havens and a bit of Nick Drake, and Halstead’s phrasing on songs such as “Yer Feet” and “To Whom Should I Write” is uncannily — and irksomely — Dylan-esque. Indeed, while…
Battleground meditations
As the soldiers of Army Company C-for-Charlie make their unrelenting and bloody charge up a hill during the World War II battle of Guadalcanal, in writer-director Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, there are moments of eerie, still quiet, like the calm eye of a hurricane. Within one such pause, a reprieve from the nerve-rattling…
Va Va Voom
Va Va Voom unveils Cinerama, a very un-Wedding Present-like sound from head Present-er, David Gedge. In fact, the two groups share only Gedge’s vocals and undeniable knack for writing pure, low-key pop songs — this time in the tradition of mid-1960s UK bands, but with a glorious Phil Spector or Burt Bacharach sensibility. The group…
Power outrage
When Martina Pickett landed a job at Detroit Edison in 1974, she thought that she was set for life. “I was always told you made good money and they never laid anyone off; it was the land of opportunity,” she recalls. But that was 25 years ago, long before the young worker’s enthusiasm changed into…
OG Rock Opera
The Pretty Things is an English rock ‘n’ roll band that came of age in the mid-’60s along with its more famous peers — Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Kinks, etc. While it began as a primitive and rowdy blues-based ensemble, the Pretty Things matured quickly and, in 1967, released the world’s first-ever rock opera. To put…
Same planet, different worlds
It is the best of times for some and the worst of times for others. At least that is how President Clinton and protesters against him presented things during his visit to Detroit last week. While Clinton waxed eloquent about America’s booming economy to the Economic Club of Detroit’s 2,000 guests, demonstrators protested outside Cobo…
Bliss-Hop
Poor P.M. Dawn. Having pioneered the whole ’80s-new-wave-hit-sampling R&B thing half a decade ago, the duo now find their brand of glazed hip-hop eclipsed — at least in terms of its sinewy tone and the obvious hooks — by the R. Kellys and Puff Daddys of the world. Which may explain why on Dearest Christian,…
Rights proposal, take 2
Several years after the failure of a human rights ballot proposal that included protections for gays and lesbians, Ferndale appears ready to give equal rights another chance. The city council on Monday was wrapping up about two dozen appointments to a committee that is to decide whether to put a human rights ordinance on a…
International Neighborhood
Sulukule isn’t a band — it’s actually a Turkish neighborhood. Amid Istanbul’s ancient stone walls and winding streets is a section called Sulukule, famous for its Rom (Gypsy) music. This album features music of one of Sulukule’s most renowned residents, violinist and composer Kemani Cemal — whose name is surprisingly absent from the cover. A…
Mercury rising
Environmentalists who’ve been warning for years that mercury levels in the Detroit River were rising say their concerns have been confirmed by several recent studies. "We’re seeing more of an increasing trend rather than a constant or decreasing trend," reports Russell Kreis, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s research station on Grosse Ile. Tests…
Trip-hop rocks out
On its 1995 debut, We Care, Whale was just some Swedish yahoos with samplers and a budget who recorded tossed-off, drunken, trip-hop gems such as “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” and “Young Dumb and Full of Cum” with then-pal Tricky. Three years later, they’re like some great cosmic answer to the question of “what if the…
Food Stuff
Sassy and saucy tidbits and news about food, with attitude.
Artful entrees
A lady in a funny hat came by to say hello, perhaps a little shyly, on New Year’s Eve. "Hi," we said back, faintly surprised, and a passing waiter informed us, "That’s Lorraine." Lorraine Platman, former art history major, now the creative director of Sweet Lorraine’s, puts her personal stamp on all the dishes that…
A Civil Action
Even though A Civil Action is based on a real-life, environmental civil lawsuit, it just proves something that John Grisham knows all too well: In contemporary legal thrillers, it’s not the case that matters, but the lawyer. A Civil Action follows Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) as an example of how the attorney becomes the story…
Love is the Devil
Writer-director John Maybury’s feature debut, Love is the Devil, is subtitled Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon, which would seem pretentious if it weren’t such an honest admission of the film’s limitations. Though imaginatively photographed and wonderfully acted, it offers only sketchy glimpses of a dauntingly complex personality. There are depths to the film’s…
