Reclaiming Beauty
Thanks in part to the Walt Disney Company, the story of Sleeping Beauty has become a familiar part of pop culture — a young, beautiful princess cursed to sleep forever is awakened by the kiss of her one true love. But if for some familiarity has bred contempt, the upcoming production of Sleeping Beauty —…
Everything in 3 Parts
The press release that accompanies the debut album by Toronto’s Golden Dogs suggests that the sing-songy pop rockers are Canada’s “next big thing.” If this prophecy were to materialize, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. In fact, Canada kind of owes us one for Jewel. That said, the band, helmed by singer-guitarist and songwriter…
Ninth life
Buying that first pair of grown-up stockings is a rite of passage for a normal young girl. But for that other type of girl — the kind who rims her eyes with black and uses safety pins as accoutrements, the selection at JCPenny just won’t do. This is the girl who prefers her cotton hosiery…
Pose & purpose
Michigan native David Means made a literary splash with his first collection of short stories, Assorted Fire Events. Reveling in the sordid, the unseemly and the downright strange, Means matched a detached sense of the highbrow with the blood and guts of the lowbrow, while twisting the language into knots. The literary world hungrily devoured…
N&D Center
Wednesday • 19 American Express Celebrity Chef Tour Fun For All Even for the culinary layman, sometimes a hamburger and fries just won’t cut it, and it takes a nice roasted lobster with warm fingerling potatoes to hit the spot. Or how about braised oxtails, short ribs and porcinis? These mouthwatering dishes will be just…
Chicks & Stones
This seven-song teaser for their forthcoming full-length sees the D’s beloved Gore Gore Girls configured as a quartet. It’s the lineup that stepped lively at Little Steven’s Underground Garage Fest last August — four devil chicks unleashing Detroit heat on a humid hurricane of a New York City day — and that same energy sparks…
A tale of two brothers
We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood. —Lyndon B. Johnson Sunday morning. Time for church. The first heavy snowfall of the season seems to be keeping most of the congregation at Imani Ministries at home. The small house of worship, located on Eight…
Eccentric Soul: The Bandit Label
There are finds. And then there are finds with fascinating stories to go with ’em. Such is the case with Chicago’s Bandit Records, whose 1969-1981 existence was marked by such curiosity, tragedy and shady goings-on that it practically reads like a rejected script for a blaxploitation flick. Despite issuing a number of singles, Bandit never…
Put the wheel back on the bus
Last week, with the glittering North American International Auto Show about to begin, Detroit’s mayor, facing a major financial crisis and a huge budget deficit, announced a vast number of layoffs and other spending cuts. Those included an announcement that the city would no longer provide round-the-clock bus service for its residents, many of whom…
Who’s Got Trouble?
Shivaree singer-songwriter Ambrosia Parsley has surely grown tired of waiting for her close-up. Her smoky eyes and sultry tones first whispered through the pines in 1999, but Americans didn’t really get her (and her band’s) blend of cabaret slither and burnt-sienna Americana, and Shivaree was left to struggle. Skip forward to 2002 and the multilateral,…
Easy-Bake for grownups
Man, I like pie. Cherry paaaah. Blueberry paaaah. Banana cream paaaah. Pecan paaaah. I can’t eat a whole pie in a sitting, but I would if I could and that, of course, can be a problem. But there’s also a problem with not being able to eat the whole thing, because if I have a…
Spit and Sweat
If you’ve seen this Los Angeles pop quintet on The O.C. and hoped they’d be the second coming of the Rubinoos, it’s time to grab the corsage out of the freezer and date yourself. It’s 2005 and now bands make their own concert movies and home DVDs to chronicle their rise to fame. Included in…
Bare essentials
And lo, the multitudes did behold the Word. And the Word let it be known that, sometime in the 1980s, music journalists did coin the name for new subgenre. And the wonks were pleased. And those who did not henceforth refer to sensible rock ’n’ roll with a proclivity for twang as “alt-country” fell into…
Criminal desires
Kevin Bacon plays a man fresh out of prison after serving a 12-year term for child molestation, alternately tormented by self-loathing and determined to live a more-or-less normal life. *The Woodsman* takes a character we would normally want to look away from and asks us to consider his plight. For some, that will be way…
What’s in a word?
Never mind the winter, here’s the Motown Winter Blast. This free, three-day outdoor fest smack in the middle of the ungodly winter sparks up this weekend; nearly 60 Michigan acts on three stages in and around the Campus Martius Park in lovely downtown Detroit. The event, staged by the Detroit Super Bowl XL Host Committee,…
Elektra
*Alias* queen Jennifer Garner emerges from the wreckage of *Daredevil* to begin a comic book franchise of her very own. Though it won’t inspire the devotion of fans of *X-Men*, *Spiderman*, or for that matter, her TV series, *Elektra* scores points merely for being competent, action-packed, and, well, nothing like *Daredevil*.
Dream, then act
Hundreds of people filled the pews of Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit on Monday to hear some mighty speechifying before venturing out into the frigid afternoon for a march down Woodward Avenue to Hart Plaza. The occasion was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Placards bearing the words of the slain civil rights leader…
In Good Company
This week’s Dennis Quaid film finds him battling a force stronger than global warming: Topher Grace. As a corporate dinosaur and the “ninja assassin” hired to replace him, respectively, Quaid and Grace have a terrifically believable rivalry, but writer-director Paul Weitz’s follow-up to *About a Boy* ultimately feels thin and underdeveloped.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "When you reach the top, keep climbing." This Zen proverb is especially applicable to you, Aries. Though you may feel as if you’ve accomplished as much as you can for now, I assure you that even more progress is not only likely, but desirable. So don’t bask in the afterglow yet.…
Labor gains
Our pal Jane Slaughter is known to readers of this rag primarily as a reviewer of restaurants. But she is more than just an authority on courses spanning soup to nuts. A longtime staffer at the publication Labor Notes, she also knows much about the nuts and bolts of the labor movement. She is so…
Racing Stripes
Despite the *Mister Ed*-meets-the-computer-age special effects, this Babe rip-off about an out-of-place zebra who dreams of being a racehorse still manages to amuse more than just the kids. Though PG-rated, it appears to target a young Barney-loving audience, oozing with gooey sentimentality and “you can do it” and “it’s OK to be different themes.” The…
In the Lincoln bedroom
Q: I was reading a review of the new book that attempts to prove that Abraham Lincoln was gay (The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, by C. A. Tripp), and the reviewer quoted the author as writing about “a sexual practice later named ‘femoral intercourse,’ … one of the most frequently used homosexual techniques.” I’ve…
Bid’ness opportunity
Occasionally, the members of our Abandoned Structure Squad (known to friend and foe alike as A.S.S.) weary of chronicling the endless onslaught of Detroit buildings that are on a fast track to oblivion. Normally we delight in tracking down the slumlords and absentee owners who plague neighborhoods with dwellings that serve as havens for dope…
Coach Carter
Created by MTV Films, this flick is based on legendary basketball coach Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson), who in 1999 made the controversial move of benching his entire undefeated high school basketball team for having bad grades. It falls into the typical high school sports movie clichés, but the cheese factor is surprisingly tolerable. If…
12″ pop shots
Aaron Carl “21 Positions” (EP) Motor City Electro Company; mcec313.com “Down” anthem creator and house-ghettotech producer, Aaron Carl (aaroncarl.com), proves with “21 Positions” that what’s currently in in Berlin is not nearly as important as what makes asses shake at City Heat on Eight Mile Road; another near-perfect update of the old (late ’90s) booty…
Letters to the Editor
A chip on his shoulder? Re: Ric Bohy’s “Voices of youf” (Metro Times, Jan. 5, 2005), it is truly sad that the individual who represents Detroit to the world cannot speak proper English with proper pronunciation. I guess the size of the bling in the ear is supposed to make that all right. But this…
Assault on Precinct 13
Ethan Hawke and Lawrence Fishburne head up a ragtag bunch of all-star action flick stereotypes in this Detroit-set remake of John Carpenter’s cult-classic standoff film. The off-the-mark depictions of Detroit are amusing at best, but if you’re looking for action, you’re best advised to keep searching.
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Say hello to my liddle MB17! • Raphael Saadiq — As Ray Ray (Pookie) :: Blaxploitation movie parody gets bogged down in an overlong barrage of falsetto ballad clichés. • Sum 41 — Chuck (Island) :: If you kids want me to take your anti-war songs seriously, then don’t destroy your credibility by calling your…
Comics
This Modern World Red Meat Comix
Malevolence
If you pine for the heady days of no nonsense brutality, stilted dialogue and bad synthesizer music, look no further than *Malevolence*, a humorless retread of ’80s slasher films. Right from its *Texas Chainsaw Massacre* opening, it plays like a cover band’s blood-soaked medley of the genre’s greatest hits — *Halloween* being the most obvious…
Don’t Stop Belieeeeeevin’
I have a deep, dark, secret shame — one that, until recently, I’ve kept fiercely guarded. When company comes over, the incriminating evidence is quickly covered with a blanket (or more likely, given the state of my apartment, whatever lingerie is currently hanging from the lampshade). I furtively dial down the volume on my iPod…
Kids in the hall
Any idiot can see that Detroit is a musical mecca. And for the past couple years of my life, I’ve seen what the teenagers listen to in my neighborhood, in my school. I hear the CD players blasting, I hear the discussions about the artists, and, on the surface, I see a community fueled by,…
Sugar in the morning
The Chocolate Gallery Café seems an incongruous name for a breakfast and lunch place, but this little eatery was built on desserts. The chocolate is spectacular and picture-perfect. And there are usually some non-chocolate options like carrot cake or lemon cheesecake. Breakfast choices include eggs and omelets, pancakes (buttermilk, chocolate chip or potato), French toast…
Art Bar
Lowell Boileau, the multi-faceted artist behind the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit Web site at detroityes.com, will present DETROIT360, a multimedia retrospective of his work. Boileau is a self-taught artist who has been exhibiting his paintings since 1980. His keen eye and fascination with the urban landscape resulted in his famed Ruins site, which is both…
Takin’ a free ride
As best I can tell from the latest, and worst-timed, of Kwame’s City Hall scandals, he wanted to put his wife, Carlita, in as fine a pimped-out ride as big-money players in the dope business, and try to make taxpayers pick up the inflated cost of it. Or he didn’t. It’s possible that police officials…
Backslash
As the horrifying tsunami death toll continues to grow, people around the world have moved to donate something to the countries worst hit, be it blood, medical supplies or good old-fashioned cash. With the victims on the other side of the globe, many are turning to the Internet to funnel their good will. With just…
Head Cheese
Tommy Stinson has done time in two supercharged American rock ’n’ roll powerhouses, keeping the low-end adjacent both Westerberg and Axl. He began touring with the former as a 12-year-old punk with a Rotten spike-top, and his visual and musical aesthetic has since been pretty close to flawless. He led the underestimated and wonderfully shambolic…
