Trembling truths
Like waking up with foggy recollections of a dream in which you were making out with the most inappropriate person, and from that moment forward, looking at him or her differently — Son, Ambulance settles into a chasm between reality and hallucination, gets uncomfortable and smiles. The sound is a foggy-river reflection of a blood-red,…
Finding the spark
Q: I am a very beautiful, full-figured woman. I go out pretty regularly to the same bars to enjoy the entertainment and spirits, sometimes with friends but mostly alone. I have a very friendly, welcoming personality, but I am single. Why don’t men want to be more than friendly with me? I haven’t been in…
Don’t look now
A look at Jonathan Rosenbaum’s lamentations about the film industry.
Post-holiday drag
As the Big Apple’s drag queen du jour, Justin Bond is Kiki, an over-the-hill and under-the-radar cabaret chanteuse who can’t shake her longing for the show biz spotlight that shook her off the stage many moons ago. Dementedly determined to regain her past glory, she has enlisted Herb (Kenny Mellman), a gay, Jewish piano hack,…
No womb at the inn
Q: I’m a 35-year-old woman. For six months, I’ve been dating an amazing 30-year-old man I love very much. Sadly, he’s ambivalent about continuing our relationship because we have a conflict on a major issue: I don’t want kids. He does … at some point. He’s not ready for a child at this moment; at…
Alternative stretch
Alternative sports: dangerous — and often deadly. Obviously, they’re the perfect snapshot for a video game. Take “SSX,” for example, with its winding, 70 kilometers per hour slopes, sharp, joint-aching turns and unrealistic, blood-negative abuse meter — such awesome vicissitude from an ordinary round of b-ball. For about $49, the utter insanity and high-speed, big-air,…
Scaling the heights
Death is the ultimate deadline, so we may not have long – help Liz put together the list of 101 Things to Know Before You Die.
Soderbergh strikes again
Portraying the illegal drug trade as an industry as entrenched in America as the Big Three, director Steven Soderbergh’s specific tone and style elevate Traffic far beyond genre expectations — with Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro.
Let’s go POGO
Walt Kelley’s great comic strip character, Pogo the possum, ran for president around 1960, and many of us iconoclasts were proud to wear his campaign button declaring: I go Pogo. Well, I go POGO again, but this time its the Project On Government Oversight that I’m backing. This terrific, public-interest watchdog is in the fight…
You Can Count On Me
Director Kenneth Lonergan has a perfunctory visual style but a marvelous touch with actors (Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick) in this low-key, surprising character study which shows just how much is happening beneath the surface of even the most mundane lives.
Anti-Freeze, if you please
It ain’t never too cold to have the blues. The Magic Bag’s Anti-Freeze Blues Festival has established a strong track record in a relatively short time; this year’s lineup promises to deliver the goods once again..
Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000
Cool, young and sexy, the first third of Dracula 2000 may have some of the scariest film moments of the year, but the remainder becomes an action flick, an MTV version of last year’s End of Days. Director Patrick Lussier chills the screen with icy blues you can almost feel.
Letters to the Editor
Money and danger As a hospital staff nurse in Detroit, I want to comment on Jane Slaughter’s insightful article regarding nurses working forced overtime ("Nurses strike back," MT, Dec. 13-19). I work with many nurses who, due to financial need, must work overtime. We realize the stress nurses experience in a physically and mentally demanding…
All the Pretty Horses
Set in 1949, All the Pretty Horses is an end-of-the-cowboy-era film adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name. It seems closest to the book’s strategy when its characters are wandering through the Western landscapes — with Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz.
Brush Park and hope
Thanks to the hard-working efforts of a nonprofit neighborhood group, this Detroit neighborhood is charting a comeback.
Miss Congeniality
Sandra Bullock is so lively and so funny so often in this outing that you wish she could display her comedy talents in a better film — next time trading by-the-numbers director Donald Petrie and cliche-dependant writer Marc Lawrence for filmmakers not afraid to showcase all her goofy charm.
Facing the new year
We’re all trudging back to work or school to face the brave new year. And the way it looks now, we’ll need to be more than a little brave. The immediate future doesn’t look so good.
The Family Man
Basically a failed comic update of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) with a few major twists — the only highlight in this dull film is Téa Leoni who wastes the most credible performance of her career — with Nicolas Cage and Don Cheadle.
Kid Rock, limos and beefy bodyguards
Partying at the Roostertail with Detroit’s lovable bad-ass … An unintentional reunion for Majesty Crush … The elusive Eminem … & pondering Starbucks beverage containers.
Hentchmen
The Hentchmen experience is like an indoor beach party held in January. You can’t really go surfing as the clean-cut guitar riffs, drum crashes and organ (?!) strains might imply, but for some reason, with the heat on overdrive, sand in the living room and Hawaiian shirts as far as the eye can see, the…
Slighting Doors
If you happen to stumble across the liner notes of the new Doors tribute record, you’ll be fortunate enough to come across such hilarious quips as the following from Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek. When discussing his collaboration with Cult front man Ian Astbury, Ray confesses, “ He’s a very spiritually aware inhabitant of our blue…
2000 in review
Memories of the DEMF light the corners of our mind … Looking into the retro future … & more.
Snap into it
Perhaps it was all just an illusion. Perhaps there never was a thing called trance. At least not in this country. Paul Oakenfold, the sun king of trance, came, saw, shook his head and fled to the Continent, not likely to return. He could see that the savages were going to reduce his good works…
Public angst
The dead of a Midwest winter may stop both drivers and lovers in their tracks, but it ain’t nothing compared to the rainy days and Mondays of a lifeless, loveless January in the Pacific Northwest. Just ask Amy Annelle (singer-songwriter of Portland, Ore.’s, the Places) who knows all too well just how heart-heavy and claustrophobic…
Farewell from Keith
A fond farewell to the fabulous Famous Coachman
Hip shakers
After about a half-century of rock ’n’ roll, when it appears that it’s all been done before (although I’m still holding out hope that someone will surprise me), it’s heartening to find a band that’s not afraid to blend an assortment of old techniques into a fresh-tasting concoction. On their 17-track debut recording, the Come…
Alternative stretch
Alternative sports: dangerous — and often deadly. Obviously, they’re the perfect snapshot for a video game. Take “SSX,” for example, with its winding, 70 kilometers per hour slopes, sharp, joint-aching turns and unrealistic, blood-negative abuse meter — such awesome vicissitude from an ordinary round of b-ball. For about $49, the utter insanity and high-speed, big-air,…
Mad about Mannheim
Excellent modern classical music by the Emerald Sinfonietta
Endless wits
Its title puns on an infamous 1915 movie; it was produced by the Thurber House in the funnytown of Columbus, Ohio; it’s half the length of a James Michener treatise (still hefty). So why should you buy this book? (Not, as on a notorious ’70s National Lampoon magazine cover, because we’ll shoot this dog if…
Alternative stretch
Alternative sports: dangerous — and often deadly. Obviously, they’re the perfect snapshot for a video game. Take “SSX,” for example, with its winding, 70 kilometers per hour slopes, sharp, joint-aching turns and unrealistic, blood-negative abuse meter — such awesome vicissitude from an ordinary round of b-ball. For about $49, the utter insanity and high-speed, big-air,…
Gimme an S… -T-R-O-K-E
Sports fans at risk for serious health problems….
Finding Forrester
Director Gus Van Sant manages to make the writing process visually interesting in a rare film which views the creative impulse as something that can exist in anyone, and can come to fruition given the right outlet — with Sean Connery and Rob Brown.
Bonus by numbers
The best pop culture stuff of 2000: TV, fashion, movies, music and more.
Kudos and condemnation
Freep reveals secret police report; city revealed to have ignored many suggestions…
Sweet excess
Imagine yourself strolling through Paris with a beautiful girl you just met on a train from Brussels. You pass by Fauchon, the famous chocolatier. Inspired by infatuation, you buy a couple of chocolate-covered strawberries, fresh from dipping. Ah, paradise. But as Susan Terrio points out in this charming ethnographic study, Crafting the Culture and History…
Canine cuisine
You may not think of your dog as a discriminating eater, but he might really appreciate an old-fashioned, home-cooked meal. Try our recipes for dog-style stew and frozen dessert – a real five-bark dinner.
While you were sleeping
Lame-duck conservative legislators attempt to limit a woman’s right to choose…
Don’t look now
Two years ago, A Touch of Evil was rereleased — after it had been completely remade. On the night in 1957 before he was sent off to Europe by RKO, Orson Welles penned a desperate memo, more than 50 pages long, to the studio’s head, begging for changes he considered crucial to the film’s artistic…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): What a crushing bore it was to overthrow the status quo in 2000. Rarely has a righteous wrestle with the details been more excruciating. You had to work for radical change by agonizing over the fine print, investigating fossilized remains with microscopic care and unraveling intricately entangled threads. In 2001, thank…
Curious contrition
Detroit News admits to “lifting” News-Herald story…
