Filmocracy now!
The Detroit Filmmakers Coalition liberates the means of movie production by providing unique resources to the city’s community of experienced and aspiring filmmakers.
Truer than strange
Pres. Bush doesn’t know where to put his hands (and the Peabody Award-winning “Daily Show” catches it all on tape)….
Safety catches
Isn’t technology grand? Liz has a few ideas for inventions that will make our lives safer and better — including balloony external airbags, truth-telling mirrors-on-the-wall, and more.
Taking the high road
The Hemp Car merrily rolls into town….
Candles on a 300th birthday cake
Things people love about this town of ours … from the river to Eight Mile, there’s lots to be proud of.
Freedom ride
An all-day affair raises funds for Michigan Coalition for Human Rights….
A cynic’s Top 20 reasons to love Detroit
In celebration of Detroit’s 300th birthday… Some of us have less love to share.
Classic cones
You can go to Guernsey Farms just for an ice cream cone, or to buy dairy products from a little convenience store, or you can go for a meal. In the restaurant, broasted chicken is the special. It comes with a tasty coleslaw and potato, as well as a scoop of ice cream. Also worth…
Motown on our minds
Metro Times’ special gift to the city on the occasion of its 300th birthday …. a collection of thoughts and images, recollections and reflections about this town of ours.
Blush
Blush reinvents the best parts of the ’80s dance-electro-pop craze with forlorn female vocals, guitar, bass, drums/drum tracks and inventive keyboard doodling. The group then bolsters the sound with both ’00s technology and classical songwriting technique. The result is a full-impact, spacey sonic workout. All that and it’s fun too!
Detroit 300 credits
Jerry Herron is a regular Metro Times contributor and the author of AfterCulture: Detroit and the Humiliation of History (Wayne State University Press). Curt Guyette is the MT news editor. Herb Boyd is a MT contributing editor and author of Autobiography of a People: Three Centuries of African American History Told by Those Who Lived…
Here we puff again
Give Redman credit for knowing how to stick with a formula. When you purchase a Redman CD, you know which characters are waiting in the wings: Reggie Noble, Funk Docta Spock, Dr. Trevis, Uncle Quilly, Supaman Luva, a host of new “chickenhead” skits, new jokes, the latest slang, a lotta weed. And beats you wouldn’t…
Them ol’ cosmic blues
Innovative, experimental, uncompromising — Terry Riley travels to the far reaches of universal music.
Coffee shop sidestep
Forget ’N Sync; Rufus Wainwright is the true yin to the yang of rap-rock bullies and nu-metalheads. His pop is as fangless as anything you’ll hear this summer, lush in spots, pretty in others, avoiding Limp Bizkit-isms like Radiohead avoids guitars. For all of their unrockin’ wimpiness, the songs on Poses, Wainwright’s second album, bristle…
Detroit 300 intro
What could we bring to the party? It’s a question we here at the Metro Times wrestled with for months. Detroit was about to celebrate its tercentennial, and we had to do something special — but what? After much discussion, we decided that a collection of thoughts and images would make a fine gift. Recollections…
Mania remixed
For those unfamiliar with Tuxedomoon, artsy-lefty-deconstructionist-classicists who 20 years ago declared a Reagan-governed America unlivable and fled to live and work in Europe, this EP of originals and remixes is the ideal starting point. Steven Brown, Peter Principle, Blaine Reininger and Winston Tong made up one of the most mysterious and intelligent groups of its…
Pentagon trash
George W. Bush doesn’t seem like the recycling type, but if you check his White House performance so far, you’ll see that there are many old things he’s trying to reuse. For example, he’s brought back into action an extraordinary number of retreads from Daddy Bush’s administration. While he campaigned last year as an “outsider,”…
Sweet salvation
Five albums in — not to mention a couple live outings, a rarities compilation and a sound track — and Tindersticks still sound as beautiful and haunting as ever. As much as any indie band in existence, Tindersticks have perfected their own signature sound: darker, almost cinematic ballads featuring the tremulous baritone of vocalist Stuart…
All in the mind?
• I must respond to your Mr. Bendy column and counter your advice. Don’t go to a doctor! I have a Mr. Bendy too. In high school I was self-conscious about sex with my girlfriend. It hurt her. Though we rarely had intercourse, I had premature ejaculation when we did. I confessed to my parents…
Letters to the Editor
History repeats itself In response to the recent letter in Metro Times (June 27-July 3), why does Keith A. Owens tell the “same old story?” Because “those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.” Have to rub peoples noses in the mess they made and hit them with the newspaper and…
Gentle rendering
The primal sting of an acoustic guitar string-screech, pluck-cuddle and chord-swoon accompanied by a gentle husk of voice. Few artists have captured enigmatic longing through sound with such a sincere slap and a sly wink as Mississippi John Hurt, a gentle bluesman whose mysterious, folky meanderings rooted their toes deep into the mud of the…
Driven
Reasons why the Motor City should give auto racing another chance….
No public right to know
The judge who kept Dale Earnhardt’s autopsy photos private should be applauded. But it brings us to the question — just what do the media see as “news”?
That’s all right, Mama
Daniel Woodrell doesn’t mess about with the sort of provincial pleasantries that allow readers to confuse “rural” with “rustic” or “small town” with “quaint.” Woodrell, in other words, doesn’t honor the passports of cultural tourists into his backwoods Missouri. Like Shipping News author E. Annie Proulx retelling Deliverance, Woodrell captures in precise, unflinching language a…
Speed flicks
People claim that racing is boring and not really a sport because anybody can drive a car. Like any sport, the more you watch racing the clearer the strategy, skill and competition become. As for boring, I can only shake my head in confusion. The best rebuttal to this claim can be found in the…
Growing pains
Wayne State University’s expansion plans take a toll on some nearby businesses — including Z’s Place, which is closing after 24 years at Woodward and Warren.
Pyrotextual
Wanting to capitalize on America’s puritanical and parochial attitudes when it comes to the world of sex, J. H. Blair, editor of Hot Spots, has strung together 46 erotic excerpts from contemporary fiction, designed to light our collective fires. Whether the whole necklace delivers its libidinal charge or not will matter less than the quickening…
NASCAR Junior
Generally, in the past, open-wheel racing was considered more sophisticated, urbane and international than the traditionally white, blue-collar, Southern stock car racing. Times have changed and racing is not so regionalized; NASCAR has become more popular than CART and IRL open-wheel racing — indeed, NASCAR is "America’s Motorsport." The new biography of NASCAR legend Junior…
Arbor electronix
Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti spawn new artists and sounds, including Todd Osborn’s Dubplate Pressure and Rewind Records … WCBN’s long-running mix show … & the Blind Pig’s Audiofold night.
A star is made
A father’s desperate desire to make a star of his outwardly untalented daughter leads him to kidnap a top Flemish singer. The biggest surprise in this Belgian import is how fame for fame’s sake can portrayed as an expression of love.
Road rock
Cars and girls have been the basis of many a rock ’n’ roll tune, but we don’t normally associate racing and music. Two rare, yet solid, examples of racing-related music involve country legend Marty Robbins and all-girl punk rock band L7. Robbins, famous for his gunfighter ballads and "Smokin’ Cigarettes and Drinkin’ Coffee Blues," actually…
Space-age yeti and hot tips
The delightfully discordant Serious Moonlight party at Cranbrook … Rednecks and hotties at Thunderfest … plus fresh, hot news flashes about Eminem, Jerry Vile and much more.
Legally Blonde
A sort of reverse Cinderella tale, where the princess discovers her true nature after being exiled to a gloomy Harvard where her sunny disposition is mistaken for stupidity. Reese Witherspoon excels at playing a prototypical ditz who taps blonde ambition, girl power and female intuition — to help win a high-profile murder case.
High-ballin’
If you don’t trust me, then at least listen to Latrell Sprewell. The New York Knicks’ premier player — famous for his sweet game, "threatening" cornrows and choking his coach — has his own automotive business, Sprewell Racing. View the wide assortment of shiny, expensive rims and other assorted car parts at www.sprewellracing.com. For $75,…
Bidding Benny adieu
A happy farewell to Detroit police chief Benny Napoleon (and ten reasons why he left)….
The Score
Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando are big disappointments in this heist tale that is so lacking in both violence and visual flash. Only Ed Norton pops and sparkles.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Larva and pupa are key metaphors for you in the next year. They refer to the two earliest stages of a butterfly’s life cycle. While a larva, the future winged beauty wanders around as a caterpillar, stuffing itself with as much nutritive substance as possible. Upon becoming a pupa, it remains…
Raising green
Drop in at the Green House in Ferndale (and drop some green)….
