8mm
Few studio films are as dark – literally and figuratively – as 8MM (Eight Millimeter). Director Joel Schumacher stages much of this disturbing thriller either at night or in subterranean dwellings untouched by sunlight – and cinematographer Robert Elswit makes most scenes seem on the verge of being engulfed by a very tangible, ever-encroaching darkness.…
A man for all seasons
The DIA showcases the multiple talents of Gordon Parks: photographer, filmmaker, artist, composer and poet….
It Happened Here
It was in 1956 that 18-year-old film-historian-to-be Kevin Brownlow first got the idea of making a movie about an imagined Nazi occupation of England during World War II. He first envisioned it as a sort of horror film, but after meeting Andrew Mollo, an expert on the war – though he was even younger than…
Channeler surfing
The Lizard of Fun has donned a saffron robe and is sitting cross-legged on a woven grass mat. Looking blissfully spiritual, it’s chanting something that sounds like "Detroit-techno-eats-bananas-Detroit-techno-eats-bananas." My nose twitches, and then the strawberry-scented incense burning in a small container balanced on its head makes me sneeze. The Lizard startles out of its trance.…
The fight goes on
Tired of the usual Hollywood ending? The Wayne State Labor Studies Center presents a series of four films about strikes – one each from the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s – that attempt to inspire through splendid example rather than by guaranteeing that right will prevail. Perhaps the reason films about workers’ struggles usually end…
In one ear
GUILT-FREE SEX AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL FOR ALL MY FRIENDS! Detroit’s not all factory stacks, freeways and volume-driven, tough rock ‘n’ roll. This city’s produced some of this century’s most sublime rock moments of love, tenderness and – of course – unabashed getting it on. Strike that, Smokey Robinson alone has given love a good…
200 Cigarettes
Perhaps the saddest thing about 200 Cigarettes is not that it’s bad, but that the whole exercise feels pointless. The film’s entire hook is that it’s New Year’s Eve, 1981 – see the funny clothes and hear the retro alternative sound track – but even that’s ineffectual. Despite fleeting references in Shana Larsen’s screenplay to…
Detroit schools: What matters
OK, fans. I know you want another Kevorkian column, but it’s time to tackle the hot question of the day: Should Dennis Archer be given control of Detroit’s public schools? Whether he wants it or not, that seems likely, and soon. Big John Engler thinks that’s a good idea, and the Legislature could make it…
Continental Contentful
Don’t let names be deceptive. The Sedhiou band isn’t just a band – it’s a West African institution – and Africassette doesn’t just import tapes. Africa Kambeng is the newest CD from Detroit’s Africassette label. Rick Steiger of the Sun Messengers started the business to import West African cassettes that weren’t available in stores on…
Netropolis
Ever since my tape deck broke, I’ve listened to the radio while driving. Usually, I’ll put on WDET because it’s public radio and it’s diverse. Sometimes, I’ll search for college stations at the left end of the dial. And every once in a while, I’ll surf the AM band to find obscure country music drifting…
Rock Illuminati
So where is the spirit and elemental sense of adventure that once inhabited the psychedelic rock phenomenon of the ’60s? Gone forever, methinks. At the same time, there are bands – both old and new – that approximate the novelty and invention of the dawning of psychedelia. On its sophomore effort, the Wellwater Conspiracy creates…
Pitch’d
DEEPSPACE COMING TO A DEEP SPACE? For two month’s now, the WSU-area after-hours spot known simply as the Lodge has been up and running. Proprietor Lee — who doesn’t want his last name used — reports the massive hall (capacity 2000) had just one night in business before it was forced to close down after…
Jamming to keep from crying
Largely overlooked for more upbeat end-of-year discs when it came out in late ’98, Girl Bros. nevertheless made it onto a few public radio top-ten lists – and deservedly so. While not exactly a Wendy (Melvoin) and Lisa (Coleman) record, this is indeed the work of the attitude-and-estrogen duo known best as the-artist-when-he-was-known-as-Prince sidefolk. Here,…
Food Stuff
Where do new ice cream flavors come from? Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream, made in Oak Park, holds an annual Flavor Selection Day to determine its four new flavors. There were more than three dozen contenders this year, and the lucky winners are … Wait! Forget the lucky winners. The lucky judges are the owners of…
Blues implosion
You Better Keep Still, the sophomore album from singer-guitarist T-Model Ford, is all about the way Mississippi blues mud allegedly sticks to hipster trash-rock, á la great pretender Jon Spencer’s collaborations with Delta musician R.L. Burnside. Great concept on paper, but the recorded results are, in three words, dull, monotonous and boring. Ford, 77, goes…
Furious George
They say good news travels fast. But the bad can be equally fleet. And it is bad news indeed when Andrew "Dice" Clay is coming to town, I assume, to deliver nursery rhythms and sundry misogynistic rubbish for which he was granted 15 minutes of fame and a few million dollars. The comeback trail is…
Hi-Fly Guy
Technically fluid and dramatically expressive, David Daniels uses his high-flying countertenor – a male alto voice – to fullest effect. Daniels, a former Ann Arbor resident and U of M graduate, has been enjoying spectacular success in the last few years, and with good reason: His singing is as rare as his vocal type. His…
He’s a baad mutha…
Strong, suave, larger-than-life, Shaft makes a spectacular comeback during the Detroit Film Theatre’s presentation of the films of Gordon Parks this weekend. Vice president of Rolling Thunder Pictures, Gerald Martinez – coming to town for a panel preceding the Saturday showings of a new print of Parks’ now world-famous flick – talks about the black…
Aural Tradition
Rarely do two types of music meet on a level where they threaten to cancel each other out – let alone create something even more meaningful in their mutual vanishing. But Martyn Bates (Eyeless in Gaza) and Mick Harris (Napalm Death, Lull, Painkiller, Scorn) have done it. The archaic murder ballads that leak from Bates’…
Minefield$ of green
There are two pieces of paper, one in my wallet and one sitting ignored on a diner counter. By themselves they aren’t worth jack. But, I’m convinced, like the rings of the Wonder Twins, like the triangles in South Park, when brought together they could infuse each other with magic. One is a newspaper with…
Excitement, They Wrote
Once content to abuse the meaning of any obscenity or musical system that was handed to them, Japan’s Boredoms have now entered a new realm of mesmerizing minimalist intensity. With the hyperkinetic Yamatake Eye as their guru, the Boredoms leave their spazz-core roots behind on this record. Previous records were dominated by dozens of wild…
Private eyes in the underworld: Joel Schumacher and Nicolas Cage
"All entertainment is manipulation and exploitation," responds director Joel Schumacher when asked about the fine line that 8MM (Eight Millimeter) treads. "A sweet, cozy movie that’s making you cry is exploiting your sentimentality," he continues in Los Angeles, "so I hope we are manipulating you in some way and disturbing you." Schumacher isn’t so much…
Nurturing the Afterglow
Legendary guitarist-composer Mike Oldfield was out tripping the light fantastic one evening in Ibiza, where he now makes his home. What should he hear booming out of the speakers but a blatant, third-rate ripoff/remix of his signature work, Tubular Bells. At first intrigued and then vexed, Oldfield scurried back to his private studio to begin…
Sludge buster
Even though he lives on a canal a block from Lake St. Clair in southeast Michigan’s Macomb County, Doug Martz readily admits he once didn’t much care about what it takes to keep waterways clean. "I’m a builder," he said. "I would cut down every tree on a lot. I would bury and burn trash.…
Staple Soul Foods
While Island Records has been churning out popular music for four decades, there was a time when the Island imprint was synonymous with great reggae music. In no uncertain terms, this compilation displays some of the best reggae Island Records had to offer during the ’70s – which is the same as saying it contains…
HUD in a huff
A Detroit nonprofit agency created to provide low-income housing in the city has been cited by the federal government for a variety of alleged infractions. In a report released last week, the Department of Housing and Urban Development accused Detroit Revitalization Inc. (DRI) of charging for rehabilitation work it didn’t perform, selling property it didn’t…
Wage debate rages on
One question seemed to be on a lot of minds when the Detroit City Council held a public hearing on the living wage ordinance, which was approved by voters last November: Why have a hearing now? Council President Gil Hill requested the hearing that was held last Friday. According to him, it was held to…
Bomb threat
Police are investigating a bomb threat mailed last month in an official Michigan House of Representatives envelope to a statewide gay and lesbian newspaper. The obscenity-filled letter to Between the Lines in Farmington Hills is signed with an X but identifies the sender as a supporter of the Family Research Council, a Washington, D.C.-based organization…
