MT owners buy Detroit News
The publishers of Detroit’s Metro Times revealed today they are purchasing The Detroit News for an undisclosed sum, allowing Metro Times to take over, rename and reinvigorate the daily newspaper as The Detroit Daily. Pending approval by the U.S. Department of Justice, the alternative newsweekly Metro Times, which turns 30 this year, will take over…
Tron Again
The original Tron was a bit of an acquired taste. And as a tweenage geek when it came out, it was exactly the kind of pop sci-fi cinema I craved. The effects were decent for the time, the storyline thin, but Jeff Bridges and David Warner made the whole stupid thing work. And if you’re…
Letters to the Editor
Got his Irish up I felt I had to write and point out the inaccuracies of the short listing of the Irish pubs for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations (Short Order, "Irish blessings," March 10). I realize the information comes from the pubs themselves, but I thought your editorial interns would have corrected these mistakes while…
Motor City Cribs
Wolf Eyes co-founder, programmer and vocalist Nate Young sits on his sun-drenched second-floor porch smoking American Spirits, sipping on a 40-ounce of Sol Beer and listening to mixtapes of classic techno, electro and disco on a crappy boom box. The porch of the former Detroit flophouse leans down at a slight angle, overlooking the stately…
Funny bridge business
As conspiracy theories go, this one is a doozy. It involves the Canadian and U.S. federal governments — including the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security — all of whom have allegedly joined forces in an attempt to either drive the privately owned Ambassador Bridge completely out of business or force billionaire…
Funny bridge business, part II
As the chair of the Michigan House subcommittee that deals with the state transportation department budget, Rep. Lee Gonzales (D-Flint) admits he should have been paying better attention at a certain moment last week. It was a few hours into the House Appropriations Committee meeting March 24. Legislators were dealing with the Michigan Department of…
Blogger says: Got’cha
Detroit police officer and political rabble-rouser John Bennett has injected a note of controversy into the Michigan Secretary of State race by posting an item and photos on his DetroitUncovered blog accusing Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey (who is trying to become SOS) and Daniel Baxter, Detroit’s director of elections, of illegally using city-issued cars…
Night and Day
THURSDAY APRIL 1 Beach House DREAM A LITTLE DREAM The Baltimore duo of guitarist-keyboardist Alex Scally and singer-organist Victoria Legrand debuted in 2006 with a self-titled disc of blurry, ethereal dream-pop that instantly made waves in indie music circles thanks to Legrand’s hushed, almost somber vocals and Scally’s careful instrumentation. Their rep was bolstered even…
Provience’s providence
After the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office dropped its efforts at his retrial in a decade-old murder, Dwayne Provience’s ankle tether came off "I’m free, Mom," he said moments later as his mother, Vonzella Battle, sobbed in his arms. "You don’t have to worry no more." Provience’s ankle had been encircled and his movements limited and…
Nothing but a G-string
There’s no stage at this strip club. No pole. Not even a bar. And the music comes from a boom box. Welcome to Club Thunderbolt, the strangest place in the city to get a lap dance. It’s located in the back room of an old house in an east side neighborhood of working class bungalows.…
Opera made to look easy
Kimwana Doner is sitting in a lounge atop the Detroit Opera House, and her posture is perfect. She’s talking eloquently of a whore and a stalker. The city’s northern skyline is splayed out below, juxtaposing the park where the Tigers play and the barren expanse just beyond it. "Take Flora," she says. "She’s a ……
Easter eggs
Angelo’s 1100 E. Catherine St., Ann Arbor; 734-761-8996; $: Plenty of stuff for egg-heads to try here, including eggs Benedict, Florentine, lox Benedict and a standard three-egg breakfast plate with bacon, sausage, ham, breakfast potatoes and homemade toast for $7.75. Omelets include their standard (comes stuffed with your choice of four items), the lox omelet,…
A Hard Day’s Night
You can hear the working-class sound of Detroit in the stamping-plant percussion of those classic Motown records, in the raw power of the Stooges (which Iggy always claimed was inspired by the constant drone from the nearby factories he heard as a kid) and in the searing worm-gear saw slicing through the groove of an…
Veggie classic
You don’t have to be a health nut to enjoy Seva. Seva uses Avalon breads, from ciabatta to multigrain, trucked in daily. Entrées range around the world for their influences, without attempting to hit on dead-ringer authenticity; whole-wheat tortillas abound. There’s a North African couscous with tempeh, a sweet potato quesadilla, a spinach ravioli dish,…
Life on (or with) Mars
The history of rock ‘n’ roll is littered with eccentrics — those characters who generate interest apart from their music and sometimes make headlines, depending on their level of fame, because they appear to be completely apart from what conventional wisdom deems normal. And Detroit has certainly had its fair share of musicians who embrace…
Clink down
When Malik (Tahar Rahim), an illiterate 19-year-old of Arabic and Corsican descent, begins serving a six-year sentence for attacking a police officer (the details are never revealed), we quickly fear he won’t last a week. Cornered by the sinister Cesar (Niels Arestrup), the aging boss of a Corsican gang, he’s forced to assassinate Reyeb, a…
Escorted out
Q: I am writing to you because I know my boyfriend reads your column religiously. I don’t know what to do. My boyfriend of almost two years broke up with me yesterday over the fact that I used to be an escort. He went through my e-mails and saw that I was answering ads, putting…
Tele-tubbies
This farce about three ageing buds and a young sidekick getting sucked through a mystical Jacuzzi wormhole back to the ultimate ski party rager of ’86 is itself a loving tribute to the lost epoch of legwarmers, break dancing and teen sex comedies. Every minute is loaded with winks and nods spanning the whole genre…
Cheat Code
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Capcom Nintendo Wii Capcom Entertainment has balls. They’ll test their characters against any other company that’s brave enough. From Marvel Comics to rival fighting-game company SNK, Capcom has never backed down. So it’s no surprise that anime giant Tatsunoko sends its best to throw down in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, the latest in…
Chloe
In this case a modernist glass-walled yuppie cube in a fancy section of Toronto, the wintry air mirrors the icy relationship status of David (Liam Neeson) and wife Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore). She’s is a doctor, and he’s some sort of academic rock star, jet-setting the continent, from campus to campus, as nubile coeds hang…
Grand Ol’ Party of hate
"Don’t retreat, just reload." — Sarah Palin, siren of the half-wits They filled up voice mail systems with hate-filled messages. One spat on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri. Another called Georgia Congressman John Lewis a "nigger" — Lewis, a 1960s hero who had his skull fractured for daring to think he should be able to…
How to Train Your Dragon
While it doesn’t have the heart, charm and wit of Kung Fu Panda (nor the replay staying power), How to Train Your Dragon has enough of each to complement its noisy, eye-popping visual wonders. Dragon is the story of Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), the wussy teenage Viking who’s better at inventing cool gadgets than…
Metro Retro
26 years ago in Metro Times: Herb Boyd remembers the Prince of Soul, Marvin Gaye, who was shot on the first of the month by his father in his Los Angeles home. Gaye had been living off the grid in Hawaii and Belgium, but at the time had just come back into the limelight with…
The Yellow Handkerchief
William Hurt is Brett, a newly freed convict carrying a mountain of buried guilt. For contrast, he’s paired with the avatar of gawky teen insecurity, Kristen Stewart, who continues to fumble her way toward respectability, a path which could quickly open as soon as she quits biting her lower lip and shoe-gazing through scenes. As…
Food Stuff
A good Michigan wine? — You know the joke, but this month might be a good time to take Michigan wines more seriously, as Gov. Granholm has declared April "Michigan Wine Month." Lousy weather often produces fine wine, and with Michigan’s bummer summer last year, the state’s wines should be better than ever. For more…
Vincere
This grandly ambitious movie tells the story of a woman swept up in the young revolutionary’s mighty wake, and then is washed away like flotsam when his power became complete. When we first see him, Mussolini (Filippo Timi) is a fiery socialist radical whose idea of an effective debate tactic against the clergy is to…
Twins on twins
While lesbians of yore had icons such as Melissa Etheridge as their go-to music idols, today’s young women are totally gay for Tegan and Sara. Not only do they have hipper haircuts, there’s two of ’em. The Wonder Twins headed to the Royal Oak Music Theatre last week to check out the only set of…
Mick Vranich: 1946-2010
“One of the original hero working-class poets from the early days of Detroit’s hip, contemporary poetry scene,” fellow poet M.L. Liebler wrote in a Wednesday morning e-mail of Mick Vranich, who passed away the following night. Vranich had taken a serious fall on a construction site in February, suffering a head injury, a punctured lung…
