The Gleaners and I
In her captivating new film-essay, veteran French director Agnès Varda elaborates on Jean-François Millet’s 1867 painting, Les Glaneuses, with a childlike awe, and shows how the activity of gleaning is not a historical quaintness but still very much with us.
Straight women, begone
You ruin sex for gay guys with your need for dinner first….
Letters to the Editor
Important discussion I like Jack Lessenberry, but take exception to his calling a Freep series on spring break in Cancun an “atrocity” ("What’s wrong with the media," MT, May 9-15). The story Tammy Audi told was, to my mind, important, not prurient. It’s one thing for parents to hear second-hand reports, and another for them…
The Luzhin Defence
Director Marleen Gorris (Antonia’s Line) deftly inserts key moments from chess prodigy Alexander Luzhin’s childhood throughout this beautifully crafted, unconventional film, ably demonstrating how a boy obsessed with chess could become the shambling recluse who surfaces at the 1929 world championship tournament — with John Turturro and Emily Watson.
Royal Oak: Who really won?
If the Royal Oak human rights proposal failed, don’t think it’s a victory for creeps like Gary Glenn, a religious nut from Midland whose obsession with gays ought to raise questions about his own psyche.
Ghosts of Mississippi
Allegations of a WWII massacre seem incredible. The official story is also hard to believe….
A Knight’s Tale
his knight’s tale has two pities: First, like most sports flicks and romances, it ends up predictably, but without the marvelous journey that makes such movies completely successful. Second, you have to buy its audacious gimmick of integrating ’70s rock into a 14th century plot. Our reviewer couldn’t.
Original gangster
With an Atari 800 and his own BBS, Adam Druckman was online and breaking the law every day. A regular digital gangster — at the tender age of 14.
The skinny on dipping
Going with the age-old flow in a conservative time….
Nikita Blues
Writer-director Marc Cayce’s failed morality melodrama is short on virtues. Its characters trivialize child molestation, tease a church-going "recovering" homosexual and offer bad advice. Technically, the writing, acting and filmmaking struggle just to attain competence.
Bruised & bruisin’
Local clubgoers react to Carl Craig’s DEMF dismissal … CCS students proudly display their artworks … & the Junk and Jam flea market/concert brings out the animal in the audience.
The lesbian dating game
With so much confusion, what’s a girl to do?…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): A renowned master of Indian classical music, Ali Akbar Khan plays the 25-stringed instrument called the sarod. Despite his traditional training, he’s an innovative teacher. His students don’t even have to pick up the sarod. He instructs them how to approach their own chosen instrument — cello, guitar or violin —…
A man’s job
Thomas Blanton Jr. was finally convicted for a 1963 Alabama church bombing. It takes a real man to do a tough, bloody job like that (just ask Timothy McVeigh).
Ice cream off the charts
Green tea, broccoli or avocado ice cream? This isn’t your dad’s chocolate any more.
Saving Sen. Jaye
Prepare yourself for Sen. Jaye’s political conversion….
Lazy eyes
Books you want to hide in a plain brown wrapper….
PBS meets ICP
Making an example of the Insane Clown Posse….
On the way
Look for these new books soon….
Contest of kindness
More time to hear contaminated school-site complaints….
Send in the ladies
Still more self-help books, from women who are famous enough to know it all….
Who’s the boss?
Questions on jurisdiction over school soil problems….
Novadriver
Mashing a swerving and searing electric guitar with the stoned smash of a drum kit and space odyssey effects, Novadriver ushers your brain outside of its existing quarters, desperately seeking to expand past the headphones affixed to your ears. The experience is one of slurred and swampy psychedelia at its finest.
Stay cool
Happening hangouts and hip havens….
Just say no
Important hearing for opponents of billion-dollar road construction….
Leaving a mark
The much-anticipated debut CD of Grand Rapids psychobilly outfit DangerVille is hot off the presses, with 12 blistering tracks that run the gamut of roots-rock influence from tangy twang to punk-fucking-rock reverberation. The songs depict the quintessential heartache of country, deftly melding it with searing hollow-bodied electric guitar riffs and the intoxicating thunka-chunka-thunk slap of…
Helping you through the coolest time of the year
MT’s Summer Guide: Helping you through the coolest time of the year.
Correction
News Hits printed an incorrect phone number for Jim Netter, contact person for the citizens group attempting to halt the sale of Michigan State Fairgrounds property to the Detroit Public Schools. Mr. Netter can be reached from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at 734-729-8812. News Hits editor Curt Guyette sincerely apologizes for the mistake. News…
Blooming quietly
Echo and the Bunnymen’s first four records — released from 1980 through 1984 — are essential post-punk listening. Those songs still bristle with an energy rarely found in rock music, and damn if they shouldn’t have gone into the ’90s the biggest band in the world. However, in what has become a “Behind the Music”…
Wanting to be wanted
Q: I have been married about 12 years. It’s been going pretty good. We have had four great boys from it, but certain things have happened with my wife. She takes medications for depression. She has tried to take her life twice and she was taken away from me for a few weeks just to…
The Beats go on
Like his music, brilliant jazz elder David Amram continues to flow….
Remastered rebirth
While 2001 supposedly marks the future, release trends this year seem to be going in reverse. There’ve been countless reissues and post-mortem collections of previously unreleased or rare work, notably that of underappreciated heroes of the folk-steeped, deep-soul groove of the late ’60s and early ’70s. First came the remastered edition of Love’s Forever Changes,…
Cruel, cruel summer
Sound specialists study the season’s sonic screeches and sedatives….
Coming to town, beep-beep
Art is on the move, with new gallery openings, relocations, and one-off shows all garnering attention…
Jazz meets world
Try wrapping your head around the range of sounds heard on the third and most ambitious disc from the fast-rising Los Hombres Calientes. You might find yourself hopelessly hooked on the intensity and beauty of the eclectic exchanges going on. It’s a jazz-meets-global music party of major proportions. Percussionist Bill Summers, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and…
Summer plans
Summer plans "Trying to get the school to fund an inquiry into fetishism in Vienna." —Ian Chapp, Wayne State University art history student Summer plans "This summer I will have my crops planted, put the sheep out to pasture and buy a few feeder pigs." —Aaron Timlin, gallery owner Summer plans "This summer I am…
Very live at Baker’s
The keyboard lounge changes hands once again.
Sister golden hair surprise
Someone should bundle up a copy of Muscler’s Guide to Videonics and send it along to Justine Frishman. Why? Cuz the glorious lo-fi dada goodness these (presumably) Olympia, Wash., gurls have produced is the kind of unhinged dementia that could serve Elastica well in its pursuit of Wire/Mark E. Smith art-pop alienation. But that may…
Eye-writing
Agnès Varda illuminates the blind spots of life….
Out of focus
Carl Craig fired as DEMF creative director, then sues for defamation of character … Five Horse Johnson, Halfway to Gone and Novadriver celebrate new releases on Small Stone … & Bliss 66 makes itself known with a punchy debut on Epic.
Frontier karma
As chilly and unrelenting as it can be, Michael Winterbottom’s film perfectly captures that tenuous state when wildness is being tamed and much is lost in the process. Composer Michael Nyman’s beautiful score and an eclectic cast provide necessary warmth — with Peter Mullan, Nastassja Kinski, Sarah Polley and Wes Bentley.
Feather fans
The first time’s a charm for a little birding in your life….
Out in the woods
The search for true rustic camping….
