39th Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour
Memories and the relationship among image, sound and text emerge as the motif of the 39th Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour’sbest, and, along with two notable animated shorts (Maria Vasilkovsky’s Fur & Feathers and Suzie Templeton’s Stanley) offer a feast for the eyes and ears.
Death of the dot-com?
Despite what you’ve heard lately about the “dot-com downturn,” the Web isn’t a fad doomed to disappear overnight.
Eureka
Shot in Cinemascope and black-and-white tinged with an elusive, not-quite-sepia color, Shinji Aoyama’s film is certainly one of the most original-looking in a while. And if you’re patient (at three hours, 40 minutes, it does take patience), you’ll be rewarded with a final visual epiphany of singular beauty.
Beyond stupidity
Stupid people can get on your nerves, can’t they? And the same thing applies to racists. Too bad the rest of us have to tolerate them.
One Night at McCool’s
Jewel (Liv Tyler) is different things to different men, but always the kind of woman who engenders obsession. Though the characters in this sprightly film lack the depth they so desperately need (particularly the men: Matt Dillon, Michael Douglas, John Goodman and Paul Reiser), Tyler holds her own with a newfound voluptuousness.
Blues news
Lots of local show news: The Detroit Blues Society’s benefit … Troy Gregory goes solo … the Paybacks, Paradime and more. Plus, Jack White’s Detroit compilation is finally released (and a White Stripes release is coming, too).
Out of this world
Before the 1999 publication of Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem was one of those underappreciated writers whose books are passionately discussed in coffeehouses and lent from friend to friend but don’t sell too many copies. Although by no means an underground writer–all of his novels and his collection of short stories were published by major trade…
Oh, for PETA’s sake
A shivering almost-nude on a Royal Oak street corner … Girlee gang groups at the Maniscalco Gallery … Motor City funk night inspires butt-biting and joystick-twiddling … & more.
Sirens
What makes this group so remarkable is that they incorporate all of the major girl-group movements — from shoop shoop to riot grrl to diva — into a brand-new sound, all the while deviously pretending to be “only a cover band.” They grew up listening to the songs, read about various feminist movements, gagged at…
War resisters league
A fight we can’t win, a useless battle plan….
Scott Campbell Group
He’s the master of musical melancholy… A love-struck lyricist with a talent for the turn-of-phrase … The tsunami of Detroit New Wave … Meet award-winning, multitalented singer-songwriter Scott Campbell. If those aren’t enough hyphens for you, how about “well-known”? After all, he’s been name-dropped in such national rock mags as, say, Rolling Stone. Locals and…
Weird for a day
Risqué products for tamer types…
REAL surprise
Riverfront alliance has a surprising supporter…
Heavenly zuppa
The food at Little Italy is splendid – standouts include calamari fritti and the eggplant appetizer, delicious sauces, heavenly zuppe de pesce and an exquisite raspberry sorbet and chocolate dessert called “Amore.” These thoughtfully prepared dishes are expertly served in a narrow, old, frame house (soon to be expanded). The small rooms give the restaurant…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I can’t believe how many people suffer from the delusion that being creative is mostly a whole lot of fresh, spontaneous, exuberant fun. Now and then it is like that, certainly. But more often it’s about hard work, trial and error, and long hours spent musing and agonizing. Can you guess…
REAL P.S.
Legislator hopes to keep casinos out of riverfront property…
Clear-eyed reflection
If the bittersweet pop concoctions ringing from the speakers when Ted Leo’s in the CD player sound a bit familiar, it’s a forgivable offense. You see, Leo’s done something really interesting with his latest “solo” full-length, The Tyranny of Distance. He’s managed to remove the singer-songwriter genre another generation from its ’60s guy-with-a-guitar stereotype and…
Backseat bliss
Q: I am 48 and have been married for 21 years. My husband is the only person I have ever had sex with. For most of our married life we had sex 3 to 7 time a week. We had our share of minor sexual problems, but lack of desire was never one of them…
Toxic school?
New public school on arsenic-laced soil?
UK OK
Marlon Brando led the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club gang through the blasted California landscape, crisscrossing the desert wasteland on bikes, leaving tire tracks like scars. The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club band has similarly torn up San Francisco, leaving a cloud of methane, dust and deafening feedback in its wake. In 1995, Robert Turner and Peter…
Sinister simplicity
The trouble with friendship gone overboard in a creepy new film….
Bridge toll
Ambassador Bridge construction halted….
Good vibes
It’s hard to top the nirvana of a summer afternoon spent lazing on a snorkeling boat in Montego Bay, soaking up the scorching August sun and enjoying tropical rum drinks and reggae, among other homegrown delights. Back here on planet Everyday, there’s a new, attractively packaged compilation from the Putumayo folks to remind us of…
Straight, no chaser
Detroit’s new jazz fest director has sound and vision….
Weird science
Science and medical research may be biased in favor of big business…
Love to see you smile
Ani Difranco doesn’t seem to have experienced a moment of writer’s block since she started flipping sides like McDonald’s hamburgers more than a decade ago. That bitch. Most of her early work was spotty, however; hyper-boring melodrama here, a taste of brilliance there, until the 1997 release of Living in Clip, a masterwork capturing the…
Drug screening
The latest dope from Traffic to Blow and back….
Rapture and fears
Trying to make sense of Ecstasy….
Rock reconstruction
Two years ago at a Mogwai concert in New York, just as guitarist Stuart Braithwaite was about to step on his distortion pedal to enter into another patented wall-of-dynamics moment, an anticipating audience member yelled out, “Stuart, don’t do it!” This caught the band completely off-guard, causing them to (rightly so) break into laughter. What…
Hugh Hefner reloads
Old ideas in the new millennium; out-of-date and limp….
Postcards from the gap
One of the distinct advantages of crafting your sound from the remnants plundered by St. Etienne over the past 10 years (i.e. ’60s “swingin’” pop, exotica cheez, MOR electronica and other such post-ironic easy-listening faves) is that there isn’t a huge gap to bridge between the “kids just love us” period of your career and…
Songs of the Sirens
Girl groups, then and now, find it in his kiss and standing by their sisters….
Wooly folly
Coining a phrase such as “artificial stupidity” will surely garner attention for any product — but it’s difficult to avoid negative connotations. Unfortunately, the mind-boggling interactivity of “Sheep” doesn’t prevail over such a dim-witted blemish. Think Chicken Run, minus intelligence, because these wooly mammals are more like lemmings overdosed on sleeping pills, inconsistent and completely…
Worthlessstock.com
Time for another Gooberhead Award — an honor bestowed periodically on someone in the news who’s got their mouth running 100 mph … but forgot to put their brain in gear! Today’s is a group award, going to a whole gaggle of America’s most prestigious investment banks. These are the financial sharpies who, in recent…
Chilled nerves
After a chance encounter, the paths of two couples converge and a casual dinner conversation becomes increasingly strained. A certain kind of myopia is vital to director Dominik Moll (Intimacy) in his beautifully nuanced, shockingly good summer chiller in which events unfold organically.
Letters to the Editor
Honest words Once again, Keith A. Owens has defied conventional wisdom in speaking frankly and honestly about segregation in contemporary America ("Choosing segregation," MT, April 11-17). I agree with Mr. Owens; I see absolutely nothing wrong with folks wanting to live in communities or to have their loved ones attend a school where their ethnic/cultural…
Chopper
There may be a message about the media glorification of unworthy types in Australian director Andrew Dominik’s extremely violent film (the final shot seems to signify that crime doesn’t really pay), but basically it’s just fun in a vulgar, cheap-thrills kind of way — no more but no less.
GilHill and Covenant House
Our crotchety columnist runs down the possible mayoral candidates (conventional wisdom says it’ll go to Gil Hill) … and challenges the candidates to support the work being done at Covenant House.
