Lady Vengeance
Korean bad-boy director Park Chan-wook finishes off his three-film odyssey into the dark heart of revenge with a touch of the feminine. Blending pitch-black humor with relentlessly flashy filmmaking, Lady Vengeance has plenty of style and wit but ultimately disappoints with its simple storyline and melodramatic payoff. When 19-year-old Lee Geum-ja (Lee Yeong-ae) is released…
Spring springing
Ann Arbor’s Ghostly International is in its seventh year of bending genres and putting a fresh spin on the Detroit electronic and indie music scenes. Now the label appears ready to step it up a notch or, um, two/three. One of the most anticipated releases of 2006 is Dabrye’s full-on hip-hop album, entitled Two/Three, already…
Brick
Awarded a Special Jury Prize at Sundance for sheer creative chutzpah, writer-director Rian Johnson’s teen noir comes damn close to matching the genre-busting audaciousness of Alan Parker’s 1976 kiddie-gangster movie Bugsy Malone. It’s a nifty mash-up. In a bland California suburb, misanthropic loner Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds his ex-girlfriend Emily (Lost’s Emilie de Ravin) dead…
Whoa, Deli!
Over the last 24 years, Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor has evolved from the original four-man deli into a 450-employee enterprise including a bakehouse, a creamery, a roadhouse and the original, much-expanded deli. Co-owner Paul Saginaw took time to talk with us about the wholesome food and splendid service Zingerman’s is known for. Metro Times: What…
Kinky Boots
In the new British comedy Kinky Boots, the backdrop is a shoe factory, the outsider is a drag queen named Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and the theme is tolerance for out-there lifestyles. The film is told from the point-of-view of the decidedly un-kinky Charlie Price (Conan O’Brian look-alike Joel Edgerton), the sole heir to a shoe…
Head Cheese
Annie Palmer writes calico love songs. On Wake Up Son, her debut EP, she explores her subjects head-on, plain and tall, embroidering modern melodies onto the rootsy sensibility that comes with her Tennessee upbringing. It’s a sound much closer to Laura Cantrell’s neo-traditionalism than any sort of folk typecasting. Nowadays, Palmer calls Ann Arbor home,…
Hard Candy
When 14-year-old Hayley (Ellen Page) agrees to meet her 32-year-old e-buddy Jeff (Patrick Wilson) at a café, director David Slade’s intentions become abundantly clear: to make theatergoers writhe in their seats. When Hayley suggests that they go back to his house to listen to a bootleg concert recording, our internal alarm bells go berserk. Could…
Muy macho
If the spectacle of beefy, sweaty men in skimpy tights and brightly colored masks throwing each other to the ground makes you think of gay fetish porn, then you have a lot to learn about the world of Mexican wrestling. But fear not, Detroiters will have a rare chance to bone up on throwing down…
Akeelah and the Bee
If even a fringe “sport” like ballroom dancing can have its day in cinema sunlight, then why not a mini renaissance of spelling bee movies? The nonviolent, gender-neutral competitive event provides a perfect platform on which to hang sports movie clichés, but without all the messy blood, sweat and male bonding. It’s also the perfect…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Brian J. Bowe recently made an astute observation in one of his Beat Reader columns when he commented that rock writing "covers a lot of ground — from Lester Bangs’ Boy Howdy heights to the banal bullshit of bloggers." These words he speaks are true; it’s all journalistic stew. But a quarter century after St.…
RV
Robin Williams has officially given up. A few years ago, the once-bankable comic superstar exiled himself to indie-land, apparently to pay penance for feel-good dreck like Patch Adams and Bicentennial Man. What followed was a string of dour, pinched performances of strained “serious acting”: the creepy stalker in One Hour Photo, the futuristic funeral director…
Once a month isn’t enough
Q: I’m a gay man in a relationship for two years. I would say that we are in love. Love in the sense of the emotional kind of love and not so much in terms of the sexual. I do think of him as my husband and we had a commitment ceremony. We want to…
American Dreamz
Hugh Grant has played a prat before under writer-director Paul Weitz’ direction (About a Boy), but in the American Idol-spoofing American Dreamz, he’s never as nasty as you want him to be. Which is hard to figure, because the butts of American Dreamz’ jokes are emblazoned with bright, neon, DayGlo bullseyes. A terrorist cell, a…
The double closet
The italicized names in this story are pseudonyms or nicknames, to protect those who requested anonymity. The suffocatingly sweet scent of peach-flavored tobacco wafts through the Male Box, swirling around the disco lights that ricochet off mirrored walls. The smoldering aroma is rising from a series of hookah pipes perched on glitter-flecked tables —…
Stick It
In case you haven’t been to the movies lately, things aren’t too great for teen girls. Either they’re whiny pop stars, victims of serial killers or just plain stupid. Even a warm, slightly revolutionary (girls want sex just as much as guys!) tale of female camaraderie like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants can’t get much…
Night and Day
Thursday • 4 The Mammals MUSIC You’d think the grandson of folk music icon Pete Seeger — the same dude who threatened to axe the PA when Bob Dylan went electric at 1965’s Newport Folk Festival — might have a conventional outlook on roots music. But he doesn’t. Tao Rodriguez-Seeger’s band, the Mammals, has a…
Baby say Unh!
With songs like “Take You Home,” “Booty Call” and “Baby Say Unh!” you might not expect any grand dynamic shifts on There is a Difference, the Demolition Doll Rods’ fourth album. And the randy, garage-blues noogie that’s become the trio’s trademark definitely takes hold early. The drums dry-hump Danny’s guitar, Margaret’s id drives everything along,…
Build a wall around Detroit
What Detroit really needs now is to build its own version of the Berlin Wall. No, really. Stay with me on this. Look: The city’s plight is pretty much hopeless. The Legislature isn’t going to lift a finger to help Motown. General Motors may have put its bureaucrats in the Renaissance Center, but they aren’t…
Wolfmother
The blush of their hype-heavy SXSW slog was still fresh when Wolfmother hit Small’s in Hamtramck last month. But beyond a few MySpace street team queens trembling on the fringe, Small’s was dude-heavy and waiting for the rock to happen. And it didn’t take long. Just as the Aussie trio did that night, Wolfmother brings…
Transportation’s new direction
Last July, in an act that joined equal measures of public interest spontaneity and political serendipity, Democratic state Rep. Marie Donigan pitched a big white tent where Interstate 696 and Main Street converge in Royal Oak, and held a town hall meeting on improving public transit. Donigan was anxious, and not only because she feared…
The Beat Konducta Vol. 1-2
In Madlib’s latest transmission, 35 bite-sized soul samples, space-jazz loops, and leftfield speech edits ride atop an endless rhythmic flow. Part beats CD and part imaginary film sound track, Beat Konducta’s overall effect is mesmerizing: Once you strap in and leave the traveling to Madlib, you never know where you are or where you’re going…
Diary of marks
When you talk to William Hafer about his paintings, thank God he doesn’t give you some lip about color theory. You won’t have to endure a conversation about spectra or schemes, color wheels, chromophobia or chakra balancing. This is a good thing. Any conversation about aesthetics or “lite” energy healing, and he might have to…
Collector’s Edition
On credentials alone, the Blackman is an unheralded Detroit hip-hop original. The turntablist and emcee has been grinding in the city’s underground for nearly 25 years; along the way he taught Kid Rock how to rap and toured as a DJ with heavyweights like Marley Marl and LL Cool J. And yet he’s still somewhat…
The fantastic 4
While you’re sleeping, Taboo is break dancing, Will.i.am is making beats on a Gulfstream V, Apl.de.ap is on the rooftops administering vigilante justice, and Fergie’s enthusiasm is powering the Eastern Seaboard. They are the Black Eyed Peas, and they have assistants who sleep for them. Not all of that’s true, but it sure seems like…
Gut buckets and mojos
In a small essay about his long-ago teen years as a Czech jazz fan, Josef Skvorecky recalled spending hours with Webster’s trying to decipher the Louis Armstrong title “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue.” “What on earth could it mean: ‘Walking down the street pompously with a piece of animal carcass roasted whole’?” he wondered. Sadly, The…
Tainted testimony
Lawyer David Moffitt contends that serious crimes have been committed, and that the evidence backing his claim is ironclad. The only thing that’s not clear, he says, is whether anyone in authority will have the nerve to pursue a case in which a Wayne County judge, prosecuting attorney and police officers are the ones being…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Art Bar
American Life in Poetry by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate Midwestern poet Richard Newman traces the imaginary life of coins as a connection between people. The coins — seemingly of little value — become a ceremonial and communal currency. Coins My change: a nickel caked with finger grime; two nicked quarters not long for…
Letters to the Editor
Humble the rich Dear Jack: I read with interest your piece on the book The Disposable American (“The ugly truth about the layoffs,” Metro Times, April 12). I have great sympathy for the idea that the present “capitalistic system” is too corrupt to go on much longer. I am, however, not sure that there is…
Thai delights
As at the majority of Thai restaurants in the area, the food at Bangkok Crossing is heavier than you might prefer. That said, several of the dishes are enjoyable: pla dook pad ped (crisp red snapper stir-fried with mushrooms, peppers and eggplant), pad ma kher (eggplant that’s fried within an inch of its life), as…
Doll parts
If you want to blame somebody for the 10, 15 or sometimes even 20 ladies who invade your downtown drinking hole, wild with costume, thick with makeup, loud in demeanor, hungry for shots of Jameson’s or chilled vodka and itching to take over the karaoke stage, you really have to start with an east side…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
A flight to remember
British filmmaker Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, Bloody Sunday) walks an exceedingly thin tightrope as he tries to maintain proper respect for the families of the dead while presenting an unvarnished, factual interpretation of what happened to the living. The narrative avoids political rhetoric or excessive sentiment and Greengrass doesn’t point fingers about the security…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Any idiot can face a crisis," said Russian writer Anton Chekhov. "It is the day-to-day living that wears you out." Your main assignment in the coming weeks, Aries, will be to use your ingenuity to keep from being burned out by the subtle and minor trials of the daily grind. It…
