Unstoppable
Unstoppable GRADE: C+ Trains, for whatever the reason, are a uniquely cinematic form of transportation. Especially when they’re in runaway mode, flattening, smashing and crashing through everything in their path. Filmmakers have instinctively known this since the silent film era. So, if nothing else, Tony Scott’s Unstoppable has that going for it. Too bad that’s…
Morning Glory
Morning Glory GRADE: C+ According to contemporary romantic comedy orthodoxy, if you haven’t achieved everything you’ve ever dreamed and landed a perfect husband by the ripe old age of 28, then you are an utter abject failure, worthy of ridicule. This bitter pill is served up early on in Morning Glory, presented bluntly by a…
The Posies live at Metro Times
Check out this video of The Posies playing live at Metro Times yesterday. They stopped in around lunch to play a few of their songs and with two guitars they managed to leave a great impression with their bright voices. Some pretty enthusiastic Blue Cross Blue Shield workers found out about the last minute show…
Kwame’s legacy
We’ve discussed the citywide hangover from the Kwame Kilpatrick era in this column before. Now we’re starting to think of the Detroit Charter Commission as the ongoing treatment for the city that’s still feeling it. And we’re reminded, after attending the commission’s first "convention" last weekend, that not only did Kwame give us this headache,…
The Music Issue
Timing is everything in this life, and if you’re off you just might flounder for the rest of your days. It’s a dictum that rings particularly true if you’re a musician who has made great records that were, for whatever sad or freakish reason, ignored, either by the public or critics or both — or…
Outlaws we remain
It was kicks to see my caricature on the cover of last week’s Metro Times, and I’d like to thank my editors for the honor as well as the many friends who’ve called the cover to my attention since the issue appeared. Seeing the Metro Times pot issue and reading the fervent editorial by my…
As the smoke clears
When it comes to analyzing voters’ rejection last week of California’s marijuana legalization measure, the question is one of perception: Is the joint half-smoked, or is there a half remaining yet to burn? Given this paper’s marathon editorial calling for an end to the drug war — especially the war on marijuana dealers and smokers…
Tamara Drewe
Tamara Drewe GRADE: C+ For a little while there, it seemed like Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe might actually have something to say about the rampant self-absorption of writers. Set at a bucolic writer’s colony in the English countryside, struggling wordsmiths sip tea, eat pastries, and take in the livestock as they labor over their manuscripts.…
Spin & roll
With the Pistons and Lions off to abysmal starts this season, sports fans in Detroit probably think the Red Wings are their only shot at cheering on a winning team. That might be the case now, but with roller derby season set to kick off locally in two weeks, there’s another crew of hard-skating athletes…
Bubbling under
Robert Penn Mightier Than the Sword (Spectrum X) 1985 Robert Penn — out of Inkster and Detroit — released this record with a hard-pounding, growling delivery, bee-sting (or more like B.B.-sting) guitar lines and (on some of the best cuts) a sledge-hammer horn section (including Marcus Belgrave and Ernie Rodgers). That record did not make…
Let’s get local
Grange Kitchen & Bar 118 W. Liberty St., Ann Arbor; 734-995-2107 Embracing a return to local farms and seasonal produce, American foodies are justifiably aflutter with talk of locavorism. Beyond the potential environmental advantages, the food often tastes better. Of course, as is often the case in any movement, much of the chatter about organic,…
Metro’s menus
Every so often, we’ll ask our Metro Times staff to sound off on their favorite restaurants. The result is a decidedly unscientific mélange of restaurants that seem to span every gamut known to modern dining. We love Middle Eastern and Midwestern, fine-dining and finer diners, flapjacks and pho, even tender chicken and chicken tenders. Feel…
Erratum
News Hits editor Curt Guyette erred last week when he wrote in this space that there is no fence around the support structure on the Windsor side of the Ambassador Bridge. A photo passed along to us by one of our colleagues shows that is clearly wrong. We sincerely regret the error. We want to…
Cheat Code
Vanquish Sega Xbox 360 (Review Copy) PS3 Vanquish is an insane, debaucherous bachelor party that may possibly involve a dead hooker. Problem is, parties like that go supernova and always end too early. That’s Vanquish in a nutshell. The story will let you know what you’re in for. In the near future, Russia uses a…
Food Stuff
Raw power — We note with interest that the Raw Café, Detroit’s newest spot for organic cuisine and natural juices, has finally opened in the old home of CPOP gallery. Two weeks ago, it had a soft opening, just for lunch, but we hear they are supposed to stay open for dinner hours. The menu…
Motor City Five
How to categorize Mose Allison? Blues man? Jazz improviser? Songwriter? Recently, he set the record straight for us: "I’m a musician, period." Then the author of "Young Man’s Blues," "Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy" and other classics let us in on a few things. —Charles L. Latimer 5. Contemporary music: You take four or five pretty guys…
Metro Retro
23 years ago in Metro Times: David Moberg blames lack of regulation of the financial system for the stock market crash of 1987. "The crash is a reminder that our economic system is driven by greed and fear," he writes. But President Ronald Reagan insists that the economy is fundamentally sound and will take care…
Lit up
Blues in Black and White: The Landmark Ann Arbor Blues Festivals as Photographed by Stanley Livingston With Text and a History of the Ann Arbor Blues Festival by Michael Erlewine 144 pp., $29.95, University of Michigan Press Thanks to the American-roots-aping rock ‘n’ roll of the British invasion, a small contingent of Michigan blues freaks…
Scared of the scarf
When I was in Morocco for about a month in 1981, I learned not to speak to the women there — especially women who wear the head covering called the hijab. Maybe it was because I was a stranger, but I had some vague notion that religious Muslim women were not allowed to talk to…
Society and spectacle
In case you hadn’t heard, Matthew Barney has created of some of the most visually stunning and intellectually challenging art of the last few decades, including his major works, The Cremaster Cycle, and the Drawing Restraint Series. Both creations are mixtures of filmmaking, live filmed performance art and collaborations with such composer as Jonathan Bepler…
3-D boomlet!
With the noisy summer blockbusters gone and mostly forgotten except for a mild lingering case of tinnitus, and the classy "prestige" pictures of awards season not quite ready for their close-up, mid-autumn becomes a graveyard for quality. This year, Hollywood essentially punted the Halloween season creatively, resorting to sequels, horror and high-tech gimmickry to draw…
Snappy answers
I spoke at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., last Thursday night. PU students submitted a lot more questions — anonymous, on 3-by-5-inch cards — than I could possibly answer in the 90 minutes we had together. So I’m going to use this week’s column to answer some of the PU questions I didn’t get…
The new reality
Let’s start off by pointing out some new bad news for the Democrats most may not even know about yet. One of their very few bright spots on election night was Congressman Gary Peters’ narrow victory over "Rocky" Raczkowski. Peters, who represents much of Oakland County, easily beat a Republican fossil, Joe Knollenberg, two years…
Letters to the Editor
A toke too far? Re: "The Pot Issue" (Nov. 3), it is with a mixture of at first amusement and now disgust that I watched Detroit’s foremost free alternative news weekly — Metro Times — devolve, since the passage of medical marijuana legislation in Michigan, into little more than a weekly advertising circular for "the…
