Safe sex searches
Folks who know about these types of things say “sex” is the most often-searched word on the Internet. Heck, anyone who has searched for anything on the Internet knows you don’t even have to use the word. No matter what words you plug into search engines, you usually get results with sex sites listed right…
American History X
American History X is a movie at war with itself, and not just because of the very public dispute between New Line Cinema and British director Tony Kaye, who claims the studio re-edited his work into something unrecognizable. The real battle is within the narrative itself. American History X is caught somewhere between a realistic…
Down the drain code
When settlers made their way west in the early 1800s, they told horror stories about the swampy, mosquito-infested land known as Michigan. Early wagon trains avoided the soggy wilderness west of Lake Huron and Lake Erie because it was virtually impossible to farm the low-lying ground. So how did Michigan become one of the nation’s…
Celebrity
Movie directors, singing nuns, obese teenage acrobats, the Trump Casino, celebrity journalists, overweight achievers, the Trump Marina Hotel, the Sorokko Gallery in Soho, the Jean-Georges Restaurant, hookers, publishers, women over 40 in desperate need of plastic surgery, movie stars, off-off-Broadway directors, supermodels and the silver screen. That’s the fauna — and flora — of Woody…
In one ear
WORLD OF MUSIC Saturday is, for the most part, a radio desert, with AM dedicated to up-to-the-nanosecond updates of every college football score between traffic and weather, and FM continuing business as usual. Knob-twisters know that Sunday is heaven — between specialty shows, music magazine programs and talk, it’s the wave-riding equivalent of the Sunday…
Meet Joe Black
What’s more of a fantasy: that supremely wealthy, control freak, media mogul Bill Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) can reach retirement age beloved by everyone he’s ever met, or that the dreaded duo of death and taxes can be embodied in a package as glowingly attractive as Brad Pitt? Actually, the way director Martin Brest (Scent of…
JFK returns to office
Seeing as it didn’t matter, the Democrats threw John Kelly a bone at their state convention last summer; they allowed him what seemed a worthless nomination for a seat on Wayne State University’s unpaid-but-elected Board of Governors. Why worthless? Traditionally, nobody pays much attention to those races, and whenever a candidate atop the ticket wins…
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
The trailer ends with a therapy session. “You can’t change the past,” whispers the psychiatrist. “You can’t change the past,” repeats Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), facing her reflection in the mirror. “What’s done is done,” she takes a deep breath and looks sad, as she will throughout the movie — eyes wide open, lips moist,…
Labor Party eyes ballot
When the fledgling Labor Party met for its second annual convention in Pittsburgh last weekend, speaker after speaker deplored America’s “so-called two-party system.” Filmmaker Michael Moore, a native of Flint, declared: “One percent of the population, the richest 1 percent, has two parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. And 99 percent have no political party.…
Western
Writer-director Manuel Poirier’s Western isn’t a western but an amiable combination of road movie and buddy movie, its perambulating pair wandering around Brittany, which is on the western coast of France. This character comedy, laid-back and low-keyed, has a slight narrative momentum nudged along by the antic behavior of its two stars. Paco (Sergi Lopez)…
Prosecuter fights to end trial he started
The defense attorney called a judge a racist. The judge threatened to sue for defamation. The prosecutor wants to drop the whole thing. That’s the backdrop for the felonious assault trial in Macomb County that Tabitha Larkin, 21, of Highland Park faces next month. Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga is trying to drop the criminal…
Being there
Remember Rod Serling’s line, from the old “Twilight Zone.” “Imagine, if you will …,” he’d say, walking onto the set each week to introduce some weirdness or other. Well, imagine — if you will — the average, increasingly overweight American, commuting to work on the interstate, alone, in a sports utility vehicle — our national…
Video vs. casinos
Residents of Detroit’s Rivertown community are using a documentary to help convince city officials that their plan to locate three casinos on the city’s east side is a mistake. “We want people to appreciate what a terrible idea it is to put casinos on the riverfront,” says Carol Wiseman, writer and director of the 52-minute…
Trio Fascination
The sax-bass-drums trio is a rigorous format, placing a heavy burden on the horn player who not only has to fill up most of the solo space, but do it sans the chordal coloring of a prompting piano. It takes more than just chops to pull it off — you have to be interesting, a…
Follow-up on border shooting
The U.S. Border Patrol helped aim the gun that killed Esequiel Hernandez Jr. near the Texas-Mexico border, according to a scathing report on the 1997 shooting by U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-San Antonio). Smith’s 249-page report reached many of the same conclusions as the San Antonio Current investigation presented by the Metro Times (“Drug war…
Brownsploitation
Hooray for Bollywood! Trip back in time to mid-’70s Bombay, India, and enjoy the bizarre “brownsploitation” film sound tracks of a movie universe somewhat parallel to our own. While Indian film composers like the brothers Kalanji and Anandji never achieved any fame or fortune outside of their home country, these master tapes have been resurrected…
Wired Detroit 1998
Chasing URLs by Chris Handyside Detroit artists learn their way around the online circuit. The next generation by Kristin Palm Youth and seniors meet in cyberspace. Computers for all by Kristin Palm Information have-nots become information have-lots at DPL. Eco-activists online by Curt Guyette Internet becomes tool for thinking globally and acting locally. Techno java…
Brahms: Piano Conerto No. 1
This live radio performance from April of 1962 stirred up a flurry of controversy. Before the concert, Bernstein felt the need to explain to the audience that his views of the Brahms Piano Concerto in D minor differed radically from the soloist’s, the notoriously eccentric Glenn Gould. But Bernstein added that everyone could learn something…
Bring that beat down
The funk is back, the hope is real: Detroit house music returns to its roots.
Welcome to the Silicon Speedway
With all the attention given to the Silicon alleys, valleys and prairies, the Detroit area may finally make it on the map as the Silicon Speedway, partly thanks to some diligent visionaries sitting at high-powered computers in a converted doctor’s office in Dearborn. In the city that was once home to Henry Ford, inventor of…
Brand Spankin’ Nu
Brand Nubian and Gleem toothpaste — Where’s the analogy? One cleaned teeth better than any other toothpaste. The other cleaned hip-hop clocks better than most other groups. One was too strong for its competition and some of its consumers. The other was too strong and progressive for an industry still learning to market the then-ever-expanding…
Room to move
detroit contemporary’s vast digs turn on the mind bulbs….
They say you’ll pay
You’ve finally decided to buy that new PC for your home. Prices are low, modem speeds are up and life is looking pretty OK. Breathe deep, read on. Whether you think the Internet is a vast wasteland or the mother lode of information, graphics, games and commerce, you should check out what the bait is…
Sonic emporium
U-M’s always-new Contemporary Directions Ensemble….
The next generation
Raymond Crosby looks for cheap airfare and the latest news. Frances Deering plays solitaire and jacks. Gary, who prefers not to use his last name, looks for medical information and recipes. What all these senior citizens have in common is that they have taken advantage of local instructional programs to greet the Information Age with…
Chasing URLs
You’d think artists would be clamoring to publicize — and perhaps sell — their works online. With unlimited access to the Web’s unique bells and whistles, innovative hands could transcend mere novelty and crass marketing to arrive at artistic nirvana. But in Detroit, visual artists have been slow to make a cohesive presence on the…
Computers for all
Even if you don’t have a computer, you can still participate in the Information Age. Just visit your local library. The Detroit Public Library’s Internet Training Lab offers a variety of general-interest Internet courses and offers free public computer access. With 18 public workstations and 20 training stations, the lab at DPL’s Main Library offers…
Unwired Detroit?
Ameritech Corporation is focusing work on suburban communities while neglecting Detroit, according to the president of the Communications Workers of America local that covers Detroit and several suburbs. The claim is based on internal company records obtained by Ameritech repair technicians and reviewed by CWA Local 4100 President Doug Jager and members of an African-American…
Techno java
Once upon a time, a café was a smoky, dimly lit environment, synonymous with great thinkers and rabid expressionism. Now, however, it seems that some cafés are designed for people to plug in, turn on and zone out. As technology evolves, so does our idea of socializing, to the point where the whole idea of…
East as beast
More than a few of you will be reading these words from the comfort of a booth at La Shish or Byblos. Nothing better than a shish tawook and lentil soup to take the edge off my heavy trip. The sabers of the Middle East are rattling, and not just in front of the shawarma…
Eco-activists online
Just over two years ago, folks at the Sierra Club’s Mackinac Chapter decided to wire Michigan’s varied and far-flung environmental community. They created Enviro-Mich, a free Internet listserv which allows activists to distribute messages — about everything from logging issues to toxic waste cleanups — via e-mail to more than 500 subscribers. The Metro Times…
Pitch’d
BRUISE THE NEWS Fox 2 news ran a comically sensationalist story on the area’s party scene Wednesday night. The “Crave the Rave” segment found Fox-y lady investigative reporter Katie Trexler clutching pacifiers and other candy-raver gear while narrating footage culled from three months of supposedly “undercover” investigating and featuring “interviews” with a few zoned-out nightclub-types…
Niagra falls, mall crawls
MANHATTAN LAPDANCE The David Whitney building was the place to be on Saturday night, as chanteuse/artist/hobnobber-with-the rich-and-famous Niagara held her opening at C-Pop’s temporary space on its third floor. Albeit temporary, it’s a great place for a gallery, and an even better place for a party. Scenesters young and old hung out in the open-air…
