Cover Story
Holiday Gift Guide 2012
Times are tough, and don’t we know it! So it’s sort of galling that, when the holidays come around, it’s not enough that we’re exhorted to reach into our pockets and shell out shekels, or we can’t walk into a store without hearing that jingle-jingle, we’re told it’s our patriotic duty to display supreme consumer…
City Slang: Tyvek’s On Triple Beams
Local indie rockers Tyvek have a new album, On Triple Beams, out now. They say, “This trip won’t be spoiled by the crass opportunism of the Nu-Detroiters: they have to keep it real. Sometimes the new jacks just gotta get put in check, and obviously Mommy and Daddy weren’t ever going to do it. In…
Hitchcock
Hitchcock | B- As far as middle-brow entertainment goes, Hitchcock is a breezy and cheeky way to kill 98 minutes, mostly because its leads, the entire cast for that matter, are so damn engaging. Buried under pounds of prosthetics, Anthony Hopkins brilliantly channels the watchful stillness, mordant charm and impish wit we’ve come to expect…
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina | B- Does Tolstoy really matter anymore? Directors regularly attempt to plunder the great master’s musty catalog, to reinvigorate his very particular brand of pacifistic, moral asceticism for general popcorn audiences, who are most commonly served the poison pill of thought beneath the candy-coated shell of a good love story, among which the…
Detroit Cobras, Melvin Davis, TYVEK, and Natural Child at PJ’s Lager House
This show was actually over a month and a half ago, but better late than never I suppose! The Lager House traded over their event room for a tent in the parking lot September 27th and 28th. It may sound strange, but it worked out perfectly, and it was definitely a night to remember. …
City Slang: Feezy Fee new mixtape
Highland Park hip-hop dude Feezy Fee has a new mixtape available called The Workaholic Mixtape. Fee says, “Feezy Fee is the hottest rapper in Detroit. This mixtape is about the grind. It encapsules what it takes to turn an unfortunate situation into a great one!” “It has a Detroit feel, and is my first of…
City Slang: Bad Indians and Palaces at Lager House
Bad Indians and Palaces will open for Pujol at the Lager House on December 2. Reviewing Palaces, we said, “Do you ever get the feeling that you’re being told something important but you just can’t take it all in? That’s the vibe that Ferndale’s own fuzz-meisters PALACES give off. Black Corvair from the new self-titled…
City Slang: Valentiger begins work on new album
Local alt rock band Valentiger has begun work on its third album. They say, “The groundwork has been laid and the train is a’ rollin’ toward a new Valentiger record. Look for future postings of pictures and/or video from our retreat. In addition, I’ll do my best to keep you updated (in a shorter-winded fashion)…
City Slang: Kem performs at Thanksgiving Parade
Motown artist Kem performed at Detroit’s Thanksgiving Parade , obviously on Thanksgiving Day. While the Lions were losing, Kid Rock was doing his thing, and we were all basically stuffing ourselves and preparing to battle into WalMart to get a Black Friday TV deal, Kem was parading. Kem performed a song from his new album,…
City Slang: Mae Day to drop new album
Leading female MC Mae Day will release her new album, Love & War: All Ain’t Fair at the end of November. Her people say, “After dropping the critically acclaimed project “Cherish The Day” with Mick Boogie in 2009, Mae Day returns with the long awaited project “Love & War: All Ain’t Fair”. Mae Day has…
Silver Linings Playbook
Silver Linings Playbook | A Certain movies are sprinkled with pixie dust, an indescribable concoction that infuses scenes with irresistible magic; Silver Linings Playbook is practically hand-rolled and deep-fried in the stuff. Graced by award-worthy performances from Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, two of the most talented and bankable stars of the moment, this marvelously…
A film fan’s gift guide
Silent Night, Deadly Night Zombies are the new black. Or, at least, they’ve replaced vampires as our monster du jour. If that means fewer pouty tweens and twinkly neck-biters, I guess I can’t complain, but personally, I don’t get the fascination. As far as supernatural threats go, zombies are a pretty boring bunch. They’re slow,…
Coalition of the winning
On Friday evening, I dropped by the opening of Barbara Green Mann’s art exhibit at the Hannan House on Woodward at Hancock in Detroit. Barbara is an old Cass Corridor compatriot from the 1970s who now lives in Toronto, and it was good to see her and her lovely artwork. While there I told a…
Local gifts online
It can be so tempting to grab a generic item from a big box store for everyone on your list, but once in a while it’s a lot more fun to seek out some unique stuff that you can be sure no one already has. One of our favorite places to do that is Etsy.com.…
Keeping it real
St. Cece’s Pub 1426 Bagley St., Detroit 313-962-2121 saintceces.com Handcap accessible Entrées: $8-$12 Kitchen is open 5-9:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday and 5-10 p.m. or so Thursday-Saturday A friend described the food at St. Cece’s as "a limited menu but the best in recent memory." "Best in recent memory" is a pretty strong statement from someone who…
Paramount’s costly fallout
Unsuspecting homebuyers caught up in a $10 million scandal involving the Detroit Police and Fire Retirement System Board showed up at a board meeting last week hoping to have their concerns addressed. They were sent away, unheard. After taking care of some perfunctory issues, the board quickly went into closed session, and the frustrated victims…
Red Dawn
Red Dawn | D+ The original Red Dawn, a cheesy affair even upon release in 1984, has grown into a laughably anachronistic absurdity; it’s a pumped-up artifact of last-gasp rah-rah Cold War hysterics, which came just as the Soviet Union was rapidly eroding from the inside. Now, the agenda of this barely tolerable update…
Literary gifts
Longtime readers know that, with every Metro Times gift guide, we make an effort to review as many of the books about Detroit as we can that came out during the last year. Each year, the list has grown, and now, it seems, everybody wants to write about Detroit. There’s no way we can review…
Letters to the Editor
Read us backward then? Call me self-interested, but I gotta wonder why the Letters section is shoved to the back-page vice district of the "new" Metro Times — underneath "Wall Scrawls," no less. Why do we still have newspapers if not to provide some kind of alternative to the viciousness that passes for public debate…
Staying the course
Barry Beal just doesn’t give up. He didn’t give up when thieves broke into his store and stole nearly every single thing inside, plunging him into bankruptcy. He didn’t give up after the big box stores started offering the same things he sells, but cheaper. And he didn’t give up on the neighborhood he’s in…
Craft fairs, rummage sales, flea markets …
Every year there are local artists and vendors that get together at various locations in an effort to sell their wares, boost the local economy, and have fun. These events are way more fun than standing in line at a department store for several reasons (and some of them are booze). Shop Detroit First up…
Kickin’ it
Q: I am a 22-year-old straight female. I used to babysit for a wealthy family, but their children have outgrown babysitters. The dad of this family is very into martial arts and fighting and has invited me over several times for "self-defense training." I have accepted his invitations a few times, and it has always…
Food Stuff
Popping up all over As we’ve heard from many residents of Detroit’s West Village neighborhood, the closing of the Harlequin Café several years ago left a void in the neighborhood. Not only did the area lack a restaurant, but also a meeting space of sorts, where locals could get to know each other better. Thanks…
Life of Pi
Life of Pi | B+ You will not see a better-looking film this year. But you will undoubtedly see better films. If ever there were an aesthetic case to be made for 3-D film, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi is it. Lovely beyond words and taking full advantage of the extra dimension (almost a necessity…
For the aspiring rock star
The Indie Band Survival Guide – Remixed & Remastered Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan St. Martin’s Griffin, $17.99, 400 pp. Million Dollar Mistakes — Steering Your Music Career Clear of Lies, Cons, Catastrophes, and Landmines Moses Avalon Backbeat Books, $19.95, 248 pp. Woody Allen once said, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him…
Hello turmoil
Voters went to the polls and there issued their decision: The state’s controversial emergency manager law needed to be struck down. It wasn’t exactly what you’d describe as a close call. Some 53 percent of those casting ballots voted to repeal what was officially known as Public Act 4. But if you thought that referendum…
The People vs. the Monster
Back in the 1960s, kids in my neighborhood would go to the Radio City Theatre in then not-so-beautiful downtown Ferndale to see monster movies on Saturday afternoons. Mostly, these were cheap, low-budget things, where you could almost see the tape holding the fins on the little lizards masquerading as dinosaurs. But we loved them. The…
Rise of the Guardians
Rise of the Guardians | C+ In this colorful, hyper-caffeinated Dreamworks animated offering, the most beloved icons of childhood bedtime stories are assembled Avengers-style, into a supernatural squad of justice-doers, bound and determined to protect the fantasy worlds of children, while offering up a recognizable adventure that leaves little to the imagination. Long-serving stalwarts North…
Jazz geniuses boxed in
Prodigious in talent, appetite and girth (the latter two metaphorical as well as literal), Charles Mingus was a true jazz giant, a jazz Gargantua. His widow, Sue Mingus, suggests him as a Whitmanesque figure containing multitudes, and The Complete Columbia and RCA Albums Collection, to which she contributes liner notes, gives a sense of this…
Shades of Pac-Man
Flint Eastwood plays with I Fight Dragons, MC Lars, Skyfox, DJ Drybones, Snesei, the One Electric, Monotony, Nikola Whallon, Sample the Martian, Noisewaves and Red Pill on Saturday, Nov. 24, at the Blizzard at the Crofoot, 1 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac; 248-858-9333. As video games and gaming in general become more and more a part…
Graphic language
As a graphic designer and an illustrator, and therefore nearly illiterate, I gravitate toward big-picture bang-bang funny-ha-ha books. Thinking bad, punching good! (You win a No Prize if you got that reference.) Whether featuring spandex-clad heroes or nose-picking buffoons, comic books have always been my thing. So when those word people asked me to submit…
Discs worth slipping in a gift box
Bill Withers The Complete Sussex and Columbia Albums Sony/Legacy All hail Sony/Legacy for finally bringing back into print, and collecting in one handy little box, all nine albums created by singer-songwriter Bill Withers on the Sussex and Columbia labels. His was a career that fascinates. By the time Withers recorded his debut, 1971’s Booker T.-helmed…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Remember – if you send it, it will get reviewed. That’s the City Slang promise. It doesn’t matter what genre the music is – as long as it has a Metro Detroit connection, it’ll get in. Preferably, we’d like to concentrate on new releases but, while we’re getting warmed up here, feel free to send…
