Behind bars
Black Mafia Family kingpins cop guilty plea.
Insane in Spain
As dusk settles on Madrid’s Tres Cruces Street, tourists have been replaced by furtive characters speaking in low tones in every language but Spanish under the cheap neon yellow glare. Stringy-haired prostitutes sulk in doorways, wearing fishnet sleeves and pleather boots up to their thighs. Men with greasy ponytails and arms covered in disturbing tats…
Gone, not forgotten
Remembering Milo Radulovich, who courageously defied McCarthy.
Wild things
“It frustrates me that people use the term ‘indie music’ but they think what we do is some sort of nostalgic ’50s bullshit,” says Wild Records founder, producer and president Reb Kennedy. “Indie is short for independent, obviously. Well, there’s nothing more independent than what we do. We record our records ourselves in our own…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Markers and milestones
“The map is not the territory,” philosopher and scientist Alfred Korzybski famously decreed. Yet from cave painting to computer icons, humans have used representation as shorthand to communicate meaning. That’s the multifaceted issue inspiring Signs, Symbols, Gestures, a lively and stimulating group exhibit at Ann Arbor’s Gallery Project. In all, 19 Michigan and national artists…
Roll tops
Upscale sushi lounge aims to smooth the pace of life with stylish drinks, lush electro-acoustic lounge beats and raw fish artfully prepared. Start with a sake-based cocktail or a 750-milliliter bottle of Oregon-brewed Momokawa. Try the $4.50 salad of seaweed tossed in rice-wine vinegar and sesame oil, cleverly presented in a chic cocktail glass. Sushi…
Bombs away?
Curt Guyette is news editor of Metro Times. W. Kim Heron is editor of Metro Times. Send comments to cguyette@metrotimes.com or wkheron@metrotimes.com.
Jack, Jake, chalk and chaps
Chinatown: Special Collector’s Edition Paramount Home Entertainment The Two Jakes: Special Collector’s Edition Paramount Home Entertainment There’s not much left to say about director Roman Polanski’s brilliant Chinatown that hasn’t been said, ad nauseam. To quote from Roger Ebert’s original 1974 review, “It’s a 1940s private-eye movie that doesn’t depend on nostalgia or camp for…
Positive criticism
He’s totally hot, but I’m a bit nervous about his HIV.
Home pride
Breaking bread with Detroit media personality Charles Pugh.
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Lashout
Our critic dashes for lass that’s named Lashes.
August Rush
The protagonist of this back-door music is August Rush (Freddy Highmore), a ward of the state whose parents — a scruffy Irish rocker (Johnathn Rhys Meyers) and an elegant concert cellist (Keri Russel) — don’t know he exists. The orphan won’t give up home he’ll be claimed, so, to avoid being placed in yet another…
Corruption supreme
Hopping mad over Michigan’s ‘kangaroo’ court.
Chopper Show
If you get your kicks watching static shots of guys popping wheelies in front of the ruins of Tiger Stadium, then this flick’ll sit well with you. For everyone else, the utter lack of voiceover narration, title cards, interviews or the merest bit of context explaining why anyone, anywhere, should give a flying fuck about…
Cut, paste, repeat
The conventional wisdom is that the “zine explosion” of 10 years ago ended with a whimper. Review zines, word processors and — above all — cheap photocopying drove the underground publishing explosion that began in the late 1960s and churned out tens of thousands of passionate, self-made, low- and no-budget publications on obsessive topics ranging…
Holly
Patrick (Ron Livingston), an American expat aimlessly drifting from one poker game to the next, sees the child sex trade in Cambodia as an entrenched evil, part of a cycle of poverty and dependence. He explains to his enigmatic boss Freddie (the late great Chris Penn) that he’s learned to avoid making eye contact with…
News Dredge
Maybe it’s the name. If Detroit’s FOX2 had called its two-month-old 11 p.m. newscast “News Dredge,” because it pulls up pieces from the day’s earlier news shows, or “News Hedge,” because it skirts around details in favor of exploitative headlines, it would’ve been more accurate. If only they’d been up front and called it “News…
Rust Belt Joy
No band captures the quiet angst of straddling hope and defeat quite the same way that Blanche does. And no band can make you smile quite as broadly when delivering all that heartbreak, mistrust and busted dreams while dressed in its Sunday best. Under the guise of playing Depression-era country blues, the band’s principals —…
Motor City Cribs
Artist Gilda Snowden’s colorful Corktown studio.
Talk to the Hand: Live in Michigan
Not the one-hit-wonder that detractors mistakenly assume them to be, Barenaked Ladies have found a devoted live audience, including a strong Detroit-area following. Talk to the Hand is a marvelous example of why they’ve been able to keep those fans satisfied for more than a decade. This set is far from being their first foray…
Putting art in its place
The contemporary art scene is packed with installations you can enter and exit; floor sculptures you step over, on, in and around. Particularly in metro Detroit, the trend of sizing up is symptomatic of drafty, spacious lofts and warehouses that abound. Russell Industrial Center’s DIP Gallery, CAID’s new Carriage House Gallery, Gallery Project’s basement, even…
Under the Influence of Buck
Dwight Yoakam Dwight Sings Buck New West “Most modern country sounds like bad rock bands,” says Tom Petty in Peter Bogdanovich’s great new documentary about him. Conversely, it’s ironic that a lot of old Buck Owens has always sounded like great rock ‘n’ roll bands. There’s a reason the Beatles covered him; even Hee-Haw couldn’t…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
12:08 East of Bucharest
Writer-director Corneliu Porumboiu uses the off year, as well as the off-the-beaten path locale of his hometown Vaslui, in northeast Romania, to create a mordantly funny exploration of post-revolution malaise. Porumboiu tackles the macrocosm of Romania, and the film takes place from dawn to dusk on December 22, 2005, as three men gather to discuss…
Letters to the Editor
Mail call Mr. Lessenberry: Thank you for “Heroes and scoundrels” (Metro Times, Nov. 14). Respectfully, one thing you didn’t mention is of extreme importance to my husband and me. As it stands now, a handful of people at state party headquarters have a dangerous amount of control over all local elections in the state of…
Total recoil
When Andreas Ramsfjell (Trond Fausa Aurvåg) finds himself dropped off in a lovely, well-ordered city, handed the keys to his apartment and a dossier detailing his new job, he’s befuddled but accepting. He gets along by going along with his cheerful and accommodating co-workers, including his boss Håvard (Johannes Joner), who’s more concerned with his…
Night and Day
Thursday • 29 The Redwalls INSTANT NOSTALGIA “They say it’s all been done before,” they harmonize on their new album, and for good reason: The Redwalls began as a Beatles-adoring high school cover band making the rounds through the Chicago burbs. Sure, they have the unkempt mop-tops and tight trou thing down; but they write…
On the bench
Third Circuit Court to get a new chief judge.
