Solo warriors
For the better part of the decade, we have been besieged by a constant revamping, retooling and retrofitting of the film noir genre for shock value. What almost all of these films had in common was their social irrelevance. This is not surprising as: a) the intended audience was as oblivious to the travails of…
Fun with the absurd
Bleak is perhaps too cheery a word to describe Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. Centered on the metaphor of a chess game’s final phase, the playwright’s most difficult work simultaneously addresses the power struggles inherent in all human relationships, the frustrations of the creative process, and the tedium and ultimate futility of life itself. Written to be…
The politics of life and death
Not too long ago I was talking to an intelligent, decent Detroiter who was a member of the Communist Party for decades. Unlike thousands who wised up after the purges or the Prague Spring, he stayed loyal until the fall of the Soviet Union. That amazed me at first. What, I wondered, were you thinking?…
Un Air de Famille
Director Cedric Klapisch’s Un Air de Famille is a film adaptation of a very old-fashioned and familiar type of play, the one in which a group of people, usually old friends or relatives — in this case the latter — gather together for some occasion during which longtime grievances burble to the surface and fresh…
In one ear
A VOICE QUIETED One of the last conversations I had with Colin McDonald ended with us agreeing to disagree: I thought baseball was tired, generally boring and not at all a thrill to watch. Colin, on the other hand, was exasperated at my inability to understand the finesse, strategy and exciting tension of the game.…
Dave & Buster’s
This Chuck E. Cheese for grown-ups (under 21 are allowed only before 10 pm and must be accompanied by someone over 25) serves up big portions of tender ribs, good half-pound burgers, fresh mushroom soup, ordinary ravioli, satisfying Toscana salad with a sharp dressing, and over-the-top desserts.
INS raids spark protests
“Stop the raids now!” went the chant of about 40 protesters marching in front of the Immigration and Naturalization Service building near downtown Detroit last week. The demonstration was a response to the recent INS raids of businesses where Latino employees were arrested for allegedly working and living illegally in the United States. “The raids…
The Mighty
First there’s the legend: King Arthur, Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table. Then, the reality: raw cityscapes, hard edges, crammed designs. Then, there’s Max (Elden Henson), the 13-year-old in size 14 shoes, who lives in the basement of his grandparents’ house. There’s nothing magical about the place. Grim and Gram (Harry Dean Stanton and…
Once burned, twice shy
Feeling they’ve been burned in the past, activists are struggling to decide whether to participate in the latest attempt to clean up the Detroit River. They complain that the process has given lip service to public participation but often ignored citizen input. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality held a…
Holy Man
Holy Man wants to have its cake and eat it, too. At the Good Buy Shopping Network (GBSN), the philosophy of selling is plainly stated: The product itself doesn’t really matter. Instead, what the station’s programming must do is generate a desire to acquire, stimulating viewers-potential consumers to buy items they didn’t realize they desperately…
Pull lever, raise wages
Detroiters can vote a raise for some of the working poor November 3. If voters a ballot initiative proposed by the AFL-CIO and supported by the Archer administration, businesses that receive city contracts or government subsidies of more than $50,000 will be required to pay their workers a “living wage” that is currently pegged at…
Who the Hell is Juliette?
After seeing Who the Hell is Juliette? one might reconsider the conventional wisdom that music videos have a wholly negative influence on feature films, or at least those which have adapted the form’s desensitizing, epileptic editing and emphasis on visual sensation over meaning. This debut documentary by Carlos Marcovich, a rock video director from Mexico,…
A different contract for America
“Fairness Agenda for America” is being offered as a liberal response to the “Contract with America” that shifted American politics to the right in 1994. Three Detroit-area Congress members — Democratic Reps. John Conyers, Lynn Rivers and Carolyn Kilpatrick — will take testimony Saturday in Ypsilanti and Sunday in Detroit on the agenda that ranges…
Firelight
If the Brontë sisters had written Harlequin romances, they might come out as Firelight. In 1838, Charles (Stephen Dillane) secures the services of Elisabeth (Sophie Marceau) as a surrogate mother. He’s an English aristocrat desperate for an heir; she’s a Swiss-born servant desperate to pay off her father’s debts. They meet for three nights at…
Pitch’d
ON THE FLO’ Newcomer party promoters Wreckreation Department teamed up with Chicago dance music label conglomerate Mix Connection Multi-Media to throw a super-secret signing party/birthday gala in Detroit last Friday night for 18-year-old Ann Arbor booty/electro prodigy Dave “Disco D” Shayman, who signed with MCM subsidiary Contaminated last month. The small, 500-person-max Firehouse venue felt…
Cross-Country Connections
Walter Salas-Humara is a laconic singer-songwriter with roots and relationships in every major city between New York and Los Angeles, while holding out an extra-special consideration for the fine folks of Austin, Texas. A founding member of the Vulgar Boatmen and the Setters (with Alejandro Escovedo) as well as the Silos, Salas-Humara has been making…
Tuneful goodbye
For three hours they shared music and memories, more than a score of musicians who filled Manhattan’s Riverside Church with their own unique tributes to the late jazz diva Betty Carter. The event, earlier this month, brought together many of Carter’s friends and followers, who celebrated her life and music with words and song. Carter,…
File Under “L”
The American music industry (and consumers, too) seems to love putting music into nice little categories. At times, this isn’t too difficult a task, but what do you do with an artist like Lhasa? Her music sounds a lot like her atypical upbringing. Lhasa’s father is Mexican and her mother is American. She grew up…
Making it big
Looking like Aretha Franklin back in her blond days, the comedian peers out at the Dempsey’s Place Amateur Night audience and asks all the big girls to show some love. There are a few timid titters, but no one really responds. She steps closer to the crowd. “Some of ya’ll don’t know ya’ll big. Don’t…
Cult of virtuosity
Why don’t we just disregard John Lurie’s immense cult of personality for the first part of this review and focus on the strange and beautiful music of The Lounge Lizards, okay? Since the Lounge Lizards have been around for almost 20 years, the group’s music has improved steadily and also become somewhat identifiable. A nine-piece…
Cuddletech
Snuggle up. It’s time to get cozy. Curl up to your new computer, car and kitchen gadgets and feel the happiness wrap around you like a warm, fuzzy blanket. Cuddletech is here. Forget about the streamlined, hard-edged look that all the old science-fiction movies styled as the look of the millennium. Now that we’re almost…
Fishing With Johyn
Fishing With John is music from Lurie’s star-studded nature show parody and features many of the same musicians in a variety of instrumental combinations. Trios, duets and even string quartets make appearances as well as “The Fishing With John Singers” and vocal snippets courtesy of Lurie and Tom Waits. Often as engaging as his work…
Will the GOP whup ass?
With Michigan Republicans four seats away from dominating state lawmaking, the big questions facing Democrats in November are whether Geoffrey Fieger or Bill Clinton will hurt them more — and whether the Clinton-Fieger baggage on the Democratic ticket will cost Dems control of the state House. Republicans control the state Senate with a six-seat margin…
R&B-Voiced Dub Reggae
On 129 Beat Street, Junior Buyles and Friends — U Brown and Pablo Moses among them — voice “conscious” lyrics over as-tight rhythm arrangements, reflecting both reggae’s deep debt to American R&B — lots of horns, colorful vocalists — and the influence of Jamaica’s religious-political climate. While the lineage of each track here is mercifully…
Democratic agenda
The best Democrats can hope for is to hold onto the House. If they can’t do that, political analyst Bill Ballenger says, their wish list will be short: Keep the Republicans from doing what they want to do. According to House Speaker Hertel, Dems plan to focus on these issues: Health care Continue pushing legislation…
Forward From Bass: Dub From Randy’s 1972-75
Steve Barrow’s superb Blood and Fire label has been reissuing Jamaican artists from reggae’s mid-’70s golden age for the last three years. Now that classics from King Tubby and Lee Perry’s studios — from the likes of Horace Andy, U-Roy and the Congos — have been properly exhumed, Barrow turns to deeper gems. Forward the…
Doing Puccini proud
MOT’s Turandot is, above all, a vocal treasure….
Syrup and spam
STICKY SATORI The heavily hyped (by the Metro Times at least) “newtopia” party took place at Clutch Cargo’s last Friday, valiantly competing for the nightlife spotlight with the Lenny Kravitz show at the State Theatre. Despite such heady competition, however, a decent-sized crowd opted for newtopia, bringing with it a rare kind of Knitting Factory…
The Seasons / Helios / Night Music
Trenchantly dramatic, Musgrave’s music is as exciting as it is abstract. The Scottish composer-conductor celebrated her 70th birthday last May, but old age hasn’t dimmed her bold palette. “Helios,” composed in 1994, is a brash, driven piece in which the oboist, in wild flights of fancy, portrays the sun god. “Night Music,” from 1969, is…
Funky transport
Plastilina Mosh travels its own musical trade routes on its way to the dance floor….
Patient, heal thyself
One hundred years ago, nurse Alice Bowen had a great idea: If you go into Detroit’s neighborhoods preaching the gospel of good health, more people would escape the stress, pain and humiliation of debilitating disease. It was 1898 when she decided that it was time to take medicine to the people. She began visiting homes,…
Dull-O-Matic
Beth Custer is a talented multi-instrumentalist whose work can be heard on such hypnotic, ethnic-inspired recordings as Head Light by Trance Mission (City of Tribes, 1996). In that context, her playing fit right in with the trance-inducing rhythms of the group which included Stephen Kent, John Loose and Kenneth Newby. For Eighty Mile Beach, Custer…
Mystery dance
Detroit Artists Market’s music and video show does the horizontal-hold mambo….
GOP wish list
According to Senate Majority Leader Dick Posthumus, here is what Republicans would do with complete control of the Legislature: Cut taxes Push through Engler’s plan to lower the state’s income tax from 4.4 percent to 3.9 percent. The cuts would be phased in beginning in the year 2000. Democrats object, saying that across-the-board cuts benefit…
Raw-ful Rock
Once the home of P.J. Harvey and Stereolab, the Too Pure label is known for its uncanny ability to detect a diamond in the rough. Its latest find: Hefner, an English trio that deserves some careful consideration. Breaking God’s Heart is a raw guitar-pop record reminiscent of early Violent Femmes or Pavement, with the most…
