Cover Story
2013 Metro Times Halloween Issue
The annual Halloween issue is one of our faves … and this year’s edition won’t disappoint. From the most comprehensive listings of Detroit’s scariest shit to highbrow reviews of Evil Dead: The Musical and Erebus in Pontiac. Plus, we take care of your cerebral needs by offering the seven must-have books in horror lit. Trick…
Fanfare fun
This past weekend, the Detroit Fanfare Comic Con took over the Adoba Hotel in Dearborn. Sunday was kids day, which meant that my wife could have a relaxing day by herself while I dressed my two-year-old up as Mike the Knight and took him for a father/son day of geeky joy. Kudos to the Fanfare…
10 great Lou Reed records
Dean Baker will be among the speakers at Saturday’s event. Sometimes it takes hitting bottom before people are motivated to initiate the kinds of changes they should have made all along. Which is why, despite the bleak economic news that just keeps coming and coming, there’s also reason to hope. And if you’re among those…
Ann Arbor’s Last Word Serves Superior Cocktails
Ann Arbor is no stranger to the movement for better cocktails. Recent establishments have kicked their bar offerings up quite a bit, as the high-toned concoctions at Mani Osteria or Lena prove. But one place that is putting pre-Prohibition style and authentic ingredients front and center is an Ann Arbor bar called “The Last Word.”…
Film Review: The Counselor
The Counselor | C- It’s no surprise that novelist-turned-screenwriter Cormac McCarthy is a particularly manly grade of nihilist, a writer given to pseudo-biblical prose and extreme acts of violence. But who knew the celebrated 80-year-old author was such a vicious misogynist? In The Counselor, directed by stylist Ridley Scott but penned by McCarthy (The Road, No…
Film Review: Bad Grandpa
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa| D Johnny Knoxville is the Hollywood equivalent of the kid in the back of the classroom who’s always making rude noises with his armpit: We know he’s a goon but we keep encouraging him anyway. Having long outlived the initial novelty value of the Jackass stunt-and-prank-shock empire he created on MTV,…
Gentrification and Age-Old Struggles
WHEN YOU LOOK at unemployment and income rates, Detroit is pretty much the poorest big city in the United States. At the same time, southeast Michigan is historically the most racially segregated area of the country. Those two attributes stand out big-time in research titled “Residential Segregation, Spatial Mismatch and Economic Growth across U.S. Metropolitan…
Film Review: We Are What We Are
We Are What We Are | B If nothing else, director Jim Mickle (Stake Land) should be commended for his subversive attempt to turn his slow-burn cannibal horror flick into a moody meditation on matriarchal power and the uncompromising demands of tradition. Unfortunately, his ambitions may leave him without an audience. For the blood-and-guts crowd,…
What is THAT? – Oddities from the MT mailbox
Here’s the deal. Every day here at the Metro Times, our mail delivery includes CDs, books and all sorts of other promotional items. A lot of it we can use and review – local-interest music, DVDs, etc. But we also get a lot of weird and whacky items that just kinda build up. So that’s…
Film Review: Man of Tai Chi
Man of Tai Chi | B- There’s a ripe irony to Keanu Reeves’ homage to — and update of — 1970s-style martial arts films. Casting himself as the villain, his stiff monotone performance recalls the awkward line deliveries of Asian stars Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba as they were forced to act in scenes that didn’t…
Today Is Food Day
Who knew? Today is Food Day. I thought every day was Food Day, but so says the Food Chain Workers Alliance. They’ve got a short video, “Guess Who’s Coming to Breakfast,” in which a little boy asks mom and dad, “Where does food come from?” From the store,” they answer confidently. Wrong again It’s a…
Introducing the Bristol Street Band
The Bristol Street Band has already made its mark on the local music scene. The group consists of five talented young men from the western suburbs. They have already played most of the hottest venues in the metro Detroit area including the Crofoot Ballroom, the Hard Rock Café, the Diesel Lounge and are beginning to…
Beverly Jenkins brings erotic fiction to Book Beat
Beverly Jenkins, Detroit’s own author of “bodice ripper” romantic fiction, will be signing books at Book Beat in Oak Park this Saturday, October 26. You may remember this review that we wrote of her latest book, Destiny’s Surrender, in which we pointed out that she uses the glorious term “carnal dallying.” According to a Book…
Transplanting Tradition at Ferndale’s Oakland
When Sandy Levine, owner of Ferndale’s Oakland Art Novelty Company, was living in Chicago with his wife, he became enamored with the Violet Hour, a classic cocktail bar in that city. The watering hole was still on his mind when he befriended Toby Maloney after he and his wife moved back to Detroit. Levine tried…
Stone Roses movie coming to Detroit
The Stone Roses: Made of Stone will be screened at several movie theaters across Metro Detroit on November 6. The film can be seen at: Emagine Canton on Nov. 6th and 13th Emagine Novi on Nov. 6th and 13th Emagine Rochester Hills on Nov. 6th and 13th Emagine Royal Oaks on Nov. 6th and 13th…
12th Man Report: Next in line…
The Tigers’ managerial hunt On Monday, Tigers’ manager Jim Leyland officially retired from baseball as a manager. While many were sad, some happy, and others indifferent, there’s one thing everybody agrees on: the Tigers need a solid replacement. There are just a lot of potential candidates. The first question is whether the Tigers should…
City Slang: Lord Huron to tour in January
LA-based Michigan band Lord Huron are currently preparing for a January tour. The bad hits the Majestic Theatre on January 31. According to a press release, “This will serve as the band’s largest headlining run to date, after wrapping a successful support tour for Alt-J in September. The new dates round out a massive year…
5 hair metal titans coming to Metro Detroit
If you feel like taking a trip north this week… The city of Mount Pleasant — home to Central Michigan University — kicks off its second annual Midwest Fest tomorrow, Tuesday, July 21st. Midwest Fest 2009 is a five-day music festival running through this Saturday, July 25th, coinciding with Mount Pleasant’s Street Fair and Art…
Silent Lions – Stolen In The Heat Of The Moment
You get a verse. It’s a bluesy little bit that gets increasingly distorted as we tighten up to a fitful explosion of guitars, effectively communicating the storminess of young love on the verge of collapse. It’ll get better, this Toledo duo persuades you, vocals flitting up to a sensitive falsetto over warm pianos -their organic…
Film Review: All Is Lost
All Is Lost | A- At 77, Robert Redford doesn’t have much left to prove. He had a string of iconic films in the 1970s and early ’80s, won the Best Director Oscar for Ordinary People, launched the Sundance Institute and its film festival, and still stays active in the film industry — both in…
Axe Ripper
There was a time in the early to mid-’80s when heavy metal music was really good fun. The artwork was excessive, balancing over-the-top gore and pseudo-Satanism with humor. Often, it was badly executed, initially because of a lack of funds but later because that haphazard splatter approach became synonymous with the music. Bands such as…
Detroit Food This Week
FOOD THOUGHT Popcorn Treats By Hannah Miles Ryland Peters & Small, $12, 64 pp. Don’t get us wrong: Take freshly popped popcorn and drizzle it with real butter and a few dashes of salt and you have a snack beyond compare. And given today’s uncertain economy, popcorn may be the ultimate recession-friendly snack. But what…
Touch of India
Touch of India 297 E. Maple Rd., Birmingham 248-593-7881 touchofindiacuisine.com Handicap accessible Entrées: $8-$12 Open 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5:30-10 p.m. Monday-Friday, noon-3 p.m and 5:30-10 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. In a pricey stretch of Birmingham real estate sits a diminutive sliver of an Indian restaurant. Café Via and Social Kitchen lie in the same…
Ndamukong Suh
A week ago, on Oct. 16, Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh was fined by the NFL … again! This time it was a $31,500 fine for his hit — although it looked more like a love tap — on Cleveland Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden during the Lions’ 31-17 victory on Oct. 13. Suh is playing…
Beware of the Christian Right’s Revisionist History
It’s common to hear conservatives say things like Congressman Paul Ryan did during the last presidential campaign: “Our rights come from nature and God, not from government.” Liberals just shrug when they hear this type of rhetoric, since it sounds like one of the countless other empty platitudes conservatives spout in their efforts to makes…
Et tu, MT?
Et tu, MT? Dear Editor Very disappointing, Metro Times; you’ve left Detroit for Oakland County just when we needed you most. Will you change your phone numbers to the 248 also? I suspect you’ll rationalize your move and say it really isn’t a change, that you’ll still be committed to Detroit, that Oakland County is…
Bill Lingers in Committee
The best chance to change the current atmosphere in Michigan surrounding medical marijuana lies in the state legislature, where Rep. Mike Callton’s Medical Marijuana Provisioning Center Regulation Act (HB4271) sits in the Judiciary Committee. The bill, first introduced in February 2013, has been stuck in committee ever since; some observers believe it will die there,…
Flirting with Disaster
Well, the end of the world as we know it was narrowly averted after a minority of those crazy Republicans in Congress decided it would be better to surrender — for now — than to plunge the nation into an economic depression it might never escape from. That’s not hyperbole, either. In fact, it might…
Love Lotion
Q: My girlfriend always responds positively when I initiate sex with her, but she hardly ever initiates sex with me. I’m a no-beat-around-the-bush kind of guy, but I realize this can be a sensitive topic and I don’t want to scare her by saying, “Please initiate sex more often!” So I do small things to…
Brian O’Halloran
Brian O’Halloran will likely forever be associated with Dante Hicks, the character he deftly portrayed in Kevin Smith’s movie Clerks and then again in Clerks II, but you won’t catch him complaining. With a second sequel in pre-production, and the convention circuit continuing to embrace him, why would he? This weekend, O’Halloran is the main…
The Best Events in Detroit this Halloween Season
HAUNTED ATTRACTIONS 13 FEET UNDER Playland Park, 5290 S. Dort Hwy., Flint; 2.5 miles north of I-75 at exit 109, Dort Highway; 810-695-8200; michiganhauntedhouse.com Runs Oct. 25-27, Oct. 30-Nov. 2; opens at 8 p.m. Sunday, at 7 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; tickets start at $15. BLAKE’S HAUNTED ATTRACTIONS At Blake’s Big Apple, 71485 North Ave.,…
The Thrill of the Scare: Erebus
“It’s increasingly hard to really scare a motherfucker these days,” says Dedan Blackmon, freelance photographer. “You can’t just put the gun to their heads no more; you really have to pull the fucking trigger.” When my companion joins me during a visit to Erebus Haunted House in Pontiac, he completely pooh-poohs the scariest “haunted house”…
Fear Factory
Horror cinema tends to get all the love, but that’s understandable. With an assault on the senses both visual and auditory, chills are easily dispensed. You jump because the soundtrack gets cranked up just right, or the apparition enters slightly off frame. It’s scary because you’re being manipulated in that classic Hitchcockian way. Horror literature…
Evil Dead: The Musical
There’s a scene in the Jason Segel-Russell Brand movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which Segel’s character performs scenes from a production he has written called Dracula: The Musical. The comedy stems from the fact that vampires and the horror genre in general make ridiculous subject matter for a musical. As is so often the case,…
Reviewing Roger Waters: The Man Behind the Wall
Dave Thompson has written books on artists and groups like George Clinton, Cream, James Taylor and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has, in fact, churned out over 100 books about music, film and TV, but few are finer than The Man Behind the Wall. Here, Thompson aims to demystify the Pink Floyd leader who…
City Slang: Weekly music review roundup
Send CDs, vinyl, cassettes, demos and 8-tracks to Brett Callwood, Metro Times, 1200 Woodward Heights, Ferndale MI 48220. Email MP3s and streaming links to bcallwood@metrotimes.com. Luder’s Adelphophagia (Small Stone) was always going to be interesting; in fact, it’s a thrilling album that both picks up where the previous full lengther left off and continues the…
