Voter registration blues
Think you’re registered to vote? Better check and make sure. In the ongoing saga of finding out why my wife’s name suddenly disappeared from the voter registration list after more than 30 years of never missing an election, I’m happy to write the final chapter. The real culprit in our particular situation seems to have…
A Foreign Sound
As the United States endures criticism from all corners of the world, it’s refreshing to find a celebration of one of our greatest cultural exports: the American songwriter. When this honor is bestowed upon us by one of Brazil’s most enduring (and endearing) musicians, the sentiment speaks further still — it lessens the blow on…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When actress Mia Farrow was still a teenager, 59-year-old painter Salvador Dali asked her to dinner. As an appetizer, he served her butterfly wings on crackers. "They had almost no taste at all," Farrow told Gregg LaGambina in *Filter.* But she was nevertheless thrilled by the artfulness of the gesture. I…
The mothers of consternation
God’s Chosen People have their homeland and rock ’n’ rollers have one too. Ilan Starkman and David Rapaport met 11 years ago while attending high school in Tel Aviv, Israel. The two discovered a common interest in rock music and began playing in Hebrew-language bands influenced by American and British groups such as Led Zeppelin,…
The good lieutenant
This documentary follows the Democratic presidential hopeful from his days at Yale to his heroic four-months in the Vietnam War — in which he was wounded three times and for which he received three Purple Hears, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star — to his equally heroic protest of the war when he came…
Dragon tales
Internationally best-selling author Cornelia Funke is back captivating the minds of both kids and the young at heart with her latest U.S. publication, Dragon Rider (Scholastic/Chicken House). The story follows the journey of two dragons, Firedrake and Sorrell, whose adventures take them to the Rim of Heaven, a mythical safe haven for dragons in distress.…
Three shootings and two deaths send shocks through Detroit’s rap world. What did they have to do with music?
On a sun-drenched mid-September morning, hundreds of friends and relatives of the slain, would-be rap mogul known as Wipeout fill the pews of the Community Christian Fellowship Church on Detroit’s East Side. Many of the mourners are dressed casually, in jeans, jerseys and white T-shirts, some of which bear Wipeout’s image. Others here are in…
Broadway: The Golden Age
This documentary is a touching and thoroughly enjoyable memoir of Big Apple theater from the ’30s to the ’60s. Dozens of stars of yesteryear are interviewed — some instantly recognizable, such as Carol Channing, Shirley Maclaine, Carol Burnett and Robert Goulet. The film is a bit schmaltzy at times and really goes for the heartstrings…
Canadian content
Q: I am a Middle Eastern guy who lived 21 years of my life in that region. This year I came to Canada. The sexual freedom in this country makes you feel more and more inclined to have sex with a girlfriend. Lately, I met this girl on an Internet chat. She said she has…
Not so bright
Sometimes the City of Detroit makes our job — being snide, cynical and generally malcontented — too damn easy. Take, for instance, the $1.2 million project intended to protect streetlight poles from thieves who strip wire from the base of the standards. For the past couple months, city workers have been placing plastic covers, called…
Dig!
For seven years, filmmaker Ondi Timoner documented the ups (and, mostly, downs) of two aspiring retro-alt-rock bands, the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. What resulted was a fairly cohesive look at fractured rock personalities.
Sweets for Francophiles
In the middle of the night, sometime between 2 and 3 a.m., Marcel Didierjean and Matt Knio begin work at their respective patisseries, French pastry shops. These men go to work while many of us are dreaming about what they are soon to create. The dough for the breads has been rising since the day…
Slack offs
Controversy follows Michael Moore like Rush Limbaugh follows a trail of prescription painkillers, and the filmmaker’s appearance last Wednesday at Wayne State University was no exception. The free outdoor lecture held on Gullen Mall drew a mass of Moore fans, as well as a few dozen Bush supporters and anti-Moore protesters. Although no physical clashes…
Ladder 49
The shadow of Sept. 11 looms large over every flickering frame of Ladder 49. While the film is undeniably exploitative, it emerges as a seductively low-key and respectful portrait of hardscrabble blue-collar heroes. The topic is fascinating; the execution is not.
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
MB4 and what do you get? Another week older and deeper in debt! • Halfacre Gunroom — Wrecked (Icarus) :: You say halfacre, I say half-assed, let’s call the whole thing off. • Rolling Blackouts — Black Is Beautiful (True Love) :: Despite liberally quoting everyone from Be Bop Deluxe to the Who to the…
School fools
When it comes to Hamtramck politics, News Hits foolishly thought it had seen it all. But then we learned that the Hamtramck School Board rehired Paul Stamatakis as the district’s superintendent. The board fired Stamtakis earlier this year for allegedly spending $1 million on building improvements without the board’s approval, according to city records. But…
Empathy
Anne Siegel’s documentary/fiction hybrid examines the unique quality of the psychoanalytical situation, in which people purchase emotional intimacy and share their most private feelings with a hopefully sympathetic stranger who ideally is both remote and consoling. Even if the movie is uneven, it gets points for originality and should be of interest to anyone who’s…
Take me to the river
To some, the Detroit River is a highway. Its bustling volume of commercial ships prompted Congress to designate it as such in 1819. To others, the river — actually a strait between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie — is a pretty picture, framed in the windowpanes of high-rise offices and riverfront homes. To more…
Kubat says ta-ta; Finale slams Bush
So long, farewell … It’s true, the lissome, smooth-skinned folk popper Audra Kubat is off to New York City for greener pastures, at least for now. And we know you’ll miss her. Shit, we’ll miss her too. And who wouldn’t? Her perky presence at select local rock shows (or wherever NYC’s mighty Everyothers happened to…
Woman, Thou Art Loosed
Dallas Bishop T.D. Jakes plays a role in a work that frequently feels more like a gospel play at Masonic Temple than a film. Co-producer Jakes plays himself in a fairly inconsequential role. The plot of a murderess on death row preparing to attend a three-day religious event is muddled through poor direction. The most…
Head cheese
Fiercely loyal to the walloping riff and sing-along, shout-out combo, Skeemin’ NoGoods (Motor City vets John Speck, Ron Sakowski and Chuck Burns) have coughed up what might be the best punk rock record all year. Here lead throat Speck discharges five things currently pissing him off. 5. Cold weather Bad enough we had to deal…
Proactive
Real moral majority — Do you think that there is a moral imperative to address issues of poverty in this year’s presidential election? If so, you won’t want to miss the 7 p.m. interfaith service and rally at Detroit’s Central Methodist Church (Woodward Avenue and East Adams Street downtown) on Tuesday, Oct. 12, when the…
Shark Tale
Shark Tale aims to be an animated, under-the-sea, urban, laugh bath; but swimming in on the tail of Disney’s marine blockbuster, Finding Nemo, this fish flick doesn’t smell all that fresh. If you thought that line was a sinker, be warned that there are more inane puns in this film than you can shake a…
Open for exhibition
Nestled in a picturesque ravine with a view of the posh Oakland Hills Country Club, the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center is one of metro Detroit’s biggest, most active community arts organizations, but it hasn’t been much of a contemporary art space — until now. The BBAC recently named John Cynar, a photographer, sculptor, curator and…
Naked truth
You’re depressed. You’re anxious. You’re hungry. Your silverware needs a polish. Your floors need scrubbing. You’re not getting laid. Your dreams need color. Your nightmares need subduing. You’re running at a million miles an hour or crawling like a slug. The answer is simple: You just need a little Magnum Pussy 25. Take a hit…
Art Bar
Come summer of next year, people crossing over to Windsor through the tunnel will get a taste of Motown aesthetics in addition to the toll fee. The Detroit Artists Market is coordinating a public art project, “Art on the Vent,” along with the Detroit & Canada Tunnel Corp. A $40,000 stipend will be given to…
Rating the debate
In the view of a number of students taking communications classes at Wayne State University, George Bush flunked last week’s debate, making the sort of mistakes anyone who has passed Public Speaking 101 learns to avoid. To gain extra credit, about 700 students turned out to watch the verbal clash between Bush and Democratic challenger…
A revisionist Stripes mixtape
The White Stripes, of course, didn’t just spring from a vacuum. And you don’t just jump out of the gate playing Son House covers and nothing else. We take for granted that the White Stripes are huge fans of Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn, Blind Willie McTell, the MC5 and the Stooges. But there’s music that…
Letters to the Editor
Another view on Tommy Liuzzo My name is Janet Liuzzo-Lee and I am writing regarding Lisa M. Collins’ review of Home of the Brave (Metro Times, Sept. 29), the film about the 1965 murder of Detroiter Viola Liuzzo. I am the ex-wife of Thomas Gregg Liuzzo and mother of his daughter and son. I was…
Detroit jewels
Scott Hocking: Drawings, Photographs, Sculptures “I see the beauty in things that say to me that we’re nothing … it’s reassuring,” says Scott Hocking, a multimedia artist who might qualify as the visual art manifestation of the Blanche ode penned by Dan Miller, “Garbage Picker,” in which Miller sings, “I find my own treasures in…
Comics
Red Meat Comix
N&D Center
Thursday • 7 Detroit Neutrino Project Film The Detroit Neutrino Project is bringing its own brand of guerrilla filmmaking and improvisation to the Emagine Theater in Novi. The group, made up of local actors and filmmakers (many whom have studied at the Second City and Planet Ant theaters), has created a progressive creative format that…
East Nashville Skyline
It’s about the sadness of counting nickels and walking out in twilight to the corner market for that glorious 12-pack of Old Milwaukee, the one that can, on any particular night, save your life. It’s about sipping Southern Comfort in plastic go-cups in the back of an old Caddie commandeered by some salty ex-con, zooming…
Fell In Love With a Scene
Going in you knew that the White Stripes were not going to participate in this biography. Why wouldn’t they talk to you for this book? Handyside: Well, technically, I suspected that they weren’t going to participate, but it wasn’t until I talked to Jack that he confirmed it. Besides my wife and my mother, he…
Outta Sight/Outta Mind
Fueled by the well-honed, boozy fury of their live show, the Datsuns’ 2002 debut was a memorably rumpled jumble of lyrical machismo and hamfisted fretboard heroics. It got away with a cut called “MF From Hell” because Dolf de Datsun and mates knew that brash cuss was exactly what the biggest amps made you feel.…
Rantin’ and rollin’
Something’s festering in today’s musical climate and it reeks heavily of nostalgia. Why else would we being seeing several questionable resurrections of great yet mislaid rock bands from the early ’70s? Could it be that the lack of sparks in the current rock ’n’ roll landscape has inspired the old-timers to get up and show…
Purple Rain
Yes, there was a time Prince had a bigger persecution complex than Michael Jackson. Why else would band mates, club owners and rivals in two movies tell him, “Kid, nobody digs your music but yourself,” only to have the Kid musically vindicate himself by borrowing inspiration from someone else, something that the real-life control freak…
Bush league debate
Few things are more satisfying than seeing smug and slimy people outsmart themselves. That’s what happened in the first presidential debate. There are few worse dangers than believing your own horse exhaust, but that’s just what the Bush campaign did. For months, they had been flooding the airwaves with vast distortions of John Kerry’s character,…
Antics
Antics marks Interpol’s return after nearly two years of touring, and the enduring of their somewhat unexpected rocket to the height of indie fame. Unexpected, because while it was a tense, gripping and ultimately emotionally rewarding debut, Turn on the Bright Lights wasn’t really what you’d call accessible. That said, Antics should be an even…
