RODRIGUEZ ON WDET THIS FRIDAY!
Good news for those of you who missed the Rodriguez gig at the Park Bar late last month. The amazing legend-in-the-making (and if you haven’t yet picked up his totally wonderful, recently rereleased — on the Light In The Attic label — 1970 album, Cold Fact, what the fuck are you waiting for?) folk-pop-rocker will…
Time after time
Let’s do the time warp again. And again and again. The Great Gods of Hollywood apparently are convinced that the people they fly over (i.e.: you) have an obsessive fascination with time travel: The stranger-in-a-strange-land exploits of an Average Joe suddenly plunked down in another era, another atmosphere. At least one TV network seems to…
Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine
The portrait of Louise Bourgeois that emerges here is of an artist who’s waited a long time for recognition, but is in no way ready to rest on her laurels. Now 96, the French-born sculptor has a major retrospective making its way across the United States, and this documentary captures an artist who’s as obdurate…
Letters to the Editor
The last word Regarding Jack Lessenberry’s response (Oct. 1) to my criticism of his Free Press critique: Jack, you should be embarrassed: Only a chickenshit insists on having the last word on a reader letter! Hell, you even read it — and responded — before it was published! Sweet! Your attempt to portray me as…
Little Honey
Also Reviewed: Lucinda Williams Little Honey These discs come from artists once associated with the “alt-country” movement, though they’ve moved much closer to the rock ‘n’ roll genre over time and further away from the twang (even if the latter is always apparent in Ms. Williams’ idiosyncratic voice … which some meanies have compared to…
Black patriot
When I finally learned that I loved America
Little Honey
Also Reviewed: Old 97’s Blame It On Gravity These discs come from artists once associated with the “alt-country” movement, though they’ve moved much closer to the rock ‘n’ roll genre over time and further away from the twang (even if the latter is always apparent in Ms. Williams’ idiosyncratic voice … which some meanies have…
On the Download
I’ll take pretty much any opportunity available to further extol the glory of seminal Detroit blues-punk-minimalist-Back From the Grave-worshipping primitivist trio the Gories. Guitarists Mick Collins (Dirtbombs), Dan Kroha (Demolition Doll Rods, the Readies) and drummer Peg O’Neil (’68 Comeback, Darkest Hours) had a chaotic and blissfully raw six-year run. They disbanded spectacularly at the…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Couch Trip
Brotherhood of the Wolf Universal Studios Home Entertainment Tinsletown loves red-blooded American male moviegoers — give ’em forgettable plots, seizure-ready car chases and silicone-fortified chicks and you’ve a moneymaker. If you have lots of guns and a former pro wrestler, so much the better! Dudes don’t want no stinkin’ 18th century costume-drama bullshit — it’s…
MT receives honors
We’re happy to announce that the Metro Times has received seven awards in the Class A weekly division of the Michigan Press Association’s 2008 Better Newspaper Contest. Michael Jackman earned firstplace honors in the feature story category for "Torch song," an entertaining look at what he described as a combination circus sideshow and burlesque- style…
News holes
The daily dispatches and nightly newscasts of the mainstream media regularly cover terrorism, but rarely how fear of attacks is used to manipulate the public and set policy. That’s the common thread of many of the unreported stories last year, according to an analysis by Project Censored. Since 1976, Sonoma State University has released an…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid
Kindred crazies
It’s fair to say Pinkeye, much like the physical condition after which this musical collective is named, may well be considered more pain than a pleasure by many music lovers. The jazz-rock ensemble has about twice as many members as Slipknot, and its albums usually include only one or two songs. The group is the…
Blindness
Taken from José Saramago’s allegorical novel, the film imagines the end of civilization as caused by an epidemic outbreak of blindness. Set in an unnamed city, the opening starts promisingly enough as we watch the illness spread from a Japanese businessman to a thief to a physician to everyone in his office and on and…
Slipping it off
Jerk move: Sneaking the condom off during lovemaking
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
They say you can’t put lipstick on a pig, and that roughly applies to screenplays too, a point made clear by this dumbed-down adaptation of British writer Toby Young’s scathing 2001 memoir and entertainment media kiss-off. Oh, and there’s an actual pig here, one the hero attempts to pass off as the star of Babe…
Night and Day
WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY • 8-9 BALTIMORE ROUND ROBIN ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT Schizoid dance maniac Dan Deacon has rounded up his BFFs from the Baltimore music scene for two nights of eclectic sounds. The round robin-style show means there’s no opener, no headliner and no normal audience arrangement. Instead, bands circle the room while the audience…
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
While long, intricate conversations between dogs now appear perfectly normal, BH Chihuahua is at heart a farcical comedy of heightened reality. So while the dogs are grounded, the humans are flighty, especially cosmetics magnate Vivian Ashe (Jamie Lee Curtis), whose prized pooch receives more attention, affection and designer duds than a spoiled child. Chloe (Drew…
Semivan’s ghost dance
A few months ago, photographer Lauren Semivan moved into a huge late 19th century house in Oakland County. Assigned as caretaker of this staggering showcase of forgotten art and antiques, she spent her first day cleaning the dust from Victorian-era sofas, claw-foot tables, ornate candlesticks and large framed portraits that stare out from the plaster…
Appaloosa
With Appaloosa, Ed Harris has taken Robert B. Parker’s spare, macho prose and transformed it into a thinking person’s action movie, an elegant, straightforward western that’s as austere and engaging as the stark New Mexico landscape. He’s the director, co-writer (with Robert Knott), and star, embodying the central character of Virgil Cole, whose forceful personality…
Stem cell lies
They’ll say anything to help pass a prohibition on vital research
Flash of Genius
Greg Kinnear dons the rumpled sports coats of Dr. Robert Kearns, a real-life Detroit area engineering professor and tinkerer, who drew his inspiration from a wedding night champagne cork that blew straight into his left eye. At that moment Kearns wondered if a windshield wiper could be made to mimic a blinking human eyelid at…
Criminal art
Grosse Pointe Park to issue sentence on home decorated with paintings
Rawk on, dudes!
Taproot were Michigan’s most notable addition to the late ’90s nu-metal bloom and, thanks to their inclusion on a couple of Ozzfests and tours with the likes of the Deftones, they developed a healthy fan base, both nationally and beyond. The problem with nu-metal, like any other scene, however, is that once the furor wanes,…
DNA deadline
Testing that exonerated prisoners about to run out of time
Chemical Chords
Stereolab has returned! Skeptical? Considering how few bands with their longevity are releasing anything relevant these days, you should be. But Chemical Chords, the band’s 11th album (depending on how one counts EPs and compilations), contains some of the most accessible and upbeat Stereolab material since their mid-’90s career highpoint. The album’s opener, “Neon Beanbag”…
Motor City Cribs
Electric Six guitarist Zach Shipps’ Birmingham digs and sound studio
God talkin’
This probing, scathing and consistently hilarious documentary is probably the most convincing, brazen and truly funny assault ever mounted on the last third-rail issue in American life, religion, an attack all the more controversial not just for its point but for the guy who’s launching it. At a holy land-themed amusement park, Maher’s taken aback…
Don’t fence us out
America’s pastime takes on the Bridge Baron
Momma’s Man
Mikey (Matt Boren) has just concluded a business trip to New York, where he opted to stay with his parents in their Tribeca loft. When the time comes to return home to his wife Laura (Dana Varon) and their baby daughter in California, Mikey hesitates, missing his flight and taking the subway back to the…
BRUCE SINGS FOR OBAMA IN YPSI…
Sometimes I believe I have one of the best jobs around. I mean, where else can you leave your job at 2:30 p.m. on a deadline day — after asking other editors to cover and read your proofs for you (thanks, Brian and Kim) — so you can drive to Ypsilanti to see Bruce Springsteen…
