More Guilt ePleasures
It’s time for the biannual tribute to the world’s worst Web sites — these are sites so incredibly bad, they’re funny.
Bye y’all
Detroit may have the indie world’s ear at this very moment, but at least one outfit saw fit to split town just as the hum grew to a buzz. The Starlite Desperation’s Dante Adrian (né White) and Jennifer Pearl, little more than a year after they relocated here, headed back for the more reliable climes…
Arts, burlesque and eats
A cornucopia of art events at the DIA, the Scarab Club and the Center Galleries at CCS … Multitalented WAB employees play music for the brewery’s patrons … Former record label HQ endangered … & more.
A deceptive detective novel
For most Americans, Africa has become a symbol of what essayist Robert Kaplan termed “The Coming Anarchy” in his pessimistic 1999 book of the same title. In both popular and expert opinion, the continent represents the antithesis of nearly every quality associated with Western civilization, embodying lawlessness, savagery, and backwardness. A century after Joseph Conrad’s…
That’s entertainment
Metro Times’ short list for a selection of the best events on calendar for September, October and November.
Love’s battlefield
Funny, fresh and elegant rules and moves are all fair in love and war: When Vivica A. Fox catches her man, handsome attorney Morris Chestnut, on the dance floor with her advertising firm’s vice president of marketing (a "bona fide ho"), she’s got to use the 10-day campaign that she’s preached to her sistas to…
Smoke and numbers
Conflicting numbers in city’s sewage incinerator emissions reports….
Divided We Fall
Set in Czechoslovakia during World War II, this is the story of how an average, decidedly unheroic couple manages to do an extraordinarily heroic thing. Its tone is a combination of despair, low comedy, raunchiness and a feeling for the sometimes grotesque resourcefulness of people living in difficult times.
Lame duck quacking
Mayor’s office slams Joe Harris’ criticisms of city departments….
Jeepers Creepers
Jeepers Creepers
scared up enough chest-tightening adrenaline in reviewer James Keith La Croix to almost take his breath away. But the chills only work if you can buy the outrageously bad decisions and actions of the principals that seem to parody those of the ridiculous kids in a trunkful of slasher flicks.
Ultra eX-women
Worlds collide in eX-Girl’s otherworldly punk cabaret … the Japanese band’s live performances are a theatrical, jaw-droppingly infectious experience.
Shrouded Rainbow
Pro-pot activists stunned over recent killings by law enforcement officials….
Happy Accidents
Director Brad Anderson (Next Stop, Wonderland) aims for a hybrid of romance and science fiction when he pairs sweet, appealing Marisa Tomei with attractive oddball Vincent D’Onofrio, who claims to be a time traveler from the year 2470. Unfortunately, the film’s sluggish pacing and repetition prompts the question: Who cares?
They came from Channel X
Fall Guide 2001: It’s TV we wish we could see — our editorial gang imagines a far-out new television network and its fall lineup.
Reasons to walk
If you need encouragement to join AIDS Walk Detroit, think of Wellness House….
Primo pasta
These adjoining restaurants serve robust Italian food made of fine ingredients. The Cook’s Shop specializes in tableside cooking — anything that can be flambéed is, and this can be lots of fun to watch. The family-style salad is tossed with big croutons and a wondrous, better-than-Caesar dressing. The egg and semolina pasta is made in-house,…
Back in black?
‘N Sync gets down with Vibe magazine … They may be pretty fly for white guys, but they’re still very, very white.
Old News
Detroit News reports Crain’s coverage of fairgrounds deal….
Seeing is relieving
Fall Guide 2001: Detroit’s art scene soothes the savage eye with plenty — we’re clearly faced with an embarrassment of riches.
Hidden history
Guitarist-keyboardist-singer-songwriter and living legend Al Kooper is coming to town; it’s time to learn one of the great “secret histories” in popular music.
Let the plays begin
Fall Guide 2001: Fall into the entrancing world of theater this season, where you’ll see self-serving villainy, marionettes and dancing, dancing, dancing.
The way it wasn’t
Fall Guide 2001: This fall, movies rewrite the history of everything, from William Randolph Hearst to Jack the Ripper. No gamble seems bigger than Will Smith as Muhammad Ali.
Man vs. machine: Hawtin wins
Richie Hawtin does what he does best (some of the most innovative, minimalist techno coming out today) … & the Female:Pressure tour presents a diverse selection of important female DJs and artists.
Primo pasta
These adjoining restaurants serve robust Italian food made of fine ingredients. The Cook’s Shop specializes in tableside cooking — anything that can be flambéed is, and this can be lots of fun to watch. The family-style salad is tossed with big croutons and a wondrous, better-than-Caesar dressing. The egg and semolina pasta is made in-house,…
Treats for the ears
Fall Guide 2001: Metro Times music reviewers preview this fall’s most anticipated recordings. Don’t let the quieter releases get swept under the buzz carpet.
Railroaded
Southwest Detroit has doubts about planned terminal….
Leave the map behind
Moviola’s Rumors of the Faithful gives off a glow that evokes the places you pass when you’re traveling that don’t serve your hierarchy of immediate gas/food/lodging needs, but nevertheless make you wish you needed gas/food/lodging. It’s distinctly landlocked, with more than a trace of rural wistfulness and the twang that’s associated with country music. It…
Look who’s boss
Vivica A. Fox’s latest film presents the games lovers play from an intelligent career-woman’s perspective.
Soul born again
Yeah, Bilal’s dope. Anyway, after Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu and D’Angelo kicked in the door, Maxwell, Jill Scott and India.Arie walked in and established this latest trend in black music. The industry is calling it “neo-soul.” The music is wonderful, but that category is pure garbage. Don’t believe the neo-hype. It’s soul music, through and…
As the days dwindle down …
In summer we heed Martha and the Vandellas’ call for "Dancing in the Streets." But come September around these parts, we know those days are numbered. We get in the last tail-feather shakes in the streets and at the fairs and in pumpkin patches; more and more we take refuge indoors, at the concert halls…
For Billy
The career of tenor saxophonist Charles Lloyd has passed in and out of the spotlight, like a train moving from sunny midday into a tunnel, then around a mountain’s shady side and back into glorious afternoon. As a young man in LA he hung out with Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy, then toured with the…
Reparations for slavery?
A massive federal lawsuit will soon be filed seeking reparations payments to African-Americans in compensation for the wrongs of slavery. But how would anybody decide who should get what?
Son-shine
Fans of the popular Latin pop music group Los Lobos know that the term “pop music” has never adequately described their soulful sound or their smooth, hypnotic rhythms. There has always been something considerably deeper about the group’s music than most shallow music labels can define about them or any other group of substance. On…
