Metro Times

Comics

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

The Boiling Point - by Mikhaela Reid ...

Finding a hot third: The problems of having him pick her out for you both

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Dan Savage. Q: I'm a 20-year-old girl, and I've been dating my boyfriend, who is 23, for two years. From the get-go, he has known that I am bi, and like most straight guys, he's happy to be with a girl who likes girls. The thing is, I am too shy to go out and hit on a girl. Getting a man was the easy part, but...

Released after 8 years: Detroit man out of prison after his conviction is overturned

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Sandra Svoboda. Hours after a judge on Tuesday ordered a new trial for Dwayne Provience — imprisoned eight years for a murder that prosecutors at points have said he didn't commit — he emerged from custody to the embraces and tears of family and supporters. "This is a load off of my back. I want t...

Night and Day

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Megan O'Neil. THURSDAY NOVEMBER 5 Ann Arbor Film Festival Screening STOP IN THE NAME OF TIME The Ann Arbor Film Festival takes its 47th annual show on the road, conducting screenings at universities, galleries and art house cinemas across the country, including this stop in Detroit's Midtown. AAFF director Don...

Park art: In free speech victory, Grosse Pointe Park decides not to press case against artist

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by News Hits staff. The pictures stay on the lawn.� That's the upshot as the city of Grosse Pointe Park withdraws its appeal of a lower court ruling that found its sign ordinance unconstitutional. The Park city fathers had gone after Erica Chappuis, and her husband, Laurent Chappuis, for erecting her paintings in the...

The Royal 'E': Theater and bowling alley wants to locate in Royal Oak, if the residents will allow it

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by News Hits staff. For some, downtown Royal Oak's proposed 10-screen theater and bowling alley, with its already-approved liquor license, is the harbinger of suburban ruin. To them it promises parking woes, unwanted traffic and a "big box" operation that will be out of character with the walkable downtown an...

Letters to the Editor: Why you shouldn't trust Moroun, and Roky's rocky road

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Metro Times readers. Don't trust Moroun I write regarding your News Hit "There goes a secret" (Oct. 21), about the inspection report finding the Ambassador Bridge in "fair" condition. Matty Moroun, the enigmatic owner of the Detroit International Bridge Company, was hoping you would blindly trust i...

Getting youth-enized: Organizers exude energey as the 2010 U.S. Social Forum draws nearer

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Larry Gabriel. The 2010 United States Social Forum is planned to be really big. Organizers expect 20,000 to 30,000 grassroots progressive activists to converge in Detroit June 22-26 for meetings, demonstrations and get-your-hands-dirty work around town. Members of hundreds of progressive groups around the world ar...

Dear Gov. Granholm: Jenny nears the disappointing end, a political invertebrate

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Jack Lessenberry. Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed off on the last of this year's state budgets last week, avoiding, for now, a government shutdown. Unfortunately, in the process, she sold out our future, doomed vast numbers of schoolchildren, and betrayed the people who elected her. Then, naturally, in classic fashion...

Lit up: Area hate-crime murders that caused panic, and a coffee-table tome of shuttered insane asylums

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Travis R. Wright. The Slasher Killings: A Canadian Sex Crime Panic, 1945-1946 by Patrick Brode Wayne State University Press $22.95, 232 pp. In the mid-1940s, Windsor, Ontario, was a freewheeling incubator of vice. Troops returning from the war were welcomed home with a bevy of booze, houses in which to play...

Cheat Code: Brave new worlds: Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Halo 3

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Metro Times game reviewers. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Acclaim Xbox 360, Ps3, Wii, PSP Any comic fan will tell you that comics have grown up, and contemporary ones often make allegories of real-life current events. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 takes foreign policies on terror and civil rights and adds superheroes into the m...

Couch Trip: Talking Heads make some sense; plus, Snow White gets hotter, Mara Nair rules, and Clone Commandos kick ass

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Metro Times film writers. Stop Making Sense (25th Anniversary Blu-ray) Vivendi As soon as you wrap your head around the fact it has been a quarter-century since Jonathan Demme and David Byrne teamed up to create Stop Making Sense, you may settle into another realization: Despite the intervening years bestowing a sort of cl...

Food Stuff: Anthony Bourdain comes to town, and more

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Metro Times food staff. TV dinner — Celebrity chef, author and television host Anthony Bourdain will be in our area this Saturday, at Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater. Billed as "An Evening with Anthony Bourdain," the star of No Reservations will take the stage that night. In the grand foyer, ticket-holders wil...

Electricity kills!: Electric 6 front man Dick Valentine's gritty determination to keep their rock 'n' roll carnival on the road

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Brett Callwood. It's been, appropriately enough, six years since Detroit's Electric 6 released their Fire album, capturing worldwide attention with their combination of disco, garage rock and tongue-in-cheek comedy. (The disc was especially well received in this writer's native U.K., where the band's camp theatrics...

Dylan & Springsteen: How 'the spokesman for a generation' and 'the voice of the American working class' really feel about the things you actually care about

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Serene Dominic. Recently, I got a chance to see Bob Dylan bring his "never-ending tour" to a state fair. The real show, however, was watching the simple folk who gorged on Indian fry bread, cotton candy and turkey legs (that were only slightly juicier than a 2-by-4) getting to wander into a Dylan concert...

Pick a winner: This week, our staff selects its favorite spots

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Metro Times food staff. Al Sultan 425 N. Inkster Rd., Garden City; 734-522-1500: We think this place is a contender for "Best Hidden Gem of Middle Eastern Food," given its generous servings, excellent quality and off-the-beaten-path location. Generous vegetarian plates (falafel, moujadara, and veggie gallaba) don...

Censored!: The top 10 stories not brought to you by mainstream news media in 2008 and 2009

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Rebecca Bowe. Peter Phillips, director of Project Censored for 13 years, says he's finished with reform. It's impossible, he said in a recent interview, to try to get major news media outlets to deliver relevant news stories that serve to strengthen democracy. "I really think we're beyond reforming corporat...

Groovy!: A musical version of Sam Raimi's sidesplitting horror flick bathes Ferndale in blood

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Corey Hall. Be advised, things get messy in Evil Dead: The Musical, a wild night of theatrical chills and subversive musical thrills where the laughs are as plentiful as the gore. If the front three rows of patrons decked in plastic ponchos weren't a strong enough clue, several signs taped up in the Ringwald Th...

Night and Day

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Megan O'Neil. THURSDAY-FRIDAY OCTOBER 29-30 Damned II THE ART OF DEPRAVITY Local and international artists — 140 of them — including Swiss surrealist HR Giger and Marilyn Manson are featured in Damned II: An Exhibition of Enlightened Darkness. More than 200 works explore the depraved and disturbing...

Make them fix it

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Jack Lessenberry. Everybody's sick of the state budget crisis, and for good reason. The idiots in Lansing have not only screwed us over, they have bored us to death. We've had pretty much all we can take of droning Andy Dillon, the caveman-like Mike Bishop and our governor. Probably the nicest thing you can say abou...

Tale of two homicides: Questions about conduct of Wayne County Prosecutor's Office being raised

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Sandra Svoboda. Dwayne Provience is doing 32 to 62 years in prison for the 2000 murder of Rene Hunter, who was gunned down at a northwest Detroit intersection. But now, as Provience attempts to win his freedom, his attorneys are pointing to the fact that, in 2003, the Wayne County Prosecutor's office argued in a s...

The new raconteurs: The Moth flies with a hip pocket full in Detroit

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Travis R. Wright. It's just before seven o'clock on a Thursday night in downtown Detroit, and we're making our way toward Cliff Bell's, a legitimate (now revamped and legal) speakeasy in the city's theater district. The club's curved awning crests the street's horizon like some sort of beacon; it's a striking club in...

River talk: Milliken dedication reprises environmental and urban themes

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by News Hits staff. That Bill Milliken has always been an insight guy. As governor from 1969 to 1983, he worked for education reform, urban policy and civil rights. He signed the state's Freedom of Information Act, which allows the public to access governmental records. He ushered through environmental protection meas...

Slinging it early: State dems canvass voters for building a better mudpie

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by News Hits staff. With November fast approaching, election season is heating up. No, we're not talking about the Detroit mayor's race or City Council contest. We're talking about the 2010 election to determine who will replace Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who can't run again because of term limits. We bring this up now b...

Letters to the Editor: Our readers sound off on Jack, Michael Moore and, um, Jack

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Metro Times readers. Death be proud Jack Lessenberry's largely irrelevant regurgitation of Dr. Jack Kevorkian's preoccupation with death, his quirky artwork, etc., ("I did know Jack," Oct. 21) reminded me of the long-ago criticism of Gen. Ulysses Grant's fondness for booze, and President Lincoln's reported ri...

He has never been here before ...: The legendary Roky Erickson finally hits Detroit

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Bill Holdship. Although there are certainly other candidates, the man born Roger Kynard Erickson 62 years ago in Dallas, Texas, just might be the greatest rock 'n' roll cult hero of all time. But first, some backstory ... It was always a personal pipe dream — to host a panel at South by Southwest or one of...

Motor City Rides: Honky-tonkin': Whitey Morgan and the 78s tour in Econoline style

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Doug Coombe. Lately Detroit appears to be on the verge of becoming Nashville North. To add to our impressive soul, rock, jazz, hip hop, blues, techno and noise scenes, there's now a honky-tonk and outlaw-tinged country music scene drawing inspiration from the hard-working blue-collar towns in our midst. Downrive...

Screaming bloody mess: Horror raver Paul Knoll offers his most hallowed of '09

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Paul Knoll. It's time to mutate out of the saccharine sweetness and sentimental nonsense of the mainstream and get all dark. Or, um, something. Or maybe because it's Halloween it's time when a goofy B-movie reviewer gets to dress up as legit film critic and use three-syllable words? At any rate, 2009 has seen a...

Now that's creepy: The most frightening moments in recent movies that weren't even meant to be frightening!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by John Thomason. I think we're all getting a bit tired of the same old "Top 10 scary movie" pieces rolled out by lazy newspapers around Halloween. We find it a lot more interesting to find the scariness in films that aren't supposed to be scary. These moments from DVDs released in the past 12 months scare...

Creeps and crawlers: The Wonder Twins do the haunted house freak-out

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST

by D'Anne and Laura Witkowski. This is the time of year when things get pretty scary in Detroit, and a visit to one of the area's haunted houses is a must for a well-rounded Halloween experience. Over the years, haunted houses — not to mention haunted barns, haunted hayrides, haunted funeral homes and haunted golf courses &...