AltWeeklies Wire
Why We Should Feel Sorry for Joe Wilsonnew
His priorities were these: With his numbers dropping, Joe wanted to make himself an instant hero to the far right -- something that is indeed starting to happen. He got to be on a Fox network talk show Sunday; last week, he probably would have had to buy a ticket to be in the studio audience.
Metro Times |
Jack Lessenberry |
09-22-2009 |
Commentary
'Amreeka' is Too Predictable to be Great, Too Broad to be Profoundnew
By keeping the tone impish, the characters humane and the issues personal, Amreeka explores post-9/11 Arab anxieties and injustices without condemnation or proselytizing. In fact, Dabis smartly puts the focus on sisterhood and family while tackling the obstacles to assimilation and acceptance.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
09-22-2009 |
Reviews
'Whiteout' is a Standard-Issue Thrillernew
Despite a raging winter storm, plenty of claustrophobic locations and a hearty handful of suspects, the mystery and characters are surprisingly conventional, barely rising to the level of a good CSI episode. Credited to four different screenwriters, the script smacks of written-by-committee dialogue and plot developments.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
09-22-2009 |
Reviews
Tags: Dominic Sena, Whiteout
Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of 'KISS Alive'new
I say to you snobs who stayed away from "the greatest live album ever re-recorded" because you were too busy, I dunno, reading books or getting indoctrinated into disco or est, here's a track-by-track re-creation of what you missed (which poses no danger for you of hearing even a single note of it).
Metro Times |
Serene Dominic |
09-22-2009 |
Music
Upside Down in Pontiac: How Investors Walk Away from Disasternew
Many Pontiac houses sit and continue to decline in value, blight the community, attract nuisances, cost lenders and the city money in maintenance, and pull down the values of nearby properties. Some have resold for a fraction of their taxable values, further driving down home prices around them. Others will sit vacant for years.
Metro Times |
Sandra Svoboda |
09-15-2009 |
Economy
After a Lauded Major Label Debut, Hush Hits Rock Bottom and Rises Againnew
Within two years, he'd gone from Detroit hip-hop's other "white meat" to an unemployed, grieving father of three with a family and a mortgage. Hard up for cash, he took a job working the night shift at a factory that was an hour-plus drive away. He'd get home and during the hours before his sons got up for school, he'd make music.
Metro Times |
Hobey Echlin |
08-25-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
The First New Episodes of 'Mad Men' Have Been a Disappointmentnew
So far this season is like finally landing your Carnegie Hall debut and discovering your violin is out of tune.
Metro Times |
Jim McFarlin |
08-25-2009 |
TV
Local or Not? A Brief Guide to Whether 'Detroit' Brands Are Really from Detroitnew
It's not always easy knowing for certain what's local and what's not. Part of it depends on how you want to define the term. In reality, there's a spectrum of what qualifies as local, with the purest light coming from those companies that are locally owned with local manufacturing facilities.
Metro Times |
Curt Guyette |
08-25-2009 |
Business & Labor
'Paper Heart' is Both Cutesy and Ironically Smugnew
Sort of a mock mockumentary, the film follows impossibly impish hipster comedian Charlyne Yi, as she crosses the country asking real folk about true love, an emotion she claims to be incapable of.
Metro Times |
Corey Hall |
08-18-2009 |
Reviews
Blonde Devotion: Motown Diva Chris Clark Rises from Obscuritynew
From 1965 to 1967, Motown released a few criminally ignored singles that found a home on Clark's 1967 long-player Soul Sounds. Given the scattered sessionography, Soul Sounds surprisingly holds up better than any other studio album by the more recognizable greats of Motown.
Metro Times |
Serene Dominic |
08-11-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Talking Horror With the Creators of 'Saw' and 'The Collector'new
Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan are the writers and director of The Collector, a low budget attempt to meld two popular film genres: the tense thriller and the blood-spattered horror flick. They offer up some interesting observations about the two genres and show boundless enthusiasm for the finer points of cinematic pain and suffering.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
08-11-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Michigan Law Clinic Springs Two Men from Prisonnew
The University of Michigan Innocence Clinic -- considered the first such law school project in the country to tackle cases without DNA evidence -- celebrated its first success recently when Marvin Reed and his nephew Deshawn were released from prison.
Metro Times |
Sandra Svoboda |
08-11-2009 |
Crime & Justice
HBO's Hung Blows Its Load All Over the Motor Citynew
Funny how your city's landmarks take on an entirely different symbolism when an HBO series called Hung slaps its name alongside them.
Metro Times |
Jim McFarlin |
08-04-2009 |
TV
Why Cafe Racers are the New Kings of Speednew
The cafe racer is minimal and slim-lined, unlike the mainstream Harleys and those angular sport bikes you're used to seeing on the road.
Metro Times |
Travis R. Wright |
08-04-2009 |
Recreation
Ole Joe Kennedy's Dirty Hollywoodnew
In Beauchamp's semi-biographic novel of his life, Joe Kennedy is portrayed as having an almost superhuman ability to charm the pants off the ladies and strip the assets from the fellas, greedily seeking and sucking up more money and power under the pretense of "helping" others.
Metro Times |
Christa Buchanan |
08-04-2009 |
Nonfiction
