Blog Archives

Motown in the Morgue

March 19, 2013
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Motown in the Morgue

My first job after graduating from college was in Detroit. Prior to graduation, my high-school and college classmates and I would discuss our respective future plans — to a person we all declared we’d never take a job in Detroit. Once the mortar boards and graduation gowns were packed away, however, and wedding bells and wet nappies weighed-in on economic reality,At first, I lived in Dearborn, but eventually find an affordable house to rent in the Warrandale section on Detroit’s west side. In 1985, I…

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Long Live Rock: Thanks to Technology

February 28, 2013
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Long Live Rock: Thanks to Technology

Few things make your writer more elated than unwrapping a new compact disc, transferring old vinyl to digital files or adding tunes to my Mp3 library. Recently, I had the great pleasure of performing all three in one morning — respectively opening Richard Thompson’s latest collection of impeccably performed Celtic-infused bittersweet rockers; preserving a nearly worn-out copy of Brian Protheroe’s eclectic 1976 LP classic “I/You” and downloading “Young Waverer,” the latest release by Canada’s libertarian response to rock’n’roll statism, Lindy Vopnfjord. Despite all three artists…

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Les Mediocrite: Oscar at 85

February 25, 2013
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Les Mediocrite: Oscar at 85

Any awards program longer than a David Lean film that simultaneously left this viewer longing for the comparable whimsy of previous wince-inducing hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco has to be judged a disaster – three-and-one-half hours signifying nothing other than the egos of those put in charge of this year’s Oscar telecast. Admittedly, I threw in the towel less than two hours in, but I didn’t see the point of going any further after watching a tribute to 2002’s Chicago and an over-the-top rendition…

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Review: Conservatives and Environmentalism

January 15, 2013
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Review: Conservatives and Environmentalism

The moral high ground of environmentalism seemingly was ceded by free-market proponents a long, long time ago. There exist multiple reasons why this appears to be so, but perhaps the most often argued — if not the most persuasive — case employed against the free-marketers is the intrinsic “evil” ascribed to the profit motive of businesses and individuals alike. Nothing could be further from the truth, but urban mythology abounds with bad actors passing out carcinogens like Halloween candy while polluting groundwater, rivers, lakes and…

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10cc’s in a Box: Tenology

January 10, 2013
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10cc’s in a Box: Tenology

Seeing the band performing songs from their first two albums (10cc and Sheet Music, respectively) hardly would seem all that impressive were it not for the impeccably crafted songs themselves that lovingly honor doo-wop, doomed lover, and jailhouse rock’n’roll traditions. Sly wordplay abounds in nearly all the songs captured in this collection, as does the stellar musicianship for which the band seldom receives enough recognition.

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Bloated Winter Movies: Do You Want That Blockbuster Supersized?

January 9, 2013
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Bloated Winter Movies: Do You Want That Blockbuster Supersized?

It's too bad for film critics that they don't draw an hourly wage, what with the recent spate of reeeeeaaaalllly looooong movies. What they're missing is plot, character development, suspense, good taste, etc., Bruce Walker writes. . . .

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‘Promised Land’: Big Oil Propaganda Film Fails Screenwriting 101

January 7, 2013
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‘Promised Land’: Big Oil Propaganda Film Fails Screenwriting 101

The big reveal in 'Promised Land' comes in the opening credits, when Image Nation Abu Dhabi is listed as a producer. Follow the money. The anti-fracking message that follows is an international conspiracy against the U.S. domestic natural gas industry by Hollywood and the oil-rich United Emirates. I'm only half-joking about the conspiracy part, but when a Middle Eastern company helps fund a movie that throws its natural-resource competitor under the bus you do have to wonder just a bit. Especially since the film was…

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Killing Time Lamely—Brad Pitt’s Anti-Capitalist Mess

December 7, 2012
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Killing Time Lamely—Brad Pitt’s Anti-Capitalist Mess

Your humble writer's parents used to employ the phrase, "the height of laziness," whenever they perceived sloppy execution of household tasks, farm chores, or homework. If either of them had taken up criticism as a vocation, they would've applied that phrase to 'Killing Them Softly,' a Brad Pitt vehicle abounding with artistic laziness. A film noir of sorts, 'Killing Them Softly' attempts an analogy between the bad actors responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown and criminals of every rank and social standing in a film…

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Graham Parker’s Rumour Reunion and Abortion Anthem

November 20, 2012
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Graham Parker’s Rumour Reunion and Abortion Anthem

It’s been 35 years or so since your writer was introduced to the glorious amalgamation of rock, soul, and reggae put forth by Graham Parker and the Rumour, and my passion for the singer/songwriter and his backup band hasn’t waned since they released their last album together 32 years ago. That said, it’s been a wild ride ever since – Parker subsequently issued several good solo albums and at least four or five that can be considered great or even “classic” whatever that means in…

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Director’s Cliched Progressive Politics Delayed Release of ‘Lincoln’

November 19, 2012
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Director’s Cliched Progressive Politics Delayed Release of ‘Lincoln’

Until recently, it was a mystery as to why Steven Spielberg could never successfully pull the trigger on a truly great dramatic picture. Until October that is, when he premiered 'Lincoln' at the New York Film Festival. As it turns out, the reason is quite simple - the guy's not a deep thinker. A capably talented maker of action-adventure movies (if readers forget 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull') to be sure, but someone who daydreamed about reanimated dinosaurs and aliens during history and social studies…

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Spielberg’s Incomplete Lincoln

November 9, 2012
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Spielberg’s Incomplete Lincoln

Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln' shows the nation's sixteenth president as a war president who broke the back of slavery, but also a roguish pol who reveled in duplicity, skullduggery, and chicanery. Regrettably, Spielberg presents these aforementioned warts as presidential strengths rather than weaknesses. Say what you will about the lofty goal of correcting a glaring human-rights oversight of the Founding Fathers, the film begs the question of whether the admirable ends justified the underhanded means. No matter that the fixers are a lovable bunch of rascals…

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Review: ‘Sheer Joy in Detroit’ a Delight

August 23, 2012
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Review: ‘Sheer Joy in Detroit’ a Delight

I'm always on the lookout for books and poetry related to Michigan, and I chanced upon 'Sheer Joy in Detroit' this past weekend. I was attracted to the tale set in my old stomping grounds where I once toiled as an ink-stained wretch for the automotive industry, worked at the Detroit Athletic Club (the setting for a crucial scene in the novel), and witnessed firsthand the devastation of the once-great city of Detroit and many of the family businesses that once thrived there. 'Sheer Joy'…

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Elia Kazan Reconsidered

June 28, 2012
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Elia Kazan Reconsidered

Elia Kazan’s body of work says a lot about the costs of freedom in the 20th century.

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Sorkin’s ‘The Newsroom’: Major Snooze

June 27, 2012
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Sorkin’s ‘The Newsroom’: Major Snooze

HBO's new series, The Newsroom, begins promisingly enough with nods to both Alfred Hitchcock and Paddy Chayefsky.But from clever allusions to Vertigo and Network, the series pilot on Sunday night quickly succumbs to the weight of its own pretensions, violations of the show's own internal logic, and a tired recycling of writer Aaron Sorkin's West Wing, platitude-spewing themes.

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Disappointing Look at an American Poet

May 4, 2012
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Disappointing Look at an American Poet

If you’re a culture vulture as I am, you don’t often associate Michigan with poetry, and when you do it’s either fairly dreadful stuff like Edgar Guest or far removed from personal experience such as Thomas Lynch or Philip Levine. It is true several transplants have wound up in Michigan by happenstance, including academic hires such as John Ciardi and Richard Tillinghast. Homegrown Jim Harrison is a poet, but is better known for his fiction and essays.That leaves Saginaw’s own Theodore Roethke, a groundbreaking “deep…

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