Flyin’ West: Set in 1898, Flyin’ West follows three black sisters who’ve left the South and struck out on their own, settling in Nicodemus, Kansas. The hardships of freedom and independence are compounded by their struggle to protect themselves from white speculators trying to buy their land and splinter their…
Every Atom: Natalia Benedetti’s new work might be considered an offspring of Warhol’s marathon Empire State Building film, but amped-up by technology and a hefty NoDoz factor. In Benedetti’s take, a lazy exterior shot of a glass-walled apartment building on Biscayne Bay, endlessly looping in a tight grid, shimmers with…
The six-month intermission is over; those of you left in the lobby, wondering if Uma Thurman ever did kill Bill, may now return to your seats and unbuckle your belts and resume your gorging. Rest assured that Kill Bill Vol. 2, the final half of Quentin Tarantino’s fifth movie, offers…
When the lights first flickered on for Cinema Vortex back in 1993, it was little more than a cool name with the occasional screenings to go with it. Repertory and experimental art films were its trade, playing to small audiences of mostly hard-core cinephiles. The event chugged along in the…
Here’s a subject with which no one should ever have to grapple: Is this new version of The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane as the comic-book assassin, better than the 1989 adaptation with Dolph Lundgren? They both offer slight variations on a tale first told in a 1974 Spider-Man comic, where…
When we first see the title characters of Connie and Carla, a penny-dreadful imitation of one of Hollywood’s most inimitable comedies, they are loud-mouthed junior high girls mugging in the school cafeteria. A minute later, they are loud-mouthed grownups (well, they’re the size of grownups) screaming out show tunes in…
What’s on your mind, crocodile? Where have you been, Mr. Owl? How’s your cholesterol, Flipper? If your curiosity about wild creatures and their habitats keeps you up at night, you might need to go see them for yourself. Of course, chatting up a croc face-to-face is a daunting proposition. A…
Their official name: The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. The “of Florida” came about in the Nineteenth Century when Euro-Americans waged war on the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes — several times — killing and maiming natives until the tribe was so deep in the Everglades, and so many had…
SUN 4/18 Wings might be rather useless appendages for chickens, but some humans find the paltry poultry parts especially important. This afternoon those people might be seen red-faced, not embarrassed by their love for the blue-collar delicacy but proudly wearing wing sauce as a badge of honor for participating in…
NOW 24/7 For the Southwest Miami Senior High School wrestling team, looks matter. In the same way pop stars morph their images to score popularity points, so does the Eagle squad strategize with hairstyles when it comes to postseason matches. Having placed third overall at the recent state tournament, the…
Retired lawyer Mervyn Aronoff (above) has painted Asian-inspired canvases for more than 20 years and has rented a studio at the Bakehouse for the last 5, citing the availability of “nice, reasonable space.” Admittedly surprised at the neighborhood’s resurgence, Aronoff is especially glad he joined the community now. “I feel…
WED 4/21 Do you hear the thundering horde in the distance? GWAR is coming. Are you prepared to be massacred? Well, not in the way you might think. The GWAR (short for God What an Awful Racket) collective is rock band, freaky stage show, art group, and probably a half-dozen…
Thursday 4/15 Anatole Litvak’s 1939 film Confessions of a Nazi Spy, a thriller starring Edward G. Robinson as a G-man investigating Nazi cells in the homeland, got so many people nervous that Warner Bros. execs had to testify before a U.S. Senate hearing investigating “warmongering.” Regarded as the first anti-Nazi…
Be thankful for small theaters. While the larger companies in South Florida cater to conventional tastes, the tiny troupes fill out the menu with an array of riskier, challenging programming. Fort Lauderdale’s Sol Theatre has made risk-taking a fundamental company rule. Tony Priddy and Robert Hooker’s cheeky crew debuted in…
The Homestead Act of 1862 inspired large groups of former slaves to leave the South following the Civil War and create a number of all-black towns in America’s wide-open Midwest and West. Many of those settlers were unmarried or widowed women who operated their own farms and ranches. Set in…
The issue of Latin American art — what it is and whether our city is a center for it — comes up in Miami’s art circles almost daily. In truth Miami — for better or worse — feels like a Latin American city within the United States. But we are…
Appalachia: Overloaded with just way too much, Gean Moreno’s “Appalachia” is more like horror vacui, a reflection of our times. Technically they are (executed as) drawings, but these are more hypercollages with glued bits of everything you can imagine: tiny trinkets, diverse stamps, laced curios, motley paper surfaces that offer…
When writer Margaret Atwood looks into the future, it’s never good. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women in a totalitarian society are only valued for their fertility. Now in Oryx and Crake, Snowman — ranting, wrapped in a bedsheet — may be all that remains of the human race. Before the…
If Miami is a hand, the Miami River is its lifeline. Although its actual source is the Everglades, to local yokels, the river’s flow begins at some mysterious point behind the Pink Pussycat strip joint just east of the airport. From there to its mouth at posh Brickell Point, the…
THU 4/8 Let’s hear it for the great Italian tenors: Pavarotti, Caruso, Lovano. Huh?! That’s right, music fans, besides the vocal prowess of generations of golden-throated opera singers, the world has also seen its fair share of great Italian tenors of the jazz saxophone variety, for instance Joe Lovano. But…
A Picasso: Art and politics collide in this fictional drama set in Paris during the German occupation. The mysterious Miss Fischer is sent to interrogate the famed Pablo Picasso regarding the authenticity of three paintings left behind by their owners, who have fled the regime. April 13 through May 2…
The most notable thing about The United States of Leland, a youth violence drama from writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge, is its earnestness. This is a film that wants to be good. It wants to mean something, it wants to move you, and it wants to ask (if not answer) some…
