To hear Alejandro Rios, director of Miami-Dade College’s Festival of Alternative Cuban Cinema, tell it, the world is obsessed with the island nation. Perhaps it’s a universal case of rubbernecking, or else the tropical glamour spot of old has retained its sexy cachet in our collective imaginations. Rios, a media…
When we last heard from perpetually active married couple Maud Dillingham and Cesar Becerra, it was December 31, 1999, and they were rolling into Miami in their flag-festooned 1979 Chevy Malibu Classic station wagon, after logging about 50,000 miles on a road trip across the United States they called Motoring…
NOW 24/7 “Don’t turn right on Grand,” insists the passenger as the car hits the intersection of Grand Avenue and McDonald Street in Coconut Grove. To the left are the drunks and the din of CocoWalk. To the right lies that amorphous entity known as the West Grove. The Black…
SAT 9/20 Go, go, speed racer. Go before the checkered flags fall on the winners in what is fast becoming an annual episode of race fever in the Magic City. Billed as Race Week Miami, an array of activities has been scheduled around the upcoming full-throttled Super Boat International National…
THUR 9/18 Excuse us, but where the hell has Grover been? You know, the blue Muppet with the big round head, skinny body and limbs, and unidentifiable accent. A popular fixture on the kiddie show Sesame Street for many years, Grover, overshadowed by newbies like Zoe, Rosita, and the third-person-obsessed…
FRI 9/19 Remember the good old days when our greatest fear was not terrorists but communists? Compared with what’s gone on in the world lately, domestic agitators like the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers seem almost innocuous these days. Our preferred kick-ass activist of the past? Angela Davis. She…
SUN 9/21 Yeah, baby! She began as an icon in swinging ’60s London; had a nude scene in Michelangelo Antonioni’s controversial film Blowup; lived in Paris with her incomparably hip husband, musician Serge Gainsbourg; and was immortalized as the breathy vocalist in the scandalously sexy song “Je T’aime Moi Non…
One of the lamentable aspects of modern American society is the absence of political discourse in public life. “Never talk about politics or religion” goes the old saw, and Americans don’t, as a rule, do so in social contexts, and they often go ballistic when artists get political. Apparently being…
Thursday 9/18 Born in Haiti, photographer Carl Juste (at the Miami Herald since 1991) has seen the world through his lens, covering events in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, to name a few countries, and racking up prestigious prizes such as the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. See a varied selection…
God bless Johnny Depp. For the second time this year, the man has almost single-handedly redeemed an action movie that would otherwise be indistinguishable from the pack. Introduced right up front in Robert Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico, he’s first seen dressed up like Prince in purple glasses…
It’s no given that audiences will embrace a passionately homosexual, drug-abusing male prostitute-cum-drag-queen, especially if he happens not to be a particularly nice person to boot. The cinematic tale of Madame Satã, however, has two big points in its favor. One — the most obvious one — is a dynamite…
What does it take to turn heads in downtown Miami and South Beach? Beautiful people, wayward celebrities, and crazy politics are all part of the fabric of local civilization that compete for attention. It would have to be something unusual. Something big. Something amphibious? That might not sound impressive, but…
Thursday 9/11 It goes without saying that the world has changed since the horrific events that happened on this date two years ago. The day will be full of memorials, but none so dramatic as the minutes in which the two planes slammed into the World Trade Center. In remembrance…
South Beach is famous for its frenzied and bootylicious nightlife, its beaches and all-out debauchery. The profile is brought to life on any given holiday weekend as the place erupts with pleasure-seekers from all over the world. Unfortunately one claim to fame is often ignored by glossy travel brochures and…
MON 9/15 It’s no secret that life in Haiti can be a serious struggle. Five years ago, Monique “Maman Carole” Bartoli set up an orphanage and charitable foundation dedicated to helping children in poverty, to assisting the elderly, and to developing Haitian communities. Working in memory of her father, a…
SAT 9/13 Labor Day is a joke. Supposedly it’s the end of summer. Theoretically it’s time to unpack sweaters and look toward the fall — all that stuff. But not here. In Miami it’s still steamy, hot, and wet. Cooler temperatures won’t hit us for another two months or so…
SUN 9/14 For centuries classical music and dance were thought understandable only to the informed senses of the elite classes. But it’s not wealth or social position that makes an educated music lover — it’s access. Now in its 18th season, Sunday Afternoons of Music for Children brings reasonably priced…
THUR 9/11 The Taliban’s fiercest opponent and a man known to his followers as the Lion of Panjshir was killed by a suicide bomber just 2 days before the attacks on September 11. Ahmad Shah Massoud was the charismatic leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance who battled for the liberation of…
SAT 9/13 I smell trouble, or is that roast pig and caipirinhas? Whatever the source, mix enough Brazilians into a really big party and you’re bound to have trouble keeping a lid on the affair. And this is no ordinary party, but the 3rd annual Miami Beach Luau, featuring the…
Local theater fans have often griped about the state of the stage here in South Florida, and readers of this column will recognize me as one of that disgruntled crew. Despite the wide array of local theater companies, the choice of shows tends to run a narrow gamut from lightweight…
What a difference two years can make. It has been that long (that short, really) since the Sol Theatre of Fort Lauderdale made its debut with a lively but rather shallow production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, an opening gambit that was brave if overly ambitious. Since then the Sol has…
Barbey d’Aurevilly, a French dandy of the Nineteenth Century, used to say that everything has a minor version. So here there are art galleries and then those other ubiquitous establishments set in every little mall in Miami — the so-called frame galleries. In some you may find almost everything except…
