Monday June 30 Even if you don’t have golden tresses you can still be a blonde today on National Blonde Day. According to the Blonde Legal Defense Club, an advocacy group that fights discrimination and stereotypes, a sunny disposition combined with go-getter ambition and a supremely positive outlook defines what…
Thursday June 26 What could be cooler than a cultured gathering of young sexy urbanites sipping martinis by a pool after work? The Bass Museum is arranging such a fete when its ArtCrowd, a group of young professionals who donate to the museum and those who love them, sets up…
Never mind the calendar; summer arrives in South Florida when City Theatre rolls out its annual festival of short plays, “Summer Shorts 2003.” Now in its eighth year, this well-produced, stylish event has become a part of the area’s social scene as well as a highlight of the theater season…
Art can redeem the world,” writes Schiller in his Aesthetic Education of Man. I take his motto to mediate art and politics, as a means to show, not necessarily what is true or false, right or wrong, but other important shades in between. Art is powerful because it deals with…
The hero of Ken Loach’s Sweet Sixteen is an isolated teenager mired in a gray Scottish slum with only a vague dream of family life to sustain him. Like previous Loach heroes — the impoverished boy who finds hope training a falcon in Kes, say, or the downtrodden working stiff…
The number of boring, uninspired studio pictures hitting today’s multiplexes is getting depressing. To add insult to injury, many of these mind-numbing creations come from formerly — and presumably still — talented writers, directors, and actors. Last week saw Hollywood Homicide, a tired — and what’s, worse, lazy — buddy-buddy/cop/action…
No matter on which side of the border you sit, it’s a bit uncomfortable to hear the small mustachioed Mexicano in Herod’s Law tell the tall gringo, “Don’t worry, we Mexicans are men of our word.” As any fan of old Westerns knows, the lying, scheming Mexican is as much…
Characterized by fervent stomping and virile poses, the farruca is a macho flamenco dance with origins in Galician popular culture. Manolete, the world-renowned flamenco dancer and long-reigning farruca king who first performed it in 1983, has described its manly moves as “very daring.” A risk-taker, who is nonetheless known for…
The first thing to remember if you want to tell a joke successfully is the joke itself. Nothing kills a funny tale faster than having the teller read it from a crib note. You have to feel it. Also, if you’re going to tell an Irish joke you better say…
Now 24/7 “Summer time is our special time,” claims the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau Web page plugging Summer Festival Season, its new marketing campaign co-sponsored with the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority. Seems Miami in the off season is about more than just cheapo Euro tourists showing…
Friday June 20 You haven’t been successful at blocking out your children’s plaintive wailing, meaning you’re well aware that the latest Harry Potter book goes on sale precisely at midnight. You’ll have to purchase the book anyway, so why not surprise them with a trip to the magical land of…
Saturday 6/21 Sure, New Englanders have their striking autumn colors, but we have vibrant Royal Poincianas. In its 66th year the Royal Poinciana Fiesta, Miami’s oldest continuously running festival, fills Fairchild Tropical Garden (10901 Old Cutler Rd., Coral Gables). The event begins at 10:00 a.m. with a tree-cultivation and care…
Saturday June 21 The cockatoos have yet to strap on their little roller skates or jump on their tiny bicycles for your amusement at the new Watson Island incarnation of Parrot Jungle, now dubbed Parrot Jungle Island. The official grand opening is a week away. Nevertheless a variety of fundraising…
Wednesday June 25 To 35 million Argentineans battered by high unemployment, tumbling governments, and economic turmoil, pop star Diego Torres has been the sole defender of hope. Last year, “Color Esperanza,” his optimistic ode in which he sings, “I know we can do it/I want us to do it/Get rid…
Thursday June 19 From refugee smuggling to gangland murders to church bake sales, something newsworthy is always happening in Miami. And photojournalists have always been among the first to arrive to document an event. Today the Historical Museum of Southern Florida (101 W. Flagler St.) pays homage to the shutterbugs…
Of all the stage companies in South Florida, the Edge Theatre is perhaps the best named. Jim Tommaney’s ragtag outfit has survived for many years on the far fringes of the local theater scene and his choice of programming is almost always sharp and provocative. The literate, Ivy-educated Tommaney is…
The emotional, even healing, power of music is only one of the themes that interests acclaimed Chinese director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine, Temptress Moon) in his beautiful new film, Together. Other, equally important concerns include father-son relationships and the way China, in its headlong pursuit of modernization, is abandoning…
Talk about your insanely ambitious projects: Filmmaker Jacques Perrin got it in his head to record, on film, the many varieties of annual migration to be found in the avian world. Animal actors in general are tough enough, but birds in particular are recalcitrant and skittish subjects, particularly when they’re…
French putz Xavier (Romain Duris) is depressed. The poor guy lives in Paris, has Amélie’s Audrey Tautou as a girlfriend, eats gourmet vegan dinners prepared for him by his free-spirited mother, and is being set up for a graduate degree in economics by a friend of his father’s. “I don’t…
Like a contact improvisation piece that stretches over two decades, the Florida Dance Festival has morphed and sprung into new dimensions over its 25-year life span. With Sunday’s opening of Giovanni Luquini’s Slices, the festival kicks off its silver anniversary season — one that attests to its relevance and commitment…
The history of film in America is incomplete if it omits African Americans. Not playing servants or clowns. But actors in every role, directors, writers, and producers, for blacks had a cinema of their own that developed concurrently with the rise of Hollywood. “Close-Up in Black: African-American Film Posters,” a…
Sunday June 15 She may look happy when she body-slams her tonnage onto a pool of water, but deep inside, Lolita, the hardest-working killer whale in Miami, is suffering. At least that’s what the growing throng of activists who line the entrance to the Miami Seaquarium believe. Ever since she…
