“To Blink” is an exciting show by Argentinean Liliana Porter at Casas Riegner Gallery in the Design District. Porter’s work has a reflective quality about it, which reminds me of early Dutch painting. She adds windows and mirrors, to invade their apparently serene bourgeois interiors. Porter takes up aesthetic and…
This is a story with a happy ending, because, so far, nothing bad has happened to indicate otherwise. There are no ratings to sweat over, no network executives to fight with, no cancellations to suffer through. The rough territories lie ahead, over the horizon of 8:30 p.m. this Sunday, when…
Ever since Amores Perros burst onto the international scene two years ago, Latin American cinema has been experiencing one of the most fertile periods in its history. Encompassing such works as Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También and Walter Salles’s Behind the Sun, these socially conscious, frequently brutal portraits of…
Hitler as artist … Hitler as artist … Damn. So much for the ol’ “summarize plot, tease overpaid actors, pontificate wildly” formula. Reviewing Max — about the wonder years of Der Führer (Noah Taylor) and his eponymous, fictional Jewish benefactor Max Rothman (John Cusack) — looks to be something of…
Who cares if you didn’t get to Hollywood to perform on American Idol? So what if the producers of Are You Hot: The Search for America’s Sexiest People deemed your inner goddess cold, bland, and pretentious? Despite recent rejections, you cling to the conviction — like our favorite jilted reality…
March 6, 2003 Although he didn’t make it as a pop singer, seven-time boxing world champion Oscar de la Hoya is keeping his pretty face in the spotlight. This time he’s sticking close to the ring, the arena that made him famous. Today the young heartthrob super welterweight promotes fights…
Known for its vast collection of cool ephemera, intriguing exhibitions, and engaging presentations that appeal equally to the upper crust and the common man, the Wolfsonian-FIU museum will celebrate itself all over town with A Very Wolfsonian Weekend, seven events designed to raise funds for exhibitions and public programs. And…
In American theater, there’s a long hard road that most successful plays take. At its very start, a playwright gets a script produced somehow, and, with luck, it’s a hit. With some restaging and rewrites and more luck, it moves on to New York City. More luck, more rewrites, and…
This should really piss you off: What follows is a story about a very funny movie you will have absolutely no chance of seeing any time soon. The powers that be who distribute movies–who copy prints, print up posters, deliver them to theaters, collect receipts, split profits (well…)–do not want…
The 2003 Miami International Film Festival is in full swing, with four nights remaining for the marathon run of features, documentaries, and shorts from all over the world. Tonight, however, is the last night to experience “Beachstock,” the series of free screenings on the beach at Nikki Beach: Victor/Victoria, a…
There are fashion victims: people oblivious to the fact their garish outfits make them resemble clowns more than supermodels. And there are fashion victims: people oblivious to the fact that their intense desire to shop for clothes, shoes, and accessories is fed by the media, garment industry, and their own…
February 27, 2003 So you think you have a knack for taking pictures. Wherever you go, images jump out at you and spark your imagination. You see beauty in all places and want to collect those moments that only a photograph can capture. Don’t let the fact that you have…
With a dance department that offers training in forms as diverse as tap and vodou, one can expect a performance titled FIU Dance: Celebrates the Classics! to be far from the pas de deux and promenades that fit the accepted definition of classic. Indeed Florida International University’s spring showcase is…
In Tin Box Boomerang, Ivonne Azurdia’s new play now in production by the Mad Cat Theatre at the Miami Light Project, you will meet a passel of ordinary, flawed characters who seem very real and familiar. Two Mexican-American sisters struggle to make ends meet, living in a beat-up trailer. Their…
Tony Grisoni can always tell when his old friend Terry Gilliam, the visionary who sees too far for his own good, is in pain: He laughs. The worse the pain, the harder the laughter. If that is the case, then the Terry Gilliam seen throughout Lost in La Mancha, Keith…
You will never see an E! True Hollywood Story program about the behind-the-scenes antics of Miami’s finest contribution to television culture, Que Pasa, USA? There will never be a reunion show about this hilarious social farce either. But if ever there were a television show that deserves such attention, it’s…
February 20, 2003 You can live forever. But here’s the deal: You have to spend eternity exclusively on the island of Manhattan. Yikes! The stress of that city might be enough to do away with any immortal, but that is the predicament of reporter/artist Cormac O’Connor, protagonist of illustrious journalist…
Last time we checked in with Clemson, South Carolina-based folk singer/songwriter Carla Ulbrich, she was alive, well, and working too hard: touring the country, writing humorous songs about wedgies and such, and presiding over the Difficult Last Name Club. That was all before her first stroke in January of 2002…
There’s a lot of goodwill out there for this year’s Miami International Film Festival to succeed, and there’s a lot out there this year to see. With 65 features, plus shorts and documentaries — playing at three theaters — you would well deserve an Olympian award if you caught them…
It was supposed to be make-believe, a disturbing but ultimately uplifting work of science-fiction from a celebrated author of grim futurama and glorious fantasy. The subject matter of Orbiter, a hardback graphic novel about a spaceship that disappears for years and returns sheathed in skin after visits to faraway places…
Time was, the great repertoire of classical drama was the mainstay of established New York City and regional theaters. But take a quick look at the season lineups at the nation’s major theaters, and you’ll be hard pressed to spot even a smattering of classics. What happened to the great…
SFCA (South Florida Composers Alliance) is one of the most underrated marvels of Miami. For more than a decade, this organization has presented its annual Subtropics Festival — at number fifteen this year. Artists like Sonny Rollins, John Cage, Don Pullen, Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveiros, and other nonconformists, electronica mavericks,…
