When Joe Quesada, writer and illustrator of comic books, went to work as a freelance contractor for Marvel Comics three years ago, he found the so-called House of Ideas in ruin. The comic-book industry was, as Quesada recalls, “going down the toilet”: Every month, 10 to 15 percent of readers…
Heaven and Hell have long been subjects for human speculation, but when it comes to fiction, let’s face it: Perfection isn’t very interesting, and Hell wins hands down. Writers love going to Hell; it’s dramatic, dangerous, and sometimes funny. Witness the production at Fort Lauderdale’s Sol Theatre of Hell on…
If they teach the work of Todd Solondz someday, assuming he’s not already in the curriculum somewhere, the lectures are bound to be rather short. To grasp the material without actually attending, just bone up on a little bargain-basement Freud, a whiff of primal therapy, and a sprinkle of Jerry…
Miguel Piñero was poet, playwright, and actor — and thief, liar, and junkie. If everyone has within them a mix of the beautiful and the ugly, few of us have either to the extremes Piñero did. He was in Sing Sing by his early twenties, the iconic leader of New…
To put a curse on someone, insult them, or complain up a storm, there’s no better language than Yiddish. The 1000-year-old tongue, perpetually in danger of dying, boasts colorful expressions such as “six feet under baking bagels,” which means a person is in an untenable situation, or “don’t knock me…
Perhaps the most compelling question of our time has nothing to do with terrorists, civil liberties, or the economy. What we all secretly wonder is whether teen pop divas Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are really virgins or sluts, right? The singers’ image-makers do their best to confuse us. Britney…
It’s a little-discussed but obvious fact that the movie business is not interested in women over age 40. Not only do statistics show miserable labor stats for mature actresses, but there are precious few films that target older female movie fans. This may be, as many assert, a symptom of…
Nobody can argue there’s something distinctly odd about New Orleans, Louisiana. There’s Mardi Gras, the yearly bacchanal possibly unrivaled around the world, where girls gone wild get captured on video in many mammary-revealing moments. There’s frightening foodie and short-lived sitcom star Emeril Lagasse. But New Orleans also is a city…
Exhibit A. Time: May 1927. Scene: Groundbreaking for a synagogue. Action: Two city managers silently mouth some presumably inspirational words to the assembled multitude — women and baby girls in bonnets, men and boys in white shirts with ties, a (mostly) solemn troop of Boy Scouts — after which beefy…
Talk long enough with any television exec over 55, and sooner or later he’ll get around to mentioning the La Brea Tar Pits, that enormous shimmering stinkhole in Los Angeles where the liquefied remains of some 660 species of organisms still burble. These old-timers, with skin light brown and pockets…
A positive sign in South Florida’s stage scene is the vitality of its fringe community, individual artists and tiny companies that create a range of intriguing, unique projects. But much of this flies under the radar of the major media and most theatergoers; searching out this kind of show takes…
Pop Art is not only not art … it is not even bad art,” wrote Barbara Rose, a well-known critic and curator, in 1965. Pop Art was never a critic’s movement, but it became the most popular art movement in American history. It happened because Pop Art showed something about…
David Poland is huddled with his cell phone, cinching the deal on one more film. The new director of the FIU Miami Film Festival thought he’d lost Chicken Rice War, a version of Romeo and Juliet set among Singapore food stands. The quirky romantic comedy won the audience award at…
Enjoying the sensual dance of a striptease artist, you’re not likely to think, What a fabulous cardiovascular and toning workout! But the folks at Crunch gyms do. With Cardio Striptease, they’ve blended flirty gestures, sexy gyrations, graceful body caresses, and a low-impact exercise routine designed to elicit the bold and…
Tammy Faye just won’t go away. And that seems just fine with us. The heavily-made-up Praise the Lord Broadcasting/Heritage U.S.A. queen who cried her way into the hearts of the American public in the Eighties as wife of wayward televangelist Jim Bakker, sometime singer, and star of the documentary The…
“In vino, veritas” goes the Latin saying: “In wine, truth” — the idea being that what may be suppressed in everyday life will come to light after a few drinks. The ancient Athenians went so far as to legalize this belief for a time: In critical votes citizens voted twice,…
Jill Waterman’s idea to photograph New Year’s celebrations began in Paris on a whim in 1984, while she was studying at the university. Since then it has evolved considerably and after nineteen years is well on its way to becoming one of the longest-running solo photo projects in the history…
It should be so easy to hate this man sitting on a couch in a high-priced hotel suite, this man sharing his bottle of Evian. He is, after all, a demon dressed head to toe (or tail?) in slate gray, the Satan of Cinema. Attacking him has long been regular…
Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, based on reporter Mark Bowden’s factual account of a 1993 U.S. Army operation gone dreadfully awry in Somalia, doesn’t just kick your ass. It pummels your entire body; it leaves you trembling. Once the premise and setting are established, this brutal combat adventure doesn’t catch…
So you won the disco-dance contest at your best friend’s bar mitzvah, you electric slide in your sleep, and you can salsa and merengue with every Hispanic around. Are you a dancing fool searching for a new groove to master? How about a little dabkeh? Dabkeh, you ask? That’s right…
Light and strong, aluminum historically has been considered one heavy metal. Abundant but lodged in the Earth’s crust and virtually unreachable, the element had to be isolated before it could be removed. This occurred around 1845, and the metal finally showed its shiny, exotic face at the Paris Exhibition of…
Who would have guessed that 31 years after M*A*S*H, the film that made Robert Altman’s reputation, he would still be turning out movies as good as his latest release, Gosford Park? Full of the director’s usual energy, powered by the sense of controlled chaos that marks all of his ensemble…
