Only a couple of months ago, it looked as though Donald Miller had a publishing home run on his hands–a thoughtful, exhilarating, inclusive book about World War II scheduled to hit stores just as Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ Band of Brothers was finishing its critically lauded run on HBO…
It takes a nimble mind to mix light and dark, to wed humor with treachery, and in Novocaine newcomer David Atkins is not always up to the task. Neither is Steve Martin, who wants to be taken seriously while reserving the right to produce the occasional sick yuk. If you…
As those of us forced to fashion a clear, convincing, and even entertaining story out of a scant 400 or so words know well, it’s damn tough! Imagine then writing an entire play — comedy, drama, musical — that lasts less than twenty minutes. Can’t be done, you scoff? Tell…
A rocket blasts off, leaving a thick white cloud of smoke in its wake. A small private plane ascends from a faceless runway. “The Twentieth Century has produced a new man. A man on the move, curious, alert, with his eyes on the stars and his feet solidly on the…
The heroine of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s bold and bracing new comedy, Amelie, is Amélie Poulain, a doe-eyed crusader with the face of a porcelain doll and a sleek helmet of jet-black hair. From her high perch in Montmartre, where she works as a café waitress, Amélie secretly resolves to emancipate all…
Joel and Ethan Coen’s periodic genuflections to classic Hollywood are inevitably accompanied by a knowing wink from one brother and a wry smile from the other. These devoted movie buffs’ versions of vintage gangster pictures (Miller’s Crossing) or the populist comedies of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges (The Hudsucker Proxy)…
“I look at history as a current event, and everyone fulfills a historical role,” offers Heru, named for the terrible redeemer, the hawklike watcher of his ancient Egyptian ancestry. “What interests people is not necessarily what they’re hearing at the moment, it’s the possibility of what they might hear in…
Notorious for their stuffy reputations, most classical music conductors can’t claim to have their own Website, let alone even know what the Internet is. Marin Alsop is different. Her easy-to-read site (marinalsop.com) features her bio, lists her credits and recordings, plus offers pictures, reviews, schedules, and even contact information. “Pretty…
Think of modern Broadway comedies and Neil Simon immediately springs to mind. The prolific and popular playwright spans four decades of American theater with no fewer than 28 plays and musicals produced on Broadway. And at age 74, he shows no signs of letting up; his Forty Five Seconds from…
In the theater world as in society, a happy few are much more fortunate than the rest. Consider the prosperous and respected Florida Stage. Now entering its fifteenth season, the Stage is blessed with a lovely facility (a 250-seat thrust theater with excellent sightlines), critical acclaim (22 Carbonell nominations for…
Natalie Merchant finished recording her third solo album, Motherland, on September 9, so by no means should anyone listen to the disc’s first song, “This House Is On Fire,” and think it has anything to do with hijacked airplanes, collapsed skyscrapers and the thousands buried beneath the rubble. The song…
If you’re a college freshman, don’t read this. Just grab your newfound peers and go see Richard Linklater’s new movie, Waking Life, then head off to one of those ethereal late-night dining establishments for which you’ll desperately pine once the real world gets ahold of you. Discuss. For others this…
The stateside success of Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, and Salma Hayek got the folks at Venevision International to thinking: Why let Hollywood make all the money off great Spanish-speaking actors? Instead of importing movie stars, why not import entire movies? Not those grim arthouse bores made for miniscule audiences but…
Call architect Norman Giller the man who made MIMo. Of course in 1949 when he was designing buildings such as the first ever two-story motel, Sunny Isles’ Ocean Palm, the last thing on his mind was what style he was utilizing. “Styles are something that historians give to architecture,” says…
When Murray Moss, owner of the seven-year-old SoHo boutique called moss, talks shop, it’s a bit different than a typical New York City storekeeper. Perhaps that’s because moss is not your ordinary store. The 7000-square-foot space boasts white walls and sleek glass-fronted display cases that show off lamps, candleholders, cutlery,…
There cannot be man, woman, child or beast alive who does not know that on November 6, Fox will debut its new series 24. Long before the fall season was to begin, it had already been appointed the most anticipated and beloved show of the year–by critics who had seen…
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl: the classic model for romantic comedy and drama. According to Rebecca Gilman, it’s also the prescription for obsessive stalking. Gilman, an up-and-coming playwright with a penchant for issue-oriented suspense, has served up a hyperrealistic portrait of one woman’s nightmare in the…
My art chronicle begins on a rainy Friday night, on my way to Ambrosino Gallery in North Miami. Upon arrival I don’t find too many people, but those there are staunch art lovers. In spite of the rain, they gather by the door. “The less people there are at exhibits,”…
Revolutionary times have always been tempting backdrops for film stories. Some are fictional epics set against a historical backdrop (Dr. Zhivago, The Year of Living Dangerously). In these there’s plenty of personal drama, love, and thrills, with the historical setting essentially background to the fictional derring-do. An alternative approach is…
A Miami fundraiser that asks attendees to dress down instead of up, that replaces dining and dancing with digging and planting? That’s so wacky it just might work. And, in fact, it does. Last year 2500 corporate and individual volunteers pitched in at 25 sites for the sixth annual Hands…
“This was the mecca of Yiddish culture other than New York in this country,” says David Weintraub, executive director of the Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture, offering a surprising fact about Miami and explaining why Teitelboim — a Yiddish poet, activist, and labor organizer, who lived from 1914 to…
You don’t have to open a vein to give at this Red Cross benefit, just your wallet (and bargain seats are available). The first annual South Florida Dance for Life, an offshoot of Chicago’s successful AIDS/HIV fundraiser that originated in 1992, will transfuse the local dance scene while raising funds…
