On November 4, some 1,800 television personalities–actors, writers, producers, show-runners, network executives–will, finally, parade into a Los Angeles theater to award their peers and themselves for a job well done. They will, at long last, hand out the golden statues known as Emmy, just as it has been done every…
In more than a few ways, producing live theater is akin to staging a military campaign, involving rapidly changing logistical considerations of time and personnel and never enough money. Generals must marshal their limited resources, placing assets where they will be the most effective. That also is the way it…
The air of danger that surrounds Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl (À Ma Soeur) never lets up, which is unusual for a film that doesn’t mean to be a thriller. Rather it’s a merciless look at adolescent insecurity, the mixed signals of emerging desire, and the ruthlessness of carnal gamesmanship that,…
Not long ago you could look and look and look for revivals, and the screen would remain blank. No more. Apocalypse Now Redux pulled in large crowds, and The Wide Blue Road also did well. Re-releases of classics from Fellini, Godard, and Melville are planned for the next couple of…
Where ghosts are, Linda Spitzer usually follows. Neither parapsychologist nor a ghostbuster, Spitzer is a storyteller of long standing who has entertained South Floridians all over town. The self-described “ghost maven of Miami” founded the Miami Storytellers Guild in 1990. But she is best-known locally for her nearly eight-year stint…
Where is the epicenter of live theater in South Florida? There are several contenders, but none can top Coral Gables, with five professional companies in residence. If you toss in the Coconut Grove Playhouse, just down the road, and City Stage, which books the University of Miami theater in the…
The still life is probably most famous in its nineteenth-century form: assorted fruits on a plate, next to a wine bottle, and a terra cotta figurine on top of the mantelpiece. Cezanne’s image of nature, or simply an example of bourgeois décor? But the history of still life goes back…
Two weeks ago, it would have been possible to use the name of the man interviewed below; indeed, it would have been expected, as he is no mere “spokesman,” the only identifier by which he is to be referred. Two weeks ago, it would have been possible to point out…
What is pornography? If someone can give me a workable definition, I’d have a better handle on Baise-Moi (Rape Me), a new French film about two women on the run that contains extreme violence and hard-core sex. Apparently the French government was shocked by this film and banned it as…
Ask David Lynch and he will tell you apple-pie America just isn’t what it seems. People behave strangely, sometimes violently, and sometimes they even transform into different people without being polite enough to warn you first. Eerie and freaky, shot through with sporadic bursts of humor and sex, Mulholland Drive…
Amazing how some buildings can look truly hideous in the daytime, while by the light of the moon or artificial illumination they are suddenly remade into ethereal works of art. Some structures, says architect, architectural historian, and Brown University professor Dietrich Neumann, are actually designed to look especially dazzling at…
On October 3, there appeared in The New York Times an article about how movie studios are struggling to find new villains in a post-September 11 environment. Writer Rick Lyman rounded up the usual suspects: a few film producers, a couple of screenwriters and the requisite amount of film scholars,…
One of the toughest decisions in my job is choosing which show to cover. Given the amount of theatrical activity in South Florida, there just is not enough room to review every show. This week, though, the choice was easy: I was going to New York. My long-time friend and…
The Italian film Bread and Tulips is a first cousin once removed of the American comedy Home Alone. A tremendous hit in Italy (it won nine Donatello Awards last year, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars), it concerns a woman who, on a bus holiday with her family, accidentally gets…
In the new low-budget indie comedy Haiku Tunnel, former temporary office worker Josh Kornbluth plays “Josh Kornbluth,” a temporary office worker who, early in the film, faces a premature midlife crisis: whether to stay a temp or “go perm.” After great hesitation the company makes him an offer he can’t…
He was born blind in one eye. She used to be a fashion model in the swinging Sixties. Both were unlikely candidates to spend a good part of their lives behind a camera, but Albert Watson and Sarah Moon became, of all things, photographers. Looking at the world through a…
“May he rest in peace,” were the ominous words in the subject line of the e-mail North Miami art gallery owner Genaro Ambrosino sent on September 17. The “he” referred to Michael Richards, Ambrosino’s friend and one of the artists he represented. Only a week before, Richards had been sculpting…
A few weeks ago, in the wake of the unfathomable events that had unfolded in New York City, novelist Jonathan Franzen found himself with poet Maya Angelou, journalist David Halberstam, and writer Bebe Moore Campbell being interviewed by Ted Koppel on ABC television. Early in the program, the usually well-informed…
Before he was editor in chief at Marvel Comics–which, by all rights, makes him the man who tells Spider-Man what he can do with himself and the X-Men where to go–Joe Quesada illustrated a comic book titled Ash. The title did not last long; there was, perhaps, little market for…
Amid warehouses and train tracks on NE Flagler in Fort Lauderdale, the new Sol Theatre Project’s neon logo lights up the dark night like a cheery inn. The interior space is disarming. With a bookcase crammed with scripts, a large-mouthed bass mounted over a window, mismatched couches, and stuffed chairs,…
Together is the second feature from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, whose 1998 Fucking Amal was shown here two years ago under the title Show Me Love, renamed for obvious reasons. Together is an ensemble piece — a sharp, perceptive look at a Swedish commune in a suburb of Stockholm, circa…
Ah, the backstage show-biz story. A classic movie genre. Think Bullets over Broadway, think Shakespeare in Love, think The Producers. Seen one, seen ’em all, you say? Consider this real-life scenario: A musical director from India plans to produce an Italian opera in Italy. He asks a Chinese director to…
