Sometimes small movies are just that. Not artsy. Not gritty. Not cutting-edge. Not chancy. Not distinctive. Not great. Not terrible. Just small. The Crude Oasis is small by design. Small in scope, small in budget, small in emotional impact. Writer-director-producer Alex Graves apparently figured he’d avert risk by keeping everything…
We take language for granted. Only when circumstances limit our use of it do we appreciate how it defines us. Think of the effort required to communicate basic needs when traveling in a foreign country. Or how it feels to sit among colleagues or friends who speak rapidly in a…
“Astonishing.” “Haunting.” “Riveting.” “Darkly funny.” “Remarkable.” Those are some of the words critics at other newspapers around the country have been using to describe the extraordinary documentary Crumb, director Terry Zwigoff’s painfully candid portrait of his friend, legendary underground cartoonist and world-class misanthrope Robert (better known as “R.”) Crumb. To…
Last week I fretted that a nice, small film such as A Pure Formality would get lost in the stampede of ticket buyers in the throes of Batfever. I was half-right. Over the weekend of June 23-25, A Pure Formality registered as a mere blip on the winged rodent’s radar…
For skeptics who have been predicting the death of theater since the advent of film and television, the rise of virtual reality and the fall of public funding for the arts seem like nails in theater’s coffin. Certainly, South Florida experienced its share of attrition this past season: Miami Actor’s…
The term “Haitian art” inevitably evokes several enduring cliches, manifested in images of quaint island landscapes painted by self-taught artists, “primitive” personifications of Vodou gods, and “derivative” works executed in expressionist or figurative styles. As with art from Africa, art from Haiti traditionally has defied Eurocentric notions of originality and…
Amazing, really, the similarities between the brooding superhero of Batman Forever and the Priscilla-meets-Woodstock inhabitants of the documentary Wigstock: The Movie. Start with the obvious parallel: Batman patrols the mean streets of Gotham City in a tight batsuit that exaggerates his padded muscles; Wigstock’s drag queens strut their stuff in…
Well, Batman did it again. Swooped down just in time to save the day. An aura of resignation had started to permeate the superhero’s stomping grounds. (Gotham City? Get real. We’re talkin’ Hollywood, babe.) Just as surely as he dispatched nefarious supervillains Two-Face and the Riddler, the Caped Crusader laid…
Like the veteran gambler who frequents the racetrack or the casino in the hope of this time hitting it big, seasoned theatergoers return to the theater faithfully anticipating a win. And every once in a while, among the duds, the disappointments, and the well-intended productions — even among the energetic,…
What summer movie season would be complete without at least one film based on a Michael Crichton novel? Welcome to Congo, a shamelessly derivative jungle adventure that attempts to cross Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark with King Kong but ultimately feels more like a bad Tarzan movie…
The South Beach Film Festival presents a juried showcase for small independent films (made-in-the-U.S.A. offerings predominate) that would not otherwise see the light of a projector in South Florida. Last year’s inaugural SoBe Fest included two outstanding features — Spare Me and The Making of “…And God Spoke” — and…
An hour north of Boston, in the northeast corner of Massachusetts, lies a mass of land jutting into the sea — Cape Ann. Lesser-known and considerably smaller than Cape Cod to the south, Cape Ann is home to the small city of Gloucester, the town of Rockport, and the village…
Next month the main branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library celebrates its tenth anniversary at its current location in architect Philip Johnson’s fortresslike cultural complex on West Flagler Street. When the library building opened in July 1985, artist Edward Ruscha’s site-specific paintings already had been installed; ringing the interior of…
A handsome man in a snappy gray suit lies crumpled A unconscious? dead? A on a cobblestone street. A mysterious woman in black carrying a bright red purse to match her flaming crimson lipstick rounds the corner and cautiously approaches the body. She jostles the man with her foot. He…
I know a lot of women who proclaim loudly and often that men are dogs, but this is the first time I can recall seeing a film that takes the accusation literally. The main character in Carlo Carlei’s Fluke is a family man who dies in a car crash as…
While Angel City, Sam Shepard’s slice of life at the Hotel California A that La Brea tar pit of decadence, megalomania, and self-destruction you can check out of but can never leave A isn’t one of the playwright’s better-known plays, and hardly constitutes the definitive take on the soul-sucking movie…
I’m writing a screenplay. The first and second acts are finished, but I’m not sure how to end it yet. Help me out. FADE IN INTERIOR — MOVIE PRODUCER’S OFFICE — DAY A fat, cigar-chomping MOVIE PRODUCER sits behind an opulent desk. He rises to greet MEL GIBSON as the…
The topic of political asylum has generated much heated debate in recent weeks. When should you grant it? When should you say no? Politicians will ultimately decide the issue when, if you ask me, the job would be better left to experienced professionals. I’m thinking, of course, of those masters…
Does Mario Ernesto Sanchez ever sleep? During the 1994-95 theater season, the Cuban-born producing artistic director of Teatro Avante and the International Hispanic Theatre Festival (IHTF) presented two full-length dramas and three short plays at El Carrusel Theatre in Coral Gables, as well as traveling to the Festival de Teatro…
At the May 20 opening for The New Collection — I, the Cuban Museum’s current exhibition of recent permanent acquisitions, Ermita Fuentes, visiting from New York City, stands by the back door, chiding guests who attempt to carry their cocktails from the Bacardi tent (set up in the museum’s small…
“We’ll always have Paris.” Those immortal words, uttered by Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman in the suspense-filled final moments of Casablanca, endure to this day as one of the most unabashedly romantic farewells of all time. Director Billy Crystal’s Forget Paris, as its title — a riff on the classic…
It’s hard to imagine Pulp Fiction without the key performances of Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. Yet the two actors never actually played a scene together (although their respective characters briefly crossed paths). Willis and Jackson more than make up for that oversight in the mildly disappointing actioner Die…
