Surrounded by thick, long black cables and hanging lights in a hotel room at the Mandarin Oriental sat Joe Manganiello. After hours of on-camera interviews in promotion for his latest film, Sabotage, this tall, muscular man could have been lost in the rubble had it not been for his crisp…
The Chicano labor leader César Chávez can now join Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the pantheon of heroes whose world-altering achievements are dutifully recounted in timid, lifeless films any substitute can pop into the school DVD player when the regular history teacher is out sick. With César Chávez, Mexican…
A friend of mine, who’s in his fifties, is getting an MFA in nonfiction writing. Many of the other students in his program are in their twenties, and most have no interest in writing any kind of nonfiction other than memoir. Everyone, it seems, has a story to tell, and…
To hear Darren Aronofsky tell it, in the interviews he’s given recently to the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker, there was no way in hell he’d let his special-effects extravaganza Noah, years in the planning, be your run-of-the-mill, candy-ass Biblical epic. The ark built by Russell Crowe’s…
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name is only about one-seventh the font size of the title on the poster of Sabotage, formerly Breacher, formerly Ten, his third attempt — after the full-auto western The Last Stand and the goofy Stallone-co-headlined prison-break joint Escape Plan — in 14 months at a post-gubernatorial comeback. A…
Celebrating ten years of Found Magazine, the publication’s founder Davy Rothbart is coming to Miami on a live tour with a cornucopia of found items. He’s bringing birthday cards, poetry on napkins, and anything random that gives a peek into a stranger’s life. It’s exactly the kind of thing you…
It all started Monday afternoon when television writer and producer Ryan Murphy, who had been on a Twitter hiatus for almost two months, tweeted five simple words and a logo. “AMERICAN HORROR STORY SEASON FOUR:” with a photo of a carnival-inspired font reading “Freak Show” was all fans needed to…
It’s not unusual for a stand-up comic to put himself down, but no one has really taken an audience through their entire life story – ups and downs, and drunken nights, and regrettable mistakes, and evil encounters with others – quite in the way John Leguizamo is about to on…
In Ralph Fiennes’ lengthy filmography, funny movies are few and far between, but now, the brilliant British actor has the best kind of comedy under his belt: a Wes Anderson film. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fiennes plays M. Gustave, the earnest and expert concierge of the titular resort. Inspired…
Wes Anderson’s latest cinematic confection, The Grand Budapest Hotel, features distinguished English actor Ralph Fiennes in the film’s leading role. It marks the first time Fiennes has appeared in one of Anderson’s films. Speaking over the phone from his London home, Fiennes revealed a great admiration for Anderson’s work. “I love…
Leave it to Wes Anderson to make a film about World War II without mentioning Germany. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, a wundercabinet set in the fictitious Eastern European Republic of Zubrowka circa 1932, Anderson captures the collapse of a kingdom and rise of a reich without so much as…
Let’s start with the ending, the closing credits disclaimer that insists that none of the lead actors in Lars von Trier’s two-part erotic epic Nymphomaniac filmed penetrative sex. If there is real sex in the movie, and it sure looks like there is, it must have been the duty of…
If you count forward from Jim Henson’s mid-1960s TV appearances with a fringy pup named Rowlf and the lizard, made from an old winter coat, who would later become Kermit the Frog, the Muppets have outlived most of their early puppet peers by more than two generations: You don’t see…
Steve Carell will portray Miami local David Menasche in the film adaptation of the book The Priority List: A Teacher’s Final Quest to Discover Life’s Greatest Lessons. Warner Bros. bought the rights to the memoir, which focuses on Menasche’s six-year battle with brain cancer and his journey to live in…
Dystopian movies don’t have to make sense. As the audience, we’re obligated to sit down with our popcorn and soda and pretend that yes, of course, in the future monkeys rule the earth, women can’t bear children, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is an everyday construction worker. It’s a mutual contract of…
Do your wildest dreams include people watching you eat, sleep and (if you get lucky) have sex? CBS’s long-running voyeur wet dream is casting for season 16, and they’re making a stop at Cameo this weekend. Big Brother is watching – if you want. If exhibitionism is on your list…
After a whirlwind week and a half, the 31st Miami International Film Festival is in the can. We enjoyed tons of great films from the 97 features screened. We helped shine a spotlight on some local talent, attended some world and regional premieres, even snagged some red carpet chats with…
Most people these days spend the greater part of their waking lives looking and interacting with screens. As devices, apps and software continue to draw us into alternate realities, China stands as the only country in the world to classify internet addiction as a clinical disorder. Does this mean the…
We’ve been told to never judge a book by its cover, but we secretly always judge a movie by its teaser image. Skimming through the program of the Miami International Film Festival, there’s one image that stands out of a man in a royal blue suit. It’s Jude Law like…
One of the trickier brands of comedy to pull off is deadpan humor. There’s a subtle sense of timing required and actors must deliver immensely sincere performances without going over-the-top. All About the Feathers (Por La Plumas), a little film from Costa Rica achieves this with warm wit that harnesses…
One of the most atmospherically doom-laden works of this year’s Miami International Film Festival has to be The Summer of Flying Fish. It’s the first feature by Chilean director Marcela Said, whose filmography includes four feature documentaries that date back to 1999. Her documentary work has mostly focused on her…
If you’ve wandered the streets of Miami with your eyes open (and hopefully you have, because these drivers murderous), you’ve undoubtedly seen the abundant advertisements for Miami International Film Festival plastered among bus stops and roaming taxis. If you have, you’ll also recognize the face of MIFF 2014 as an…
