Let’s start with the ending: the closing credits disclaimer that insists that none of the lead actors in Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac filmed penetrative sex. If there is real sex in the movie, and it sure looks like there is, it must have been done by one of the eight…
The Sundance Institute announced its winners in short filmmaking at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and Miami filmmaker Bernardo Britto came away with a prize. Britto’s short film Yearbook won the Short Film Jury Award: Animation at the awards ceremony. See also: Borscht Filmmaker Bernardo Britto Accepted to Sundance 2014…
You can say this for the Disney teen machine: They sure know how to pick ’em. Vanessa Hudgens was 17 when High School Musical made her famous, the tail end of a generation of Mouseketeers that included her contemporaries Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez, and her elders Justin…
There’s hunger, and then there’s hunger, and every kind of both fuels the desperate young Cuban men who scrap through this nervy, sensual feature. The first hunger is the obvious one: Good food, like almost everything a family needs, isn’t easy to come by in late-era Havana, so husband and…
Ordinary life comes to look like a humiliation in the late reels of Lenny Cooke, yet another heartbreaker of a doc in which a compelling basketball story powers a discomfiting examination of a crisis facing young American men, so many of whom are encouraged to develop skills and interests having…
Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi solidifies his status as one of cinema’s finest living dramatists with The Past, a superb followup to 2011’s Oscar-winning A Separation that again situates audiences amid interpersonal, familial, and household crises. Working from a script that incisively plumbs a thicket of logistical and emotional complications, Farhadi’s…
The publicity campaign for Big Bad Wolves, a nasty little revenge thriller from Israeli filmmakers Navot Papushado and Aharon Keshales, quotes Quentin Tarantino’s decree that it’s the “best film of the year.” Tarantino saw Big Bad Wolves at last year’s Busan Film Festival, where he reportedly showed up at a…
How did Wynwood become Wynwood? The former warehouse district has become a favorite cultural crucible of our city, a focal point of Miami that rivals or perhaps even supersedes South Beach in the minds of much of the country. But when did all of this start adding up to Wynwood…
The Sundance InstituteEvery Sundance there’s a crowd-pleaser, and most years it’s got one degree of separation from the Little Miss Sunshine crew. But the most delightful flick of the 2014 fest is an unconventional documentary with no plot, no dialogue, and nothing but party. Living Stars, a fleet 63-minute film…
Pamela Smart, the sexpot schoolteacher who seduced three teenage boys to shoot her husband, has been imprisoned without parole since 1991. Her official release year is sometime in 9999, assuming that human civilization is still alive. Yet the captive in Jeremiah Zagar’s Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart isn’t her…
Even with the cosplay parties, technology seminars, and premieres of local and international sci-fi movies, the 2014 Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival couldn’t help but begin over the weekend on somewhat of a blue note. “When I was a kid, we were told there would be flying cars and…
© Courtesy of Sundance InstituteSixty years ago, Fred Flintstone hawked Winston cigarettes. Today, he pitches cereal. And both can kill. Stephanie Soechtig’s rabble-rousing documentary Fed Up argues that it’s time to attack Big Sugar just like we successfully demonized Big Tobacco. Narrated by Katie Couric, Fed Up is the first…
© Beth Dubber, Courtesy of Sundance InstituteKristen Stewart in Camp X-Ray.Kristen Stewart spent five Twilight films getting rescued by werewolves and vampires. Consider Camp X-Ray her rebuttal to a half-decade of playing damsels in distress. As Guantanamo guard Private Cole, Stewart is punched, bloodied, and spat on — and that’s…
If you’re married, about to get married, or would prefer watching a marathon of Millionaire Matchmaker to tying the knot, then My First Wedding (2011) is the film for you. Presented by the Miami Jewish Film Festival, this Florida premiere is the most exciting thing in Argentine cinema since The…
Seems like everybody in the world of entertainment has something nasty to say about gay people lately. In December, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson gave GQ a piece of his mind about how much better vaginas are than buttholes. Sherri Shepherd made comments about homosexuality over the weekend stating that…
Despite some reluctance, Wes Craven is a name-brand filmmaker. The phrase “Wes Craven Presents” comes with certain expectations thanks to the financial success of the Scream franchise and The Hills Have Eyes series before that. But what cemented Craven’s reputation is A Nightmare on Elm Street, a deathless cycle of…
Miami native Aimee Carrero is having quite the busy year, and 2014 has barely gotten started. It was recently announced that Carrero’s new sitcom pilot, Young & Hungry, was picked up by ABC, and later on in February, she will guest star on FX’s The Americans. And out today in…
The 2014 Oscar nominations were announced yesterday, and if you’re a born-and-raised Miamian, you’re justifiably pissed. No love for local actor Oscar Isaac of Inside Llewyn Davis? Go home, Academy, you’re drunk. It’s enough to make you want to quit this awards season altogether. But if you’re a real movie…
What could be better than an Entourage-inspired HBO series created by Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson both filmed and set in Miami? Here’s what: A series that is all of those things, and also titled Ballers. (We’d have preferred Ballerz, but whatever.) The series is apparently on track…
In Devil’s Due, co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (V/H/S) and first-time screenwriter Lindsay Devlin offer an uninspired found-footage riff on Roman Polanski’s demon-spawn classic, Rosemary’s Baby (1968). On their Dominican Republic honeymoon, the squeakily innocent Samantha (Allison Miller) and Zach (Zach Gilford) are drugged by a cult who draw…
Oscar Isaac, the Miami-raised star of Inside Llewyn Davis, has already had a dizzyingly successful year. His awkward, often off-putting performance in the Coen brothers’ film has earned him a Golden Globe nomination and rave reviews from pretty much every film critic in the country. But that wasn’t enough to…
This morning, this year’s Oscar nominations will be announced, also known as national Gah! What Were Those Idiot Voters Thinking Day. We can’t wait, so in the meantime, we give you this: 1. Marvel Films has become Taco Bell, with plenty of sour creamy, cheesy wrap-up menu items scheduled through…
