Ilan Hall, chef-owner of the Gorbals restaurant in downtown L.A.It began as a simple duel: two line cooks pitted against each other for culinary bragging rights in the kitchen of downtown L.A.’s the Gorbals. It was after-hours, ringmastered by chef and owner Ilan Hall. Sometimes Hall would compete for old…
If you’ve been following the quest of Miami realtor Katrina Campins to sell houses to the South Florida elite, you probably need a more constructive hobby. And now, the TV station formerly known as the Style Network is forcing you to find one. The Style Network, which was known for…
Breaking Bad, that badass, rocking and rolling television series you’ve been following for the past five years, is coming to an end. This Sunday, you’ll say goodbye to Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, possibly in more ways than one. Fortunately, local public-relations maven JennyLee Molina, president of JLPR, realized we…
It’s 1976, a year when all the groovy girls are traipsing around in tiny suede skirts and all the cool guys have Badfinger hair. One of those guys was English racing driver James Hunt, the charismatic rapscallion who won that year’s Formula One World Championship — the embroidered badge on…
With so many violent movies and lurid movies and straight-up bad movies, most of them just so much murderous product, it’s rare anymore to be seized by that feeling, as a film plays, that maybe there’s no reason for this particular violent or lurid or bad movie to exist. They…
When it’s concerned with the most trying of lives in the most troubled of regions, it can feel petty to complain that a tragic-minded romantic thriller is laying things on too thick. Out in the Dark is the story of a closeted gay Palestinian man who falls in love with…
Isaiah Washington didn’t want to play John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper who triggered three weeks of terror in 2002. The man — make that murderer — felt too familiar. Like Washington, Muhammad was a veteran and a father of three. Both were analytical, observant, and quick to vent their…
The last time the men in Metallica made a documentary, they let the cameras into their therapy sessions, their private lives, their struggles with their families. It wasn’t good for their image, but it made for a compelling film. This time, they reverse tactics. In Metallica: Through the Never, the…
Kids are assholes, or at least cartoons think so. Animation has inked a grand tradition of cruelty, from Wile E. Coyote’s countless failed firebombings to modern-day kiddie cash-grabs where the most common punchline is a fall or a fart. Can’t we all just get along? In Cody Cameron and Kris…
To paraphrase the Bee Gees, Joseph Gordon-Levitt should be dancing. He’s already done it in (500) Days of Summer, where he led an exuberant ensemble routine that out-Dr Peppered any Dr Pepper commercial. Then there was his smashing Saturday Night Live re-creation of Donald O’Connor’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” — like…
Mild spoilers up to The Bridge’s ninth episode below. Artisanal murders are all the rage these days. On Showtime’s Dexter, NBC’s Hannibal, and Fox’s The Following, small-batch, labor-intensive, sold-with-a-story slaughters have become TV’s equivalent of the Cronut. Handsome, intelligent, and mannered as court eunuchs, serial killers have become the new…
Written, produced, directed, and edited by Rena Riffel, who also reprises her role as Penny from the original Showgirls, Showgirls 2: Penny’s From Heaven has been available on VOD for at least a year, but is now being released on DVD from Wild Eye Releasing, thus conferring onto it the…
The cast of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, the previous Jane Austen modernization from producers Bernie Su and Hank GreenBernie Su and Hank Green captured the hearts, iPhones, Pinterest pages, Instagram accounts and GetGlue music playlists of teens across America with their 2012 series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which updated Pride…
Dexter’s final season has come to an end, and with a still mourning heart, it’s time to say goodbye. Before the final episode aired, a touching reel of the cast saying thank you to fans played, in which Jennifer Carpenter (Debra) let us know that, “We’re going out the way…
The Birthday Boys with executive producer Bob Odenkirk, centerAn actor’s unique look can accentuate any comedy performance. On an August Sunday afternoon at a private home in Sherman Oaks, Tim Kalpakis, a member of sketch group the Birthday Boys, with a Dick Tracy–square jaw, is prepping a bit as a…
It’s been 19 years since Arsenio Hall last barked at the camera, and the world has changed. Shoulder pads are passé (“Unless you play football, you can’t have them anymore,” Hall jokes), hip-hop is mainstream and, after our so-called first black president, the country elected a real one — and…
Rainstorms threatened Miami all day yesterday, but somebody up there must really love vintage movies in a retro, open-air setting. Blue Starlite Miami Urban Drive-In launched its soft opening week last night with Pretty in Pink and damn near perfect weather. The lot was already nearing capacity at around 8…
We have just four days until Dexter leaves our TV screens for good. With only one episode remaining, we can’t help but speculate what will happen to our protagonist – and some of the rest of the characters, for that matter. The possibilities are endless, but there is one thing…
Single ladies of Miami, count yourselves lucky. Maybe you’ve made your way through every stereotype in the book, and maybe the slim pickings in this town have made you lower your standards. But look at it this way: At least you’re not single in Alaska. Unless you like your men…
When a relatively young actor dies suddenly, as James Gandolfini did in June, it’s tempting to wonder about the roles he’ll never get to play. When we didn’t know we’d be losing him so soon, it was always fun to see Gandolfini show up, a casual surprise: In 2012 alone,…
If five Oscar nominees lose two young girls in the woods, will their wailing make a sound? That’s the key question of Prisoners, Denis Villeneuve’s prestigious puffery about a father (Hugh Jackman) and a cop (Jake Gyllenhaal) trying to catch a kidnapper. Prisoners is a dog whistle for Academy voters…
Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s C.O.G. is the first film to be based on the work of David Sedaris. It’s clearly a passion project for Alvarez, and the picture is faithful to the events of the autobiographical story “C.O.G.,” about Sedaris working in rural Oregon to see how “real” people live (and…
