Film, TV & Streaming

Filipino Thriller Graceland Is Visually Arresting

When Michael Haneke’s sobering end-of-life drama Amour premiered at Cannes last May, many critics reflected on the presence of a shared cultural legacy. Its stars, Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant, evoked the iconography of the New Wave, the once-young faces of Hiroshima mon amour and My Night at Maud’s now…

Iron Man 3: Shtick and Explosions for the Great Robert Downey Jr.

To the Wonder Is Gorgeous, Ridiculous

Unless you watch Nancy Meyers’ romantic-comedy oeuvre strictly for the interior design and décor, there’s little to note about Sophie Lellouche’s shallow, witless but pretty enough French ode to Woody Allen, couched in a loose revision of 1972’s Play It Again, Sam. A model-thin blond beauty with perfect cheekbones, Alice…

1st Night: Opera or Three’s Company?

Stephanie Zacharek is the new chief film critic at the Village Voice. Alan Scherstuhl is the Voice’s film editor. Sometimes they gab about how the review-sausage gets made. To: Stephanie Zacharek From: Alan Scherstuhl Hi, Stephanie, welcome again to the Voice! Like you, I found myself worn out by Iron…

It’s been a huge week for Miami on the big screen. Last Friday, Pain & Gain opened nationwide, bringing Pete Collins’ New Times tale of bodybuilders’ extortion schemes gone wrong to audiences across the nation. Meanwhile, in theaters from Japan to Portugal, Iron Man 3 wowed Marvel fans, creating enormous…

Calling all Ewoks, all Obi-Wans, all Princess Leias and Chewbaccas. Come out, you Han Solos and Darth Vaders, you Yodas and R2-D2s. There’s a party for all you Star Wars cosplayers right here in Miami. Yes, Jabba the Hut, there’s even room for you. Brickell’s Spazio Nightclub is hosting Star…

Life is a winding road, full of unexpected twists and turns. Just ask Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. If you’d told the basketball legend in the ’80s that his career would have wound up as a series of AT&T commercials and reality-TV appearances just a few decades later, he probably would’ve said, “What?…

Congratulations, Florida. You did it. You’ve committed to being one of the most emphatically stupid states in the country. You’ve put in the time, out-crazying formidable competitors like West Virginia and Texas for years. Through hard work, dedication, and nutso batshittery, you’ve climbed the ranks of ill repute, earning first…

Wanna see that hot new film from Sundance or Cannes? Miami cinephiles often wait for months, even up to a full year, for buzzworthy movies to hit our indie screens. Oftentimes, U.S. theatrical premieres come and go in New York and L.A., while the wait continues in South Florida, as…

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson scared? Pffft! The Rock isn’t supposed to fear anything. He’s climbed to the mountain top of Hollywood and he’s been king of the World Wide Entertainment professional wrestling circuit. I mean, he played the Tooth Fairy, for crissakes! What the heck would make the chiseled former…

LA sucks. There’s so much smog there you can hardly shoot a movie in the sunshine. That’s why all the great films of our time shot in golden quality natural UV come to South Florida. The latest, Pain & Gain, opens in theaters tonight. But it’s just one of many…

If you see Pain & Gain, Michael Bay’s made-in-Miami dark comedy about a bodybuilder extortion scheme gone awry, before you read the original New Times story on which it was based, there’s a good chance you’ll like it. It’s colorful and exciting and genuinely funny at times; its cast does…

A New York native with a smooth tongue and a disarming smile, Daniel Lugo was fresh from serving a 15-month federal prison stint for fraud when he landed at Sun Gym in 1992. He’d earned his prison time by snookering $71,200 from people who believed he could get loans from…

Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) believes life has cheated him. Doesn’t America promise riches and luxury to people who deserve it? He’s worked hard to build his body into a hulking knot of muscles; success should follow. But Lugo ― the lead in Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain, a neon-noir ode…

Michael Bay, Mark Wahlberg, and the Rock Talk Pain & Gain

“Pain & Gain” Writer Pete Collins’ 15 Minutes of Fame Have Arrived

See also: “Pain & Gain: From New Times Story to Michael Bay Film“

Pain & Gain: Michael Bay Injects Potent Absurdity Into an Unbelievable True Story

See also: “Pain & Gain: From New Times Story to Michael Bay Film“

Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Fest: Movies That Go Beyond Coming Out

Upstream Color Is Mysterious and Beautifully Shot