The opening credits insist Kill Bill: Volume 1 is “Quentin Tarantino’s 4th film,” when it’s actually his 3.5th; it’s too incomplete to be measured as a whole, half a movie waiting for a proper ending due to arrive in the next volume in February. Till then we’ll have to contemplate…
THURSDAY 10/9 Hosting the House of Terror Amusement Park during George Dubya’s war against terror is sure to be somewhat of a marketing challenge. In the initial days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, we were sure the producers of Miami’s most commercial haunted house would change its name. But…
You wouldn’t think it nowadays, but there was a time — not so long ago — when Sam Shepard was the king of American theater. His vision of America as a metaphysical and spiritual desert haunted by dark ghosts of violence was preeminent in the restless 1970s and ’80s as…
Carlos Suarez de Jesus is a Miami-based artist who co-founded the alternative art space lab6 in Little Havana. He’s just returned to Miami from self-imposed exile in Detroit. He missed Art Basel. In Miami perception is everything — knowing how fickle the winds here can be, the word to the…
You gotta love John Sayles. No, really — you gotta, or else a mob of indie-minded cineastes will club you into submission. Sometimes it’s easy to comply, as with City of Hope and Sunshine State, both astute portraits of uniquely American class, race, and real estate struggles boiling down to…
You see them all the time, on the sides of walls and buildings, rectangles a few square feet or more painted a shade noticeably different from the rest of the structure. They’ve become such a part of our urban landscape, like the graffiti they’re intended to cover up, that we…
Director Richard Linklater’s School of Rock imagines, sort of, what might have become of voluble rock snob Barry the morning after his grand finale in Stephen Frears’s adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity — after his Marvin Gaye impersonation had faded and been forgotten in the daylight hours, after he…
One-woman shows that resurrect the spirits of female icons like Janice Joplin and Billie Holiday rely on the communal memory of the public and the actresses’ ability to channel that legend. Sully Diaz promises to elevate the story and music of Cuban-born diva “La Lupe” to such heights in her…
There’s no question that the construction of a major museum is a big deal. Often it involves acclaimed architects from all over the world competing for the right to design it; millions of public and/or private funds (or billions in the case of California’s J. Paul Getty Museum); and time,…
SUN 10/5 According to Celtic legend, Stingy Jack was a thieving reprobate, a chap so nasty he tricked the Devil himself on several occasions. Banned from both Heaven and Hell, Jack had nowhere to go when he died and began roaming the night looking for mischief to perform. Because he…
SAT 10/4 Soccer is the universal sport. All around the world kids understand that fun and good-natured competition happens when you take a ball and begin kicking it around. The City of Miami kicks off a new soccer program today that is free of charge for disadvantaged inner-city children. The…
MON 10/6 Kids, what do you do with a day off school? You sit around the living room playing video games or run around outside wreaking havoc in your hood. No! Take advantage of Florida’s beautiful fall weather and sign yourself up for the Cane Pole Fishing Contest at Bill…
MON 10/6 Food. You love it. But is it better enjoyed alone in the privacy of your home? Or with a group of, say, 15 other possibly lonely, possibly gregarious, possibly gluttonous food lovers just like you? For the last couple of weeks Ortanique on the Mile (278 Miracle Mile,…
SUN 10/5 Oye, it’s time for the second annual Urban Latin Music Festival and you know what that means. Lots of rump-shakin’, bass-thumpin’ Latin and hip-hop music. All the musical bases are covered with the bachata band Aventura, Huey Dunbar doing tropical and salsa, the Spanish hip-hop of Majic Juan,…
THURSDAY 10/2 Whiskey and chewing gum: We certainly can’t dream up a better combination, except maybe beer and Fruit Loops. But someone thought the former was a good idea because among the many sponsors of the Latino Comedy Series is the Jack Daniel’s brand and Chiclets gum. Sounds comical to…
War may be hell but we humans love to hear stories about it. Think back on the history of theater, of movies, of literature. The war story is central to them all. The Iliad still stirs the imagination. So does Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Hemingway’s For…
After a relatively tranquil summer, a plethora of openings tumbled out of the galleries over the last several weeks. In fact all of them can’t be reviewed in this space, but we’ll start with the all-woman show “Fourtell” (through October 4) at Casas Riegner Gallery, documenting the interplay among four…
The dumbed-down movie version of Frances Mayes’s best-selling travel memoir Under the Tuscan Sun is a virtual case study of Hollywood’s irrepressible urge to lower the bar in the hopes of upping the take. Mayes’s 1996 book is a nicely written, carefully observed meditation on buying a decrepit Italian villa…
Visualize Tokyo. Got it? Now add popular favorite Bill Murray, doing his “lovable schmo” shtick. Toss in American Rhapsody’s up-and-comer Scarlett Johansson, doing her standard “like, duh” face. Dip them both into emotional torpor in the sleek Park Hyatt, add local color, stir. Et voila: Lost in Translation. For Sofia…
For a purely Miami-centric take on former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, one need look no further than 1996, when a Cuban military gunner shot down the Cessna planes of Brothers to the Rescue. Admonishing both the bloody act and the celebratory response of the Cuban pilots, Albright said of…
Mercedes Sosa is like a fairy godmother for most popular musicians in Argentina. Powered by her strong voice, her songs make their way around the world, pit-stopping in countries like Chile and Turkey. For recording artists who lend her tunes, international fame and royalties are usually instant rewards. Most songwriters…
NOW 24/7 There’s a huge difference between professional architectural photographs and those random snapshots of fascinating buildings that caught your eye when you were on vacation in some swanky European capital or small American town. Or is there? Both types of works are liable to give people a fresh perspective…
