Maverick Russian director Alexander Rogozhkin hit upon a clever idea for his idiosyncratic antiwar fable, The Cuckoo (Kukushka in Russian). The three main characters, marooned together on a remote reindeer farm in northernmost Scandinavia, all speak different languages. The Russian speaks and understands only Russian, the Finn knows only Finnish,…
Sitting down to a lunch of chicken soup and lechon (roast pork, Puerto Rican style), Latin music sensation La India, dubbed the Princess of Salsa, speaks of her latest triumph, the Latin Grammy-nominated album Latin Songbird: Mi Alma y Corazon, via phone from her native San Juan. “I’m celebrating my…
More than a hundred years ago, Percival Lowell tipped his telescope toward Mars, imagined a Venetian-style civilization, and initiated the public’s love affair with the Red Planet. Since then countless science fiction writers have painted a Mars awash with canal-loving beings intent on colonizing our watery globe. Were Lowell alive…
Thursday August 21 Ever witness one of those “only in Miami” kind of scenes and think: “Someone should write a book about this place”? Like the other night, when the angry homeless man chased the glamorous supermodel down a South Beach street, and she was saved by a machete-wielding Haitian…
Thursday August 21 Miami is a town with no shortage of things to do. We enjoy beautiful beaches, theater, galleries, and nightclubs. Sports fans have almost unlimited choices. Miami hosts teams in every major-league sport. College sports are strong, too, with UM football and baseball, FIU soccer, basketball, baseball, and…
Saturday August 23 Gearheads, unite! If it’s destruction you like, especially between two cleverly built machines, er, robots, then you surely know all about Battlebots. That’s when one team of geeks, dressed in matching Trekkie-ish shirts, pits its motorized metal creation against the robot of another team of geeks in…
Saturday August 23 With 51 of the most beautiful black women coming to town to compete in the Miss Black USA Pageant, we thought we would ask a typical black man for some thoughts about the competition. New Times caught Liberty City’s own Comedian Slo-Motion on his dinner break during…
Saturday August 23 With his stovepipe hat and raspy delivery, singer Bob Malone models himself after piano legends Dr. John and Professor Longhair. Though his look may be familiar, his songwriting and singing style is closer to Billy Joel than the nitty-gritty New Orleans legends. Still, the New Jersey homeboy’s…
Did you know that over 30 percent of your automobile trips are less than one mile in length? We drive five times more than the average Japanese and three times more than the average European (a total of 11 million barrels of oil a day just to support our transportation…
Thursday August 21 We’ve said it 99 times before, and now we’ll say it for the 100th time. We’ve never seen a fat fireman! The time we got stuck in an elevator with our friend’s dog (who, if you must know, was very calm about the whole matter), the men…
One of the intriguing aspects of the South Florida stage scene is the “branding” of the many resident companies here. Instead of cherry-picking specific plays from various theaters, audiences tend to stick with certain troupes, regardless of what programming they offer. And theaters that thrive here do so in part…
When we head off to the galleries we may think we find a wide range of artists and styles, but we’re actually missing the work of a significant population of the city, that of the African American. I’m talking about established black artists born in the United States, as opposed…
Chiwetel Ejiofor is phoning in from Montreal. Sounds like a Tom Waits lyric, but it’s true: The fresh, gifted actor with the tricky handle is too busy at present (just finished doing The Canterbury Tales for BBC-TV, currently working on the feature Slow Burn with LL Cool J and Jolene…
When was the last time you said to yourself: “Y’know, what I seek for my viewing pleasure is a boring, obscenely diluted remake of Fight Club set in the fascinating world of dentistry”? Indeed it is a grave displeasure to announce that stellar director Alan Rudolph (The Moderns) has delivered…
Could there be anything more Zen than standing on the lawn, garden hose in hand, sprinkling water on the thirsty, sunburned grass and attempting to bring it back to life? Uh, yes, you could be standing on the lawn, garden hose in hand, sprinkling water on your new bamboo saplings…
Thursday August 14 With more than twelve books of humorous drawings under his belt, it is obvious cartoonist Steve Gould has a lot to get off his chest. His latest collection, Less is Less, pokes a sardonic finger in the ribs of middle age; low-carb, low-fat, and low-flavor dieting; exercise,…
Men wearing striking tribal attire standing randomly in a road. A beautiful woman bartender poised gracefully at her work station. Buff jocks engaged in a collective sweaty workout. Two smiling men seated on a motorcycle in motion. These four arresting black-and-white images from four different nations, all made by photographer…
Saturday August 16 What would a psycho-spiritual movement be without a large-scale ritual? The Hava Nagila celebrates joy, the pilgrimage to Mecca reveres privation and devotion to Allah, and the Hokey Pokey venerates the sacred act of booty-shaking. Not to be outdone, post-hippie, nouveau new agers are once again stirring…
Friday August 15 It’s been a heady summer for the Florida Marlins. People are attending their games; the local papers are running loving, wistful features comparing them with the 1997 World Champions; and first-year pitcher Dontrelle Willis is being talked up as a potential Rookie of the Year. Last weekend…
Now 24/7 There’s only one sport that reigns supreme in Miami: football. That hosanna of hut-ones and hut-twos you’re hearing is the beginning, finally, of a new season of play. While the big-time version grabs all the attention (Dolphins quarterbacks Jay Fiedler and Brian Griese dueling for the helm, the…
Saturday August 16 Those jumpy 8mm films buried in the family attic might just be valuable cultural artifacts. Remember the footage of your trip to a strawberry patch when you were a kid? That fruit patch most likely is a Sunset Drive strip mall. From watching your grandmother’s steamy days…
Thursday August 14 The hills of Britain and the jungles of Africa may have little in common, but don’t tell that to Baka Beyond, the rollicking musical group that attempts some serious cultural bridge-building with its Afro-Celtic sound. The Brit contingent of the band spent several months with the Baka…
