In American theater, there’s a long hard road that most successful plays take. At its very start, a playwright gets a script produced somehow, and, with luck, it’s a hit. With some restaging and rewrites and more luck, it moves on to New York City. More luck, more rewrites, and…
This should really piss you off: What follows is a story about a very funny movie you will have absolutely no chance of seeing any time soon. The powers that be who distribute movies–who copy prints, print up posters, deliver them to theaters, collect receipts, split profits (well…)–do not want…
The 2003 Miami International Film Festival is in full swing, with four nights remaining for the marathon run of features, documentaries, and shorts from all over the world. Tonight, however, is the last night to experience “Beachstock,” the series of free screenings on the beach at Nikki Beach: Victor/Victoria, a…
There are fashion victims: people oblivious to the fact their garish outfits make them resemble clowns more than supermodels. And there are fashion victims: people oblivious to the fact that their intense desire to shop for clothes, shoes, and accessories is fed by the media, garment industry, and their own…
February 27, 2003 So you think you have a knack for taking pictures. Wherever you go, images jump out at you and spark your imagination. You see beauty in all places and want to collect those moments that only a photograph can capture. Don’t let the fact that you have…
With a dance department that offers training in forms as diverse as tap and vodou, one can expect a performance titled FIU Dance: Celebrates the Classics! to be far from the pas de deux and promenades that fit the accepted definition of classic. Indeed Florida International University’s spring showcase is…
In Tin Box Boomerang, Ivonne Azurdia’s new play now in production by the Mad Cat Theatre at the Miami Light Project, you will meet a passel of ordinary, flawed characters who seem very real and familiar. Two Mexican-American sisters struggle to make ends meet, living in a beat-up trailer. Their…
Tony Grisoni can always tell when his old friend Terry Gilliam, the visionary who sees too far for his own good, is in pain: He laughs. The worse the pain, the harder the laughter. If that is the case, then the Terry Gilliam seen throughout Lost in La Mancha, Keith…
You will never see an E! True Hollywood Story program about the behind-the-scenes antics of Miami’s finest contribution to television culture, Que Pasa, USA? There will never be a reunion show about this hilarious social farce either. But if ever there were a television show that deserves such attention, it’s…
February 20, 2003 You can live forever. But here’s the deal: You have to spend eternity exclusively on the island of Manhattan. Yikes! The stress of that city might be enough to do away with any immortal, but that is the predicament of reporter/artist Cormac O’Connor, protagonist of illustrious journalist…
Last time we checked in with Clemson, South Carolina-based folk singer/songwriter Carla Ulbrich, she was alive, well, and working too hard: touring the country, writing humorous songs about wedgies and such, and presiding over the Difficult Last Name Club. That was all before her first stroke in January of 2002…
There’s a lot of goodwill out there for this year’s Miami International Film Festival to succeed, and there’s a lot out there this year to see. With 65 features, plus shorts and documentaries — playing at three theaters — you would well deserve an Olympian award if you caught them…
It was supposed to be make-believe, a disturbing but ultimately uplifting work of science-fiction from a celebrated author of grim futurama and glorious fantasy. The subject matter of Orbiter, a hardback graphic novel about a spaceship that disappears for years and returns sheathed in skin after visits to faraway places…
Time was, the great repertoire of classical drama was the mainstay of established New York City and regional theaters. But take a quick look at the season lineups at the nation’s major theaters, and you’ll be hard pressed to spot even a smattering of classics. What happened to the great…
SFCA (South Florida Composers Alliance) is one of the most underrated marvels of Miami. For more than a decade, this organization has presented its annual Subtropics Festival — at number fifteen this year. Artists like Sonny Rollins, John Cage, Don Pullen, Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveiros, and other nonconformists, electronica mavericks,…
Some filmmakers use documentaries to explore complex subjects. Others use docs to ram home their own agendas. That’s certainly the case with The Trials Of Henry Kissinger, a fast-paced, 80-minute exposé that is more an accusation than an examination. Directed by Eugene Jarecki and written by Alex Gibney, Kissinger lays…
Be it by a simple pat on the back, a hefty raise, or a shiny award, everybody wants to be recognized in some small way for the things they do, especially drag doyenne Shelley Novak. Known for his perennial five-o’clock shadow, copious chest hair, and ersatz resemblance to hefty actress…
Thursday, February 13, 2003 For days you’ve been seeing more boats on land than you’ve ever seen at sea. That can only mean one thing: The Miami International Boat Show has dropped anchor through Tuesday, February 18, at the Miami Beach Convention Center (1901 Convention Center Dr.) and the Sealine…
Part armored military vehicle, part dune buggy, Volkswagen’s The Thing briefly blitzkrieged through American automobile culture in the Seventies, a wiggy antidote to the billions and billions of sensible Beetles sold by the German carmaker in the U.S. during the Sixties. Manufactured in Mexico, The Thing was first introduced here…
If English mysteries are your cup of tea, you might want to sample Sherlock’s Last Case, now being served up at the Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables. Charles Marowitz’s script, a revisionist take on the legendary detective character Sherlock Holmes, borrows both characters and situations from the classic series of…
While virtually no one in this country foresaw the American disaster in Vietnam, the late British writer Graham Greene glimpsed it with astonishing clarity a decade before the first U.S. “advisor” set foot on Vietnamese soil. Greene’s 1955 novel The Quiet American, which has now been made into a disturbing…
Astaire & Rogers. Hepburn & Tracy. Heck, Ball & Arnaz, Houston & Washington, or Vardalos & Corbett. Over the decades Hollywood has proved that its romantic comedies needn’t suck. But alas, they often do, as is the case with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Clearly, bigwig co-producers…
