Extinct Planet of the Apes

Although the benefit event called Tribe being held at Level nightclub this Friday is for the orangutans, the animals will be dreaming orangutan dreams long before the evening hits its stride with scheduled performances by disco diva Martha Wash and DJ duo Thunderpuss 2000. “Usually orangutans go to sleep between…

Money Men

There is only one reason Jon Favreau’s new film is called Made. Not too long ago, his old friend and co-star Vince Vaughn called him up and told him, in no uncertain terms, “You gotta write something that can get made.” It was less a demand than it was a…

The Vicious Circle in Song

From Bosnia to Bessie Smith, Florida Stage’s 2000-2001 season consistently has shown how music helps shape historical moments and our lives. The theater’s final production of the summer, At Wit’s End, is no exception. This musical comedy uses live piano accompaniment throughout to re-create one of the most culturally vital…

Hard Eye Candy

What’s in a name? In Vivian Marthell’s work, quite a lot — of imagery and humor. While checking out “Intimate Addictions: Living Large in Tight Spaces” at lab6, I was particularly taken with butt-pops, as she calls these clever pieces made with beads and candy wrappers. Her chupa-chups and get…

Give Him an Inch

Times certainly have changed. Twenty years ago a musical about an East German transsexual rock singer would have premiered in one of New York’s off off-Broadway theaters or cabarets, run for a couple of weeks, and remained the pleasant memory of a select few. But when John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig…

It Happens

Matt Stone has little time to talk. It’s Tuesday, July 17, 1 p.m. in Los Angeles, yet Stone and Trey Parker have yet to finish a television show that will debut some 30 hours from now–an episode of South Park titled “Terrance and Garfunkel,” in which the farting, fighting Canadian…

High Notes

The audience at the 26th Street Theatre’s production of William Finn’s musical Falsettoland can be as idiosyncratic as the play itself. In South Florida (and especially in Broward and Palm Beach counties), where theater audiences usually consist of retirees age 65 and older, a recent Sunday’s full house consisted of…

Spliced Up Nice

Get ready to sit. The busy summer film season in Miami continues with two remarkable events. The FIU-Miami International Film Festival will present the area premiere of Apocalypse Now Redux, the long-awaited director’s cut of the acclaimed Vietnam War film by Francis Ford Coppola. The multi-award winner featured those performances…

Cheeeers Johnny!

On his sixth interview of the day to promote a twenty-city U.S. tour he’s nearly halfway into, John Leguizamo recalls again his first paying acting gig: “I was like nineteen years old. I looked like such a punk, being the villain of the episode, pretty ridiculous.” The show? Miami Vice…

Get Reel, Miami

Sixty years ago a rigid waltz was considered proper on the dance floor; any sort of dancing that involved moving hips was frowned upon. Or so claims Twist, producer/director Ron Mann’s informative and often amusing documentary that combines archival footage with interviews to chronicle the evolution of rock and roll…

Klinky Sex

Robert Scott Crane insists he had no idea that people would be so fascinated with his famous father’s penis (or is that his father’s famous penis?). “We knew it would be big,” Scotty Crane says, “but we didn’t know how big.” He’s talking not about the member in question–of its…

Real-Time Car Talk

The Mad Cat experience Here in My Car may not be for everyone, but it may be for you. The best way to tell is not whether you’ve acquired a studied cool or nerdy hipness; it’s really more a matter of semantics. To find out if you qualify to get…

Above the Original Din

Primitive iconography is dramatic and seductive, but it also can be trite and manipulative. How to tell the difference is the key: In general look for consistency of symbols and the substance behind the style. The primitive must deliver immediate expression, raw and succinct. Unfortunately of all the stuff we…

Summer Fun Screens

Summertime supposedly is the slow season in South Florida, but you wouldn’t know it from the sudden explosion of film news and events happening or about to happen around Miami. There doesn’t appear to be a specific reason for this cineblitz, but the situation suggests both the pros and cons…

Wasted Youth

“I want you to suck my big dick. I want you to lick my balls.” Thus begins Larry Clark’s Bully, a return to Kids territory, following a forgettable detour into adulthood titled Another Day in Paradise that apparently didn’t kick up enough of a fuss for the guy. So he…

See Change

In September 1971 a group of hippie Canadians hired a boat and piloted it to the Aleutian island of Amchitka, hoping to halt a U.S. nuclear test. “They didn’t actually get to the test on time, but that’s how Greenpeace was born — people trying to make a difference,” says…

Nightlife Is a Cabaret

A self-professed romantic, Doug Williford spends a good deal of his time living in the past through his love for cabaret. He enjoys hanging out in a small club, sipping a strong drink, and listening to a great vocalist belt out songs that turn your insides out. Problem: There is…

Hollywood Gaming

Most plays begin when the actors first appear, but Hollywood Playhouse’s Game Show: The Comedy You Play starts the moment you walk into the 200-seat theater. David K. Sherman has done an excellent job of setting the stage for this entertaining blend of interactivity and comedy. The brightly colored podiums…

Legally Bland

Back in her early teens, Reese Witherspoon proved herself a terrific actress in her big-screen debut, Man in the Moon (1991). Since then she’s done first-rate work in critical hits such as Pleasantville, cult faves including Freeway and Election, and underrated gems like Best Laid Plans. So how is it…

The Unforgotten

In the movies dead husbands and dearly departed boyfriends have an irksome habit of revisiting the women who once loved them — usually at inconvenient moments. Consider Demi Moore in Ghost. Poor thing had to put up with the dramatically challenged shade of Patrick Swayze, who droned on and on…

Rights Only

“It’s something I’ve lived with on a day-to-day basis. It was not new to me,” notes attorney Burnett Roth, referring to the reaction he had when he first saw the exhibition “The Art of Hatred: Images of Intolerance in Florida Culture,” currently on display at the Sanford L. Ziff Jewish…

Fearless Flying Females

Aviation buffs and photography aficionados can enjoy the aesthetic appeal of air travel without the burden of luggage, lines, or delays when “Women and Flight,” a Smithsonian traveling exhibit paying homage to female pilots, makes a brief layover at the Miami-Dade Public Library. The black-and-white prints of windblown female pilots…