On September 13, at 11:30 a.m., Bryce Zabel was to have met with USA Network executives about a miniseries he was pitching to the cable outlet. Zabel, creator of such television shows as Dark Skies and The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, had the conference on his calendar for weeks. But,…
Since the here and now has been so visceral these last days, many South Floridians may have spent little time looking ahead. But eventually they should, when it comes to theater. The upcoming season looks promising; both established companies and upstarts have ambitious plans. As has been the case for…
The beautiful little conceit at the heart of Brad Anderson’s Happy Accidents is that audiences will sit still once more for the crackpot notion of time travel — and in a movie that’s not science fiction. To his credit, and with an implied bow to Back to the Future and…
Let’s see — which movie sports the most clichés? Outside of the Naked Gun-style spoofs, The Monkey’s Mask, a new murder-mystery from Australia, is a serious contender for that dubious honor. The Monkey’s Mask is essentially a run-of-the-mill film noir whodunit with a central twist: The wisecracking, lonely gumshoe hero…
A white rhinestone-studded jumpsuit once worn by Elvis Presley during a 1970s concert in Miami. A 1964 mug shot from the Tallahassee Police Department depicting the handsome mug of Doors singer Jim Morrison. The piano on which the memorable refrain from Eric Clapton’s “Layla” was pounded out. The Gainesville High…
In 1989 a boatload of Holocaust survivors watched as a German yacht with a dubious history and unconfirmed connections to Hitler was dropped to the bottom of Miami-Dade waters. As it turns out, the Ostwind is not the only yacht of German origin buried here. At the sandy edge of…
Julie Davis’s All Over the Guy is yet another entry in the ever-growing genre of gay romantic comedy. Ten years ago one would have led off by saying, “It’s a romantic comedy but with a twist: They’re both men!” or “It’s When Harry Met Solly…!” It’s a step in the…
When marching-band director Tyrone Brown asks his Jackie Robinson Steppers, “Are you motivated?” he’s not so much inquiring as presenting a challenge. It’s the middle of a sweltering summer in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, where tensions, temptations, and distractions are omnipresent. Synchronizing 60 players — while diverting some of them…
Is the stage half empty or half full? Depends on your improvisational skills, David Christopher would say. While some consider it theater’s ugly cousin, Christopher, an actor, instructor, and one of the founding members of the Just the Funny Improv Comedy Theater Company, contends that improv is an essential part…
When deposed Miami Film Festival director Nat Chediak introduced his friend, famed Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba, to Latin jazz music many years ago via a Paquito D’Rivera record, Trueba, like Chediak before him, was hooked, ensnared in a net of sound that became a personal and professional passion. Their association…
The cold-bloodedness of some entertainment journalists is a thing to be admired; they’ve balls for brains, which gets you far in this profession. The Hollywood press corps’ cynicism is the source of its strength, and God bless the famous fool who plays along, answering every crooked question with the straightest…
Skeletons in the corner, jittery women in crisply pressed nurses’ uniforms, doors that are shifting entries to alternative realities … if you think this is theater of the absurd, think again. You have entered one of theater’s most loved but problematic genres: the thriller. From Sleuth to Deathtrap, theatrical thrillers…
A year after Cameron Crowe climbed back aboard the tour bus for one last spin through rock’s golden days of giddy hedonism and phony heroism comes a film set a decade later, in the mid-Eighties, when the parties got harder, the music louder, and the musicians prettier. The world of…
To hear the words record and museum used in the same sentence doesn’t seem strange. Since long-playing record albums and singles were muscled out by compact discs in the Eighties, it’s the rare aficionado who owns a turntable and a copious supply of vinyl that can send him back to…
If Andy Warhol could turn a can of soup into a twentieth-century icon, there’s no telling what he’s capable of doing for ballet, even fourteen years after his death. Invoking both the name and work of the silver-haired pop artist, Italy’s Balletto Teatro di Torino gives classical ballet a swift,…
Judd Apatow tries not to think of what became of Sam and Lindsay Weir, Neal Schweiber, Bill Haverchuck, Daniel Desario, Nick Andopolis and the other freaks and geeks Apatow knew back at McKinley High School. Those kids were his family, the children born when Apatow and writer Paul Feig created…
Oscar Wilde, that astute observer of the late Nineteenth Century, said that controversy reveals a favorable condition for change. It’s applicable to the recent debate among artists, critics, and the curious over some negative reviews of the exhibition “Skins,” at the Dorsch Gallery. Because of the very diverse yet interconnected…
Pity the poor classic-film lover. All of the great films have been seen, over and over. The only thrill left is to imagine what it might be like to see Citizen Kane or The Seven Samurai or Children of Paradise for the first time. If that’s your wish, you’re in…
What could be more fashionable than South Beach? Anything, apparently. Despite the tireless efforts of tourism types, the one-time hotspot for the international fabulatti is losing its luster fast. The models, designers, celebrities, paparazzi, and assorted oily hangers-on who at one time descended in droves to the unseemly island are…
A breathless Rick Sanchez flop-sweating into the camera as he delivers another compelling report. A sober Sally Fitz earnestly stumbling over simple words and becoming the, er, butt of local urban legend. The snarky duo of Belkys Nerey and Lynn Martinez smart-alecking their way through another frothy installment of Deco…
Far too often, those who work in the music industry are so concerned with making a living they often forget they’re capable, at their best, of making history as well. They sacrifice art and artists in the name of commerce, then sleep soundly wrapped in bedspreads made of silk and…
This is not a common subject for the stage, screen, or most anyplace else. But Cuillo Centre for the Arts’ current production, Menopause: The Musical, is a cabaret-style musical about what feminist Gail Sheehy termed “the Silent Passage” and what aunts, mothers, and grandmothers for generations have referred to in…
