During the opening titles of 200 Cigarettes, we hear Bow Wow Wow’s near-peerless bubble-gum anthem, “I Want Candy.” The movie that follows seems designed to satisfy that craving: It’s sweet, tart, brightly colored, insubstantial, and utterly lacking in nutritional value. It’s also fun to consume, and harmless enough as long…
At the center of Taking Sides is a rube, a crass insurance salesman to be exact. A guy who doesn’t know Toscanini from teriyaki. A man who sleeps through Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, “because Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony bores me shitless,” as he explains to his secretary. Bored or just a bore,…
Choreographer and teacher Karen Stewart: “Black is my favorite color. If you open my closet, you’d swear I was married to an undertaker.” Stewart laughs at her reason for naming her dance troupe the Black Door Dance Ensemble. Another obvious reason: Her dancers are black. “I wanted to have my…
thursday february 25 The New World Symphony’s tribute to Finland’s most famous composer, Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), ends tonight as conductor Michael Tilson Thomas leads a rehearsal of Sibelius’s Symphonies no. 4 and 5. The conductor will also deliver “live” program notes from the stage. A key figure in promoting Finnish…
“It all started with me trying to get a gig for the Afro Polyphonic Space Orchestra,” recalls Jose Elias Mateo, referring to the genesis of the first-ever Afro Roots World Music Festival taking place this Friday at Tobacco Road. Mateo, a local multi-instrumentalist who performs with a variety of acts…
The sixteenth Miami Film Festival continues this week with even more international fare. On the must-see list are Thursday’s presentation of a sublime offering from French newcomer Erick Zonca that created quite a stir at Cannes, The Dreamlife of Angels. The same day Buena Vista Social Club showcases famed German…
A movie, a novel, a Broadway musical, and a stage play. The only popular dramatic form Kiss of the Spider Woman hasn’t conquered is the TV sitcom. Given its high-concept idea (a fussy homosexual and an idealistic politico sharing a small space and becoming the best of friends), can its…
As acts of conjuring go, God’s universe-in-seven-days gig was none too shabby. But George Merrick’s siring of Coral Gables, conceived with a flash of genius and realized with all the precision of divine foresight, is almost enough to make the Big Guy jealous. Coral Gables: The City Beautiful, the latest…
thursday february 18 Curious about the complex roots of Santeria and the colorful beads employed in rituals? Then attend this event sponsored by the Tribal Arts Society at the Lowe Art Museum (1301 Stanford Dr., Coral Gables). John Mason, student of Yoruba culture in the Americas and West Africa, diviner…
“Architecture reflects the way humans live in different time periods. The time for this building expired.” Architect Norman Giller is dryly referring to the former eight-story Singapore hotel in Bal Harbour, which he designed and which was recently torn down in favor of a towering new condominium development. Still vital…
After the priest has cut out the tongue of the Marquis de Sade, he presents the meaty organ, encased in a black box, to the asylum’s caretaker. Handing it over he comments, “It was so long and serpentlike that I had to wrap it around a dowel.” Well, I bet…
For film buffs it’s two weeks of sheer pleasure: the sixteenth annual Miami Film Festival, featuring 31 pictures from fifteen countries. Naturally Spanish-language features abound, from opening-night dance-fest Tango, courtesy of Argentine director Carlos Saura, to the kinky Spanish thriller Between Your Legs. There are also intimate looks at Cuban…
thursday february 11 In the real world, erstwhile supermodel Kate Moss (for those of you living in a cave, hello, the whole supermodel thing is over) spent a month recuperating from exhaustion in a London clinic. In the imaginary world of author Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero, American Psycho)…
Barron Sherer sounds about as atypically Miami as you can get. Deliberate instead of manic. Laconic instead of motor-mouthed. Considerate instead of rude. So it comes as no great cosmic slap upside the head to learn that he runs the city’s only true repertory film series, an endeavor that, in…
Lounging around the lobby of London’s Art Deco-inspired Savoy Hotel soaking up the 1920s atmosphere fit for a Fred Astaire movie isn’t part of most ordinary jobs. But for Mary Cleere Haran that kind of drudge work goes along with the glamorous territory of being one of New York City’s…
In The Eel, which won the Palme d’Or at the 1997 Cannes International Film Festival, director Shohei Imamura once again demonstrates his empathy for the outsiders and aliens of Japanese society. In this case he muses on the tormented relationship between a paroled wife-murderer who is struggling with his past…
The worst thing about French director Manuel Poirier’s Western, which was nominated for multiple Cesar Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars) and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, is its title. Despite the strained attempts of the movie’s production notes to convince us of…
Short of nuclear holocaust, a major sale at Kmart, or a confirmed Clint Eastwood sighting in rural Iowa, there’s probably no way to keep the movie version of Message in a Bottle from overwhelming the tender emotions of the hearts-and-flowers crowd. After all, this relentless assault on the tear ducts…
This is the season during which British playwright David Hare is printing his own currency on Broadway. In April the much ballyhooed The Blue Room, starring a naked Nicole Kidman, will be joined by a New York production of Amy’s View, featuring theater luminary Judi Dench. Soon after that Hare…
thursday february 4 We’ll forgive rockers Eve 6 for bellowing lyrics such as “Satan’s in the living room choking me with apathy” because the members of this Los Angeles-area trio, which recalls Green Day, are young — really young. In fact no one in the band is older than age…
Until an effective time machine is invented, posters (plus a touch of imagination) might be the best medium through which to visit bygone eras. Unlike fine art, posters tend to be populist rather than elitist. The International Vintage Poster Fair, an exhibition arriving in Miami Beach this weekend, will fill…
Don’t get an American Brahma bull pissed off. Brahmas may have smaller horns than your average Latin bullring toro, but they’re much bigger and definitely meaner. Unlike their counterparts they keep their eyes wide open when they charge, so it’s rare that they miss their target. How do they get…
