“I just find it all so bizarre,” notes John Maybury, popping a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it in what appears to be one quick flip of the wrist. “All those issues of ‘being out’ and, ‘Are you in?’ We should have gone beyond that by now. I know…
JUMP INFORMATION APPENDED FROM FILE C:NEP32DAYS1203199812030101.NVT According to the sparse information available in standard reference books, Chilean expatriate director Raul Ruiz, still in his late fifties, has made more than 100 films since 1960; apparently only 50 or so are features, but that’s still an impressive stat. Although he’s been…
Imagine the results of a collaboration between Federico Fellini and Woody Allen? Let’s say it was years ago, before Fellini died and Woody stopped making funny movies. Hilarious, right? And how bizarre would it be if there were any justice for the oppressed of this sorry world? Would we all…
The word burp is layered with meaning in English. There is the nurturing burp one encourages from a baby to help digestion. There is the vulgar burp an ill-mannered boor expels after guzzling a gaseous beverage. Then there is the satisfying burp, the pleasing pffft heard when a Tupperware container…
thursday 26 It’s Thanksgiving and you’re home. You have yet to stuff your face with turkey and all the other stuff, and the last thing you want to do is sit around watching that damn Macy’s parade on TV. For a change, why not go to North Miami’s WinterNational Parade…
Surprise and pleasure come wrapped together in A Bug’s Life. This big adventure about tiny critters is the latest piece of robust whimsy from Pixar, the computer-animation studio that broke into features with the 1995 smash Toy Story. It should prove irresistible to children. Toy Story opened up the secret…
A third of the way through Home Fries you may begin wondering if the filmmakers haven’t outsmarted themselves. Overloaded with oddities but a bit short on horse sense, this is one of those stubbornly defiant, attitude-driven movies that’s so busy scrambling genres, breaking rules, and dashing expectations on the road…
In the rancid nightmare farce called Very Bad Things, Peter Berg, in his writing-directing debut, creates characters that you immediately want to see killed off. From the title to the ads to the Website (which features a Vegas stripper who will dance for you), Very Bad Things has been positioned…
Given the vroom-vroom of their current go-round on stage, it’s possible that, even with the theatrical equivalent of a road map, you might not be able to keep track of Kander and Ebb these days. Critically acclaimed revivals of the songwriting team’s biggest hits, Cabaret (1966) and Chicago (1975), are…
On July 4, 1998, 29 horses gained their independence on Key Biscayne. No, the city didn’t decide to close itself off and become a wildlife sanctuary. That was the day the Crandon Park carousel came back to life. Built by Allan Herschell in 1949 and 1950 — around the same…
thursday november 19 Unlike most photographers, Cindy Sherman spends a lot of time in front of, as well as behind, the camera when she works. Sherman is her own best model. In the late Seventies she made her name with “Untitled Film Stills,” a series of photos that depict her…
“Some people just listen, they never do tell,” declares teacher and storyteller Linda Spitzer, referring to members of the Miami Storytellers Guild, the organization she founded in 1990 by recruiting other aficionados through a newspaper advertisement. This Friday night Miami will be one of many cities around the world reverberating…
Holed up with his Sidney Bechet records, old flannel shirts, and dog-eared copy of War and Peace, Woody Allen has made a second career of shunning fad, fashion, and fame — and of ostensibly keeping to himself in the most populous city in the United States. No nouveau-grooveau glitz or…
Even students of English history may have trouble sorting out the palace intrigues and intragovernmental conspiracies that fill Elizabeth, the handsome new production about Queen Elizabeth I’s ascension to the British throne in 1558. With the bewitching Australian actress Cate Blanchett in the title role, the film follows Elizabeth’s transformation…
When a play’s title is The Adjustment, chances are the playwright will be suggesting a monumental shift in attitude or perspective on the part of one or more characters. In Michael T. Folie’s new work, recently opened at the Florida Stage, tiny adjustments also occur. The play is set in…
“So many books, so little time,” muses Alina Interian, reflecting on her ten years as executive director of the Miami Book Fair International. The weeklong event, celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, kicks off this Sunday with a reception at 6:00 p.m. and a reading by Aharon Appelfeld. This weekend avid readers…
thursday november 12 In 1934 Joseph Stalin attempted to give Jews in the Soviet Union a permanent enclave by creating a Jewish Autonomous Region, the capital of which was dubbed Birobidzhan. In conjunction with the exhibition “Stalin’s Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland,” Nikolai Borodulin,…
“Here he comes, Miss America.” Huh? Unlike most Miss Universe-type beauty contests hosted by Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau Hilton Resort and Spa, the “Misses” at next Monday night’s Miss Florida National pageant, at the hotel’s Club Tropigala, can’t really be addressed as “Miss,” or even “Ms.” “Our aim is to elevate…
For filmmaker Todd Solondz, it’s always midnight in suburbia. Life is lonely, and the natives can be hostile. In Happiness, his daring second film, the darkness engulfs victims of all ages: a boy in the throes of impending adolescence, three New Jersey sisters tormented by sex and love, an obscene…
Well, now we know why the term “bored to death” was invented. Meet Joe Black takes an interesting idea — Death assumes human form and comes to Earth to learn about human existence — and reduces it to a flat, uninspired, interminable, slow movie. Not only slow but long, a…
First, a disclaimer: Having missed last year’s I Know What You Did Last Summer, I deliberately put off seeing it until I had seen the the sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. That way I could view part two without prejudice, and be able to judge whether…
American History X, a hard-edged look at American neo-Nazis, arrives in theaters with a lot of behind-the-scenes baggage: First-time director Tony Kaye engaged in a protracted, high-profile battle with distributor-producer New Line Cinema over the film’s final form. While Kaye may have a justified grievance, this is not as clear-cut…
