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…
If you had a conventional grammar school education and you don’t watch too much Nick at Nite, chances are you don’t think of Sebastian Cabot as the discoverer of the New World. According to The Complete History of America (abridged), however, it was this Englishman — and not the Italian…
thursday november 5 This year’s Easter Seals Festival of Chefs promises to be about more than just tantalizing your tastebuds. The event, which raises awareness and funds for children with disabilities, will feature unlimited amounts of good eats from restaurants such as Los Ranchos, Cafe Beethoven, Diego’s, and Cafe Tu…
Imagine going out to lunch and dropping $3500. Rather steep for a caesar salad and an iced tea, no? Well, it could happen if you dine at Meza Fine Art’s gallerycafe in Coral Gables. Opened in 1993 by Andrea Meza, a native of Colombia, Meza Fine Art has always billed…
We live in the age of the celebrity architect: Philip Johnson, Richard Meier, Frank Gehry, Charles Gwathmey, Michael Graves, Laurinda Spear, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Their names are almost as familiar as those of Madonna, Brad Pitt, and Puff Daddy. Whether they’ve designed the house you live in, the linens you sleep…
In 1994’s The Monster (Il Mostro), Roberto Benigni’s most recent film to gain wide American release, the Italian writer/director/star puts himself at the center of a mistaken-identity farce about a serial killer. In Life Is Beautiful (La Vita e Bella), Benigni plays a wacky, high-spirited man who convinces his young…
Fifteen minutes into Velvet Goldmine, director Todd Haynes’s love letter to England’s glam-rock scene of the late Sixties/early Seventies, the film already promises to be many things: a missing-person mystery, a meticulous period piece, an essay on sexually liberated dandyism, a quasi-musical, a portrait of a Machiavellian as aspiring pop…
Fascism is in the air. Well, at least it’s on movie screens. In a two-week stretch we’ve seen old Nazis (Life Is Beautiful), old Nazis training neo-Nazis (Apt Pupil), book burning (Pleasantville), and now, with The Siege, a story of full-blown military rule on American soil. Still in the wings:…
