Diversions >>

• BEST RADIO STATION
  Power 96 WPOW-FM (96.5)
  The pop-radio wars have just begun. Dance-only upstart WPYM-FM (93.1) calls out the big dogs at Power 96 to put up or shut up. Power takes the bait and responds decisively. Sure it plays more commercials, and it saturates us regularly with hip-hop we've heard before, but Power still spins the... More >>
• BEST MOVIE THEATER
  Intracoastal Cinema
  Being a cineaste in Miami means making your peace with malls. Over the past few years most choice indies and foreign flicks have landed at either the eighteen-screen South Beach Regal or one of the area's other multiplexes -- not our hit-and-miss art houses. So getting your celluloid fix has... More >>
• BEST ART CINEMA
  Bill Cosford Cinema
  This ain't the Waverly in Greenwich Village or anything, but it's as close as Miami gets. Part of the pleasure of going to the Cosford is meandering through that gorgeous, lush (and very non-NYC) University of Miami campus. The magic room on the second floor of Memorial Hall is where we get to... More >>
• BEST ART CHAT
  Pillow Talk

  Beach House Bal Harbour

  Film and theater directors and actors, poets and writers have been allowing audience members to have at them for years in frank exchanges about content and merit, seriousness and triviality. Now the Rubell family, boutique hoteliers and major art collectors, are applying the principle to visual... More >>
• BEST TV STATION
  City of Miami Television (Channel 9)
  This is no joke. Jim Clark, a former WAMI-TV (Channel 61) sports producer with otherwise good credentials, began whipping Channel 9 into shape in the fall of 2001. Under his guidance we can still witness extraordinary performances by one of South Florida's best acting troupes, the Miami... More >>
• BEST FILM FESTIVAL
  Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
  Really, this is more an award for founder/director Robert Rosenberg than it is for a collection of films. As we saw this year with the Miami Film Festival, there's more to creating a successful event than meets the camera's eye. Rosenberg started his fest four years ago with a combination of... More >>
• BEST PIT STOP
  Wayside Fruit and Vegetable
  Pit stop not really required, though for joggers and bikers it's ideal. This roadside fresh fruit, vegetable, chocolate brownie, and fruity milkshake stand, located on an otherwise residential stretch of Red Road, is worth a trip all by itself. Located far (and not so far) from the madding... More >>
• BEST PIT STOP ON THE WAY TO KEY WEST
  The Lor-e-lei

  Mile Marker 82

  This bar, restaurant, and marina is more than merely a pit stop for hungry tourists on their way to Key West. It's a piece of Islamorada history, a place to bask in the warm sun and the spirit of the Keys, and it's a popular watering hole for locals. Start your visit with a fresh fish sandwich... More >>
• BEST LOCAL SPORTS COACH
  Larry Coker

  University of Miami football

  We know he's duller than dirt. Hell, he knows it. And as soon as he loses a game and/or doesn't win a national championship, New Times, shallow and fickle publication that we are, will hold it against him. But until then, Larry, congrats: You da man! More >>
• BEST TOURIST TRAP
  Casa Casuarina
  It's the train-wreck effect. No one walks by without slowing down, turning their heads. They lean in close to each other and whisper. "Versace," "shot," "steps." Casa Casuarina, now the property of North Carolina telecommunications mogul Peter Loftin, sits in ostentatiously grand Mediterranean... More >>
• BEST ALTERNATIVE USE OF GALLERY SPACE
  Artemis (lab6 and PS 742)
  It's Cultural Friday over on SW Eighth Street, except there isn't really any culture. For that you need to go north a couple blocks and find this eclectic building. Upstairs: lab6 art gallery, showing new and alternative works, usually by locals. Downstairs: PS 742 performance space, featuring... More >>
• BEST HAITIAN RADIO UPGRADE
  Radio Carnivale

  WRHB-AM (1020)

  Radio Carnivale is the first Haitian-owned radio station in the nation (not counting pirate stations and two so-called FM subcarriers that can be picked up only by a specially tuned radio). The Kreyol-language station went on the air in early 2001 after last-minute complications: a name and... More >>
• BEST ART GALLERY
  Fredric Snitzer Gallery
  He's received this award before. He deserves it again. Not that Snitzer is alone these days in promoting the new, the local, the quality art. No indeed. Genaro Ambrosino's gallery, transplanted to North Miami, continues to showcase just that, as do those gallery-homes that stole much of the... More >>
• BEST NEW FILM TREND
  Free film-festival movies on the sand
  The Miami Film Festival's David Poland may have moved on, but it would be a shame if the former director's innovation of showing festival flicks free on the sands of South Beach -- on a 70-foot-high screen beneath the night sky -- went with him. (Organizers of Miami's Brazilian Film Festival... More >>
• BEST MUSEUM
  Bass Museum of Art
  We waited and waited (and waited) for the old Bass Museum to reopen after an extensive, eight-million-dollar renovation and expansion. It turned out to be worth the wait. For more than three years the City of Miami Beach, which owns the museum, suffered through interminable, costly construction... More >>
• BEST BOOK BY A LOCAL AUTHOR
  Florida Poems

  By Campbell McGrath

  McGrath, a Miami Beach resident and professor at Florida International University, moved here a few years ago and then set for himself a Whitmanesque challenge: Write a defining poem about his adopted home state. And then he had the temerity to call it "The Florida Poem." This piece, a highlight... More >>
• BEST PULP FICTION
  Mob Over Miami

  By Michele McPhee

  There can't really be a more authentic South Beach tale than the rise of Chris Paciello, the New York small-time mobster who headed to Florida and glamorously reinvented himself as the crown prince of clubland. Splashed across the gossip pages, there he was canoodling with supermodels, dancing... More >>
• BEST LOCAL ARTIST
  William Cordova
  This Peruvian native likes intimacy. He uses words (English and Spanish), everyday items, penciled sketches, postcard-size spaces, kinetic video, even entire houses to bring us into the world of the private life. Cordova has described his art as a diary, but his personal life reflects our own... More >>
• BEST NEW ARTIST
  Kristen Thiele
  At the risk of starting a family feud, we'll venture to say that it isn't the accomplished Robert Thiele who's the true shining art star in town. It's Robert's own daughter Kristen, who's returned home from a spell in Chicago to take a studio at Lincoln Road's ArtCenter South Florida. And the... More >>
• BEST EMERGING ARTIST
  Norberto Rodriguez
  You know his work. Or maybe you don't know that you know. Rodriguez is rather hard to keep an eye on sometimes. Like his piece for what turned out to be the Art-Basel-replacement-event of the year at the Bass Museum, "globe>miami>island." His was the music you heard in the freight elevator, on... More >>
• BEST LOCAL WRITER
  Ricardo Pau-Llosa
  The title of this author's fifth book of poetry, The Mastery Impulse, forthcoming from Carnegie-Mellon University Press, pretty much sums it up: Pau-Llosa has got it down. Whether he's writing poetry, short fiction, or art criticism, this Miami Cuban knows how to reach his local as well as... More >>
• BEST DRAG QUEEN
  Elaine Lancaster
  Why Elaine? Here's one reason: At a recent Perry Ellis fashion show, this South Beach diva famous for her killer Cher impression had the unenviable task of working the crowd following the parade of beauties who had just pranced down the runway. The fashion elites, with their low tolerance for... More >>
• BEST TV NEWS ANCHOR
  Laurie Jennings

  WSVN-TV (Channel 7)

  Was that a wink? Is she flirting with me? Man, she seems happy tonight. Maybe she's tipsy. No, I think she's just flirting with me. Viewers of WSVN's nightly newscasts can be excused for wondering if Laurie Jennings is communicating directly with them via the tube. When she began at Channel 7 in... More >>
• BEST TV NEWS REPORTER
  Benno Schmidt

  NBC 6 (WTVJ-TV)

  If there were a category for best hair on television, Schmidt would win hands down. That pompadour of his rises at least two feet above his head. Even more impressive is his voice: deep, serious, pontifical. Schmidt could make a routine Krome Avenue car crash sound as important as the fall of... More >>
• BEST LITTLE MAGAZINE FOR LITTLE MINDS
  Ego Trip
  The table of contents in this four-by-five-and-a-half-inch monthly magazine tells the story. Bartender of the month. DJ of the month. Artist, chef, and model of the month. Concierge of the month. Doorman of the month. Bulwarks of our community. The front line in our noble struggle for the... More >>
• BEST LOCAL ZINE
  OpenZine
  According to OpenZine editors Humby and Kiki Valdes, this is an "urban subculture magazine." Did you know Destro is back? Bet you didn't even know Destro had left. (That's the name of a straight-edge rock band.) You'd be up on it had you been reading this zine. Just like you'd be privy to what's... More >>
• BEST HURRICANES FOOTBALL PLAYER
  Ed Reed
  Offense may fill the seats but defense fills the trophy case. UM can thank senior safety Ed Reed for playing a major role in delivering the 'Canes' fifth national championship. He led UM with 9 interceptions this year and a school-record 21 for his career there. With Reed calling and delivering... More >>
• BEST PANTHERS PLAYER
  Robert Luongo
  This award wasn't about to go to Pavel Bure, that's for sure, even if the Panthers hadn't traded the sulking Russian wingman to the Rangers in exchange for -- for, well, absolutely nothing. Bure's simmering discontent affected the whole team and kept the Panthers from seriously improving. Now,... More >>
• BEST DOLPHINS PLAYER
  Ricky Williams
  Following a trade from New Orleans, Williams comes to Miami as a bit of a weirdo (he used to keep his helmet on while signing autographs) and a bit of a slacker (so underwhelmed were the Saints with Williams they drafted another running back, in the first round, only one year after drafting... More >>
• BEST HEAT PLAYER
  Alonzo Mourning
  Anyone who needed proof that Zo is the heart, soul, and muscle of the Miami Heat got it when the most intense center in the NBA was knocked out of most of the 2000 season by a kidney ailment. He returned, half-strength, at the beginning of the 2001 season to a team as shaky as he was. But then... More >>
• BEST MARLINS PLAYER
  Josh Beckett
  On a young team loaded with prospects and emerging pitching talent, we especially like the promise that Beckett holds. The right-handed pitcher from Spring, Texas, was named USA Today's high-school pitcher of the year in 1999. He was also the first prep pitcher drafted by the Marlins in the... More >>
• BEST RIVALRY
  Gwen Cherry Bulls vs. Liberty City Warriors
  You know there's something going on when 600 people turn out to watch a football game featuring four-year-olds. Yet that's what happens, dependably, when these two Liberty City parks play each other in Pop Warner football. No matter what the weight class, from the four-year-old pee wees up to... More >>
• BEST BEANBALL
  John Henry
  After buying the dismantled 1997 World Series champion Marlins from H. Wayne Huizenga, John Henry made lots of promises to South Florida baseball fans, a couple of which he actually kept. In the process he proved the fallacy of the expansion-team philosophy: Add more teams because TV needs more... More >>
• BEST WEATHERCASTER
  Don Noe

  WPLG-TV (Channel 10)

  We like Don Noe for what he is not. He's not a bumbling grandpa bouncing through the low and high temperatures. Nor is he a slinky siren in a miniskirt relaying the boating conditions in a sweater tight enough to impede speech. He's just a no-nonsense guy, friendly enough but with a reliable... More >>
• BEST AM RADIO PERSONALITY
  Alberto Milian
  Reasons the loquacious, pugnacious, and thoroughly informed emcee of Habla el Pueblo (The People Speak) likes his new home at WKAT-AM (1360), Radio Uno: "It's very professional. There's no interference from the management." Compared to, say, WWFE-AM (670), La Poderosa, whose owner canceled... More >>
• BEST FM RADIO PERSONALITY
  Lita

  Power 96 (WPOW-FM 96.5)

  And girlfriend, we do mean personality. Although Mark Moseley did a decent job for years pretending to be queer, Lita lit up the airwaves with tough-as-nails humor only a real big queen could hammer home. Whether dispensing no-nonsense fashion sense to Hialeah hootchies or dishing the dirt on... More >>
• BEST SPANISH-LANGUAGE RADIO PERSONALITY
  Ninoska Perez Castellon

  Ninoska a la una

  WQBA-AM (1140)

  Ninoska isn't for everyone, but unlike most of her peers in the anti-Castro radio business, she's not a megalomaniac and she isn't using her high-profile platform as much for her own career advancement as for communicating her passionately held beliefs about her homeland. Ninoska is in fact a... More >>
• BEST COSTUME DESIGN
  Ilona Somogyi

  Red Herring

  Florida Stage

  Somogyi gets the nod for her droll, inventive Fifties design scheme, in itself a hilarious social critique. From nightmarish polka dots and pony skirts to her big-shouldered suits for the men, the New York designer brought Red Herring an added level of comedy and social commentary. Somogyi has... More >>
• BEST STAGE DESIGN
  Victor Becker

  Black Sheep

  Florida Stage

  Using an all white-set and a series of mobile screens, Becker created an ever-shifting fun house of mobile space, a perfect setting for Lee Blessing's elusive, dreamlike comedy that offered director Michael Bigelow Dixon plenty of staging opportunities. The space allowed the play itself to... More >>
• BEST THEATER FOR DRAMA
  Florida Stage
  This Palm Beach County company serves up challenging productions with a nice blend of local and New York actors and a welcome infusion of very talented directors and designers from across the nation. Artistic director Louis Tyrrell has an excellent instinct for play selection and maintains close... More >>
• BEST ENSEMBLE CAST
  Red Herring

  Florida Stage

  More kudos for the little Florida Stage that could. But here's why: Stephen G. Anthony, Patricia Dalen, Suzanne Grodner, Kendra Kassebaum, Johnathan F. McClain, and Gordon McConnell. This outstanding cast served up an endless stream of hilarious yet sometimes touching characters in this black... More >>
• BEST BLACK-BOX PRODUCTION
  audiovideo

  Juggerknot Theatre Company

  What's the difference between a black box and a full theater? Size, yes. The first is much more intimate. But in the right hands a black-box experience becomes something entirely new. Like when a director decides to ignore the confines of a stage and work with the space as a whole. Like when... More >>
• BEST LOCALLY PRODUCED STAGE COMEDY
  Here in My Car

  Mad Cat Productions

  Miami Light Project's Light Box Theatre

  The trick of a successful comedy is to walk the fine line between life and art, which the local acting troupe Mad Cat did so humorously in their third production, Here in My Car. It cleverly combined a bit of Melrose Place with a healthy dose of The Real World and plunked it down in Miami. This... More >>
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
  Paul Tei

  Black Sheep

  Florida Stage

  As Max, a spoiled rich kid turned film critic, Tei turned in an over-the-top performance that stole the show, no small feat in a very strong cast and very strong play. But Tei's done it before, in the fabulous Popcorn last year at GableStage and other productions around town. It was time,... More >>
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
  Brenda Thomas

  Bee-luther-hatchee

  Florida Stage

  Thomas was outstanding as Libby Price, a world-weary black woman adrift in the Southern racial struggles of the Sixties in this interesting production. ("Bee-luther-hatchee" is early twentieth-century African-American slang for a faraway, damnable place, the next station after the stop for... More >>
• BEST SOLO PERFORMANCE
  Teo Castellanos

  NE 2nd Avenue

  Serving up a rogues' gallery of local Miami characters, Castellanos showed off his considerable performing and writing gifts in one of the theater season's highlights. Donning different hats, literally, Castellanos took on the accent, the movements, indeed the appearance of a Haitian jitney... More >>
• BEST ACTRESS
  Pamela Roza

  Boy Gets Girl

  GableStage

  Roza was memorable as a tightly wound professional woman in Manhattan being stalked by a would-be suitor. Her emotional range and willingness to explore the character's ugly sides helped turn Rebecca Gilman's issue-driven potboiler into a dark, troubling character study. We've seen Roza before... More >>
• BEST ACTOR
  Peter Haig

  Someone Who'll Watch Over Me

  Haig's performance in this show (at the Mosaic Theatre in Plantation) was little seen but indelible. An insular literature professor imprisoned in war-torn Beirut, chained in place for the entire play, Haig could barely move, not even stand, but nevertheless managed to conjure up a moving,... More >>
• BEST LOCAL DIRECTOR
  Joe Adler

  GableStage

  And the winner is.... Once again the award goes to Adler for his range of work and the professionalism with which it is produced. From gritty naturalism in the creepy and mind-bending Boy Gets Girl to lyrical musical drama in The Dead to the brilliant absurdism of Edward Albee's The Play About... More >>
• BEST SPANISH-LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
  Cenizas Sobre el Mar

  Teatro Avante

  On a metaphorical sea four rafters (a soldier, an explorer, a priest, and an archetypal female) became more than refugees -- they grew into symbols of rebirth and redemption in Teatro Avante's rendition of Colombian playwright José Assad's Cenizas Sobre el Mar (Ashes on the Sea). An... More >>
• BEST LOCALLY PRODUCED DRAMA
  The Play About the Baby

  GableStage

  Who's afraid of putting on Edward Albee? Not GableStage. And this production of the playwright's mind-bending verbal labyrinth was a dizzying, enigmatic tour de force. Strong all around, from Joseph Adler's crisp staging through the tight and engrossing performances (including some nifty work... More >>
• BEST SHOT IN THE ARM FOR LOCAL BOXING
  Sugar Ray Leonard
  Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion Leonard has done what retired fighters just don't do. He's crossed over from the exploited to the exploiter. He has become a boxing promoter. But Leonard isn't much like the parasitic thugs who control professional pugilism. He says he wants to... More >>
• BEST TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR FASHION SHOW
  Fashion TV
  At any given moment, in some time zone, a fashion show is under way. Don't believe us? Just click your cable remote to Fashion TV and observe 24 solid hours a day of runway shows, complete with strutting models, over-the-top haute couture, and bowing designers. The eye candy is equal-opportunity... More >>
• BEST SPORTSCASTER
  Jimmy Cefalo

  WPLG-TV (Channel 10)

  The veteran sports guy has a couple of things going for him: He was a jock -- a star receiver for the Miami Dolphins -- and he's got great hair. But he also seems to know that a good sportscaster ought to do more than just recite the scores. Recent example: The Miami Heat pulled out a February... More >>
• BEST LOCAL WEBSITE
  www.clubhoppers.net
  Miami has had its fair share of zines and Websites vying to be the source when it comes to covering nightlife. Clubhoppers comes closest to earning the title. Listing various venues and acts is no difficult task; anyone with e-mail or a fax machine can obtain the info and regurgitate it for the... More >>
• SECOND-BEST LOCAL WEBSITE
  www.cooljunkie.com
  Yes, another nightlife Website. No surprise, given the pervasiveness of nightclubs and the intense competition among them. But this site has a somewhat different feel to it. A little more comprehensive. A little more complex. A little more commercial. But that's exactly what makes it the one you... More >>
• BEST FILM SERIES
  Cuban Cinema Series

  Miami-Dade Community College

  Who else but MDCC's Alejandro Rios could put together a top-flight, ongoing program of Cuban films -- from islanders and directors in exile -- attract full houses, and yet raise nary a peep from our AM talk-radio friends and their noisy shock troops? Maybe a free series with this kind of quality... More >>
• BEST TRADE (SPORTS TEAM)
  Florida Marlins owner John Henry to the Boston Red Sox
  Major League Baseball engineered this deal, allowing Henry to sell the Marlins, then turn around and buy the Red Sox. To Henry, who constantly cried poverty, tried to cajole South Florida taxpayers into building him a new stadium, and then when they wouldn't, orchestrated the $600 million... More >>
• BEST MISSED OPPORTUNITY
  Miami Fusion
  When Major League Soccer finally catches on in the United States, the decision to fold the Miami Fusion will make America's most apathetic sports town look even more stupid, as if that were possible. (Hello? The Dolphins couldn't sell out a playoff game?) Soccer is followed with feverish... More >>
• BEST NEW OLDIES JAZZ STATION (1 Comment)
  104.1 FM
  The seasoned cats who preside over Jazz in the Afternoon play all the cool hits. You know: Kind of Blue, Giant Steps, A Love Supreme (the whole blessed album). This is noncommercial (and unlicensed, meaning "pirate") community radio as it was meant to be. These guardians of the bebop, hard-bop,... More >>
• BEST METEOROLOGICAL TREAT
  Clouds
  Miami has no mountains. There are no hills, buttes, or mesas. But there are clouds, and they appear almost daily on the big palette that is South Florida's sky. Our cosmic placement at the tip of a peninsula located to the east of the Gulf of Mexico, north of the Caribbean Sea, and downwind of... More >>
• BEST BEATLES CORRESPONDENCE
  Hard Rock Café

  Bayside Marketplace

  Before finding happiness in a warm gun, the Beatles found a buddy in a Miami Beach cop. Sgt. Buddy Dresner was assigned to provide security to the Beatles during the group's South Florida invasion in February 1964. The Hard Rock Café has no photos of the screaming female mob that besieged... More >>