On the last Saturday before Christmas, Mr. Pocketbook, a purse store, was blissfully void of holiday cheer — no windows adorned with mechanical elves, no Kenny G renditions of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” The owners of Mr. Pocketbook (2850 NW Fifth Ave.), Philip and Moshe Nahum, are Jewish, but…
Amid Hollywood’s zillion-dollar explosions and computer-enhanced trickery, plenty of quieter, better films sneaked into theaters virtually unnoticed this year. Following are our reviewers’ favorite overlooked movies of 2005. Some of them never made it to local screens, but many have since made it to the video store: Balzac and the…
Ab-Normal Beauty (Tartan) Art of the Devil (Tokyo Shock) Bram Stoker’s Dracula/Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Sony) Caged Heat (Buena Vista) Dark Water (Buena Vista) Diary of a Mad Black Woman: The Play (Lions Gate) Empire of the Wolves (Sony) 15 Things You’re Not Supposed to See (Xtreme) Happy Here and Now…
2005 may be the last hurrah for this generation’s aging consoles, but sugar, they’re going down swingin’. The PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Game Cube age gracefully, pushing their hardware to the limit one last time and developing some brilliant games in the process — from tear-jerking, giant-slaying adventure to piss-in-your-pants…
Nowhere Man (Image Entertainment) There’s good reason why you’ve never heard of this UPN show from the mid-’90s, which lasted 25 episodes before getting shuttled off to, well, nowhere. It’s a convoluted mind-fuck that owes its existence as much to The Prisoner as The Fugitive, and if you missed one…
Microsoft isn’t described as an underdog very often. But in the world of videogames, Sony’s PlayStation is king, and all others fight for scraps. While Microsoft’s Xbox managed to bump the once-great Nintendo into third place, it nevertheless remains a distant second to the PS2, which commands an installed base…
With a Blade TV show in the works from Spike TV and powder-faced My Chemical Romance fans carrying the goth torch at Hot Topic, this would seem the perfect time to resurrect the Castlevania franchise. Castlevania debuted 20 years ago on the Nintendo Entertainment System and was an instant classic,…
When in Rome, fourth-century Italian Saint Ambrose advised Saint Augustine, do as the Romans do. In terms of food, that would mean eating appetizers such as supplì al telefono (mozzarella-filled, deep-fried rice balls); entrées like abbacchio alla Romana (milk-fed suckling lamb sauced with garlic, rosemary, anchovies, and vinegar); hearty panzanella…
Is there any woman who wants to hear that sex with her is like your mom’s home cooking? I doubt further comparisons to cash, adulation from fans, and that new car smell are going to erase the awkwardness of that opener. Neither will “I know you like it as much…
So it’s almost 2006, and your idea of coordinated Latin dancing is a perfect rendition of the Cha-Cha Slide. Do you jump onto the dance floor for the Macarena, and run when the DJ plays a rumba? Maybe it’s time for some dance lessons, and what could be more impressive…
On one of Wynwood’s grittier side streets, a towering Fernando Botero sculpture of a nude male torso squats majestically behind a gated sidewalk, its crotch covered by a fig leaf the width of a hubcap. Considered a masterpiece by many, the blubbery bronze Adonis, trumpeting the arrival of kingpin dealer…
Regardless of the damage done by David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries and Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa, the wide-eyed hope inspired by Santa lives on. Tots dressed in their holiday best still ritually queue up with their haggard parents to create the kind of endearing memories that will later fuel pre-rehab…
‘Tis the Season … To be biased: Although addressing the topic of religious displays would be fine, Mariah Blake made absolutely no effort to be unbiased in her story “Bah, Humbug” (December 8). Journalism is defined as “The style of writing … consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences…
When The Bitch schedules her peregrinations around South Beach to include three parties and some holiday shopping, it is not possible to be fabulously late to each soiree. Paws need to hit the buffet table at the early end of the 7:00-to-10:00 p.m. spectrum if The Bitch is going to…
On the morning of Saturday, December 10, a dozen Miami Jackson Senior High School students sit with blank stares outside the Biscayne National Park visitor center in Homestead. The park’s superintendent, Mark Lewis, is trying to get the volunteer clean-up day off to a good start, but the obligatory welcome…
“I’ve only worked there for about five months. I was in good health when I started working there, but now I’m sick.” Gisela Ochoa cleans bathrooms and offices at the University of Miami’s medical complex for $6.25 an hour and has no medical insurance. She’s been feeling fatigue, nausea, and…
Miami was quiet after Hurricane Wilma’s winds subsided. Millions of people sat in shuttered homes listening to the final raindrops and withering gusts. But within hours, people cranked up their cars and hit the streets. The traffic signals that hadn’t been blown away were without power, and drivers entered the…
If you want to meet self-declared prophet James Lloyd in person, you have to drive twenty miles up winding dirt roads deep into the Oregon mountains. But there’s no real need to make the trek. With the right equipment, you can hear his message anywhere in America. The biblical soothsayer…
The Amazing Race: The Seventh Season (Paramount) Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.0 (Universal) The Biggest Loser: The Workout (Lions Gate) Bob the Butler (First Independent) Cry_Wolf (MCA) ER: The Complete Fourth Season (Warner Bros.) The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Sony) Frankie & Johnny Are Married (MCA) The Great Raid (Miramax) Ice…
The myth of the Wild West has mutated over the past half-century. Where once we thrilled to the wholesome exploits of the Lone Ranger, now we wallow in the mesmerizing depravity of HBO’s Deadwood. Film geeks can argue about when it started to change, but by 1992’s Unforgiven, pop culture…
The myth of the Wild West has mutated over the past half-century. Where once we thrilled to the wholesome exploits of the Lone Ranger, now we wallow in the mesmerizing depravity of HBO’s Deadwood. Film geeks can argue about when it started to change, but by 1992’s Unforgiven, pop culture…
(Universal) Joss Whedon’s film version of his TV series Firefly came and went like a lightning bug in October; the predicted phenom stuck around the multiplex just long enough to lose millions. But like Firefly, which sold enough boxed sets to warrant a movie, Serenity’s bound to do well on…
