In the distant past, sun dances were performed to ensure a productive crop season. So perhaps we should have had SunFest a little earlier and maybe all the tomato plants wouldn’t have died. But alas, this festival has nothing to do with Ra or any other sun god. It’s just…

Let’s hear it for female empowerment movies that are so graphic they could never air on Lifetime TV — flicks such as Hard Candy, Jennifer’s Body, and the latest The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. When it screened at this year’s Miami International Film Festival, women in the sold-out crowd…

Monday: Known for its convoluted plot but delicious noir atmosphere, The Lady From Shanghai screens poolside at the W Hotel. Orson Welles not only directed and starred in it; he cast his then-wife, Rita Hayworth, as the female lead. You can watch it for free this Monday night – thanks…

Spring, glorious spring. Start your frolicking at the Marlin’s first home game or at the Fillmore, where a colorful indie band from Athens, Georgia plays Scandinavian-style pop music. Spend Saturday outdoors watching BMX racing or rugby. You have your pick of celebrating two cult figures on Sunday. Will you choose…

Miami artists live or die by Knight Foundation grants, but a new(ish) website called Kickstarter gives creative types more ways to score funding. The site makes artists’ fantasy projects a reality, much in the same way Etsy made indie crafters’ small business dreams come true. Based out of Brooklyn, Kickstarter…

In a city where the nearest 4-H club is at least a county away, it’s quite a sight to see cops pull up on horseback. So imagine the rush of witnessing 80 Argentine polo ponies kick up sand on the beach behind the Setai Hotel. Hippophiles aside, polo is marred…

With Milk and Brokeback Mountain doing so well in multiplexes, maybe LGBT films have gotten too mainstream for you. Enter the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, which begins this Friday. It opens with a screening of I Killed My Mother, a Canadian dramedy about a gay teenager who conflicts…

Normally, a sophomore album from the son of a guitar genius is likely to get panned by critics. But those factors can’t eclipse the skill and intuition of Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré. You might remember his father, Ali Farka Touré, whose Grammy-winning Savane led us to believe Delta blues…

Earth Day is like New Year’s Eve. You make all sorts of resolutions you never plan to keep. This year marks the 40th Earth Day, but we have a hunch, Miami, that you never really gave a shit. You continue to slip in green city rankings, coming in 34th out…

In the days before Art Basel and Second Saturdays, Wynwood was just a collection of forgotten streets north of downtown. Although off the national radar, it was the stomping ground for a local band of underground, consciously lowbrow artists. Chief among them was Dustin Orlando, the owner/curator of the pioneering…

Trailers for art shows! It’s sort of a brilliant idea. The above previews one of the highlights of this Saturday’s Art Walk — the opening of “Believe the Hype” at Eazy Street Gallery. The group show, which features pop surrealist and mixed media street artists like Nick Gazin, Eric Althin,…

Whether you got whacked in the head with a pillow this weekend or saw Sir Paul McCartney rock an arena, we’re guessing you still don’t want to spend a lot of dough this week. Monday: Miami’s gonna make you sweat again. Temperatures are back in the 80s, so if you…

FridayAs if five days of torture, we mean work, weren’t enough, today is the opening day of the “Instruments of Torture Through the Ages” exhibit at the Freedom Tower (oh, the irony!). One look at the spiked collars, knee splitters, and genital mutilators, and you’ll realize you don’t have it…

State Championship winners the Miami Rugby Football Club (RFC) play host to the USA Rugby Division 1 South Championship at Hialeah’s Amelia Earhart Park. Seeding will take place this Saturday as Boca Raton Football Club faces Life University at noon, followed by Miami RFC playing the Atlanta Renegades at 2…

Before there was Brain Eno, there was John Cage. Although Cage is often lazily described as a composer, he’s actually the opposite. He created site-specific music installations where composition and performance occur at the same time. Among his avant-garde creations, he recorded silence (making listeners hyperaware of background noise) and…

This is America. We don’t go around handing out sirs or knighting people. The closest we come to having pop royalty is when the president handpicks an artist to play a special event. Last year, Obama chose jazz vocalist and bassist Esperanza Spalding to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize…

Politicians can’t seem to keep it in their pants. John Edwards is the latest poster boy for infidelity, but he certainly wasn’t the first. Frankly, we’re a little surprised the White House doesn’t include mistress quarters. Italy’s Benito Mussolini was such a badass that he flaunted his mistresses while hiding…

Just yesterday, while waiting at the bus stop with $2 fare in hand, we spied an ad for a new spa on the Beach. A woman, hair wrapped in a towel, lies prostrate on a bench. Purple orchids surround her, and two hands sink into the muscles of her shoulders…

It’s the sort of fame trajectory that every party DJ covets. Josh Young and Curt Cameruci began spinning in Chicago in 2006 as the DJ duo Flosstradamus. Their Get Outta the Hood party was so popular it burst the seams of their local bar, forcing them to take their sound…