When Humphrey Bogart’s son, Stephen Bogart, decided to start a film festival dedicated to his father, the Naples, Florida-based writer knew the perfect city: Key Largo. It happens to be the title of the film set in the well-known Upper Key. Directed by John Huston, Key Largo stars Bogart and…
For the second year in a row, Humphrey Bogart fans from around the world will converge on Key Largo to remember one of Hollywood’s most treasured actors. The 2014 Humphrey Bogart Film Festival takes place this Thursday through Sunday with screenings, parties, and panel discussions. The festival was founded by…
The temperature hangs in the mid-70s in Miami, and New York City-based actor/writer/director John Turturro remarks, “It’s just so nice to be outside. I’m so happy to be outside.” Though it’s breezy, his neat crop of salt-and-pepper hair remains unshakable. He sits in the shade of a large gazebo at…
The Scottish post-rock outfit Mogwai’s been releasing albums for the past 20 years. The band is now on its eighth full-length, Rave Tapes, if you do not count its two noteworthy soundtracks. In 2013, the group released the score for acclaimed French television mini-series Les Revenants, about zombies who want…
It’s rare that a first-time feature director can make as competent a film as Brooklyn-based Daniel Patrick Carbone with Hide Your Smiling Faces. New York Times critic Stephen Holden compared him to the philosopher-turned-filmmaker Terrence Malick, and it’s not a stretch. His film follows two young brothers who do not…
It took long enough, but Mogwai will finally be playing a gig in Miami. The post-rock band from Glasgow, Scotland, has been around for nearly 20 years, but as its upcoming debut show in our town proves, there are still many firsts for the quintet to experience. Speaking via phone…
Those with any familiarity of the original glam rock scene that emerged in the early 1970s of London will recognize the iconic images currently hanging on the walls of Balans, off Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. Karl Stoecker shot pin-ups of brilliantly-painted models, as well as contributed album art for…
To hear Dead Milkmen guitarist/vocalist Joe Genaro tell the story about the rise, breakup, and reunion of his Philly-based pop-punk crew, the basis of a successful band is not an interest for fame and fortune, but friendship. It was friendship that drove Joe and the Dead Milkmen’s creativity, including their…
When the Dead Milkmen decided to break up in 1994, it was a different era. Gimmicks like farewell tours were not a thing that bands like the Milkmen did. Those guys were as sardonic a group of punk rockers as you could expect. They adopted ever-changing pseudonyms from album to…
In Ralph Fiennes’ lengthy filmography, funny movies are few and far between, but now, the brilliant British actor has the best kind of comedy under his belt: a Wes Anderson film. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fiennes plays M. Gustave, the earnest and expert concierge of the titular resort. Inspired…
Wes Anderson’s latest cinematic confection, The Grand Budapest Hotel, features distinguished English actor Ralph Fiennes in the film’s leading role. It marks the first time Fiennes has appeared in one of Anderson’s films. Speaking over the phone from his London home, Fiennes revealed a great admiration for Anderson’s work. “I love…
Most people these days spend the greater part of their waking lives looking and interacting with screens. As devices, apps and software continue to draw us into alternate realities, China stands as the only country in the world to classify internet addiction as a clinical disorder. Does this mean the…
One of the trickier brands of comedy to pull off is deadpan humor. There’s a subtle sense of timing required and actors must deliver immensely sincere performances without going over-the-top. All About the Feathers (Por La Plumas), a little film from Costa Rica achieves this with warm wit that harnesses…
One of the most atmospherically doom-laden works of this year’s Miami International Film Festival has to be The Summer of Flying Fish. It’s the first feature by Chilean director Marcela Said, whose filmography includes four feature documentaries that date back to 1999. Her documentary work has mostly focused on her…
The 31st Miami International Film Festival has reached only the halfway point. There are still many celebrities to meet and several notable premieres to catch. Beyond intriguingly titled world and indie films such like Fack Ju Göhte/Suck Me Shakespeer and Witching and Bitching, there are more major cinematic events at…
Still fiending for more film greatness? Don’t sweat it, because the 31st-annual Miami International Film Festival is only half-finished. Theaters from South Beach to Wynwood to Coral Gables are still screening features long and short, foreign and domestic, starring big names and hot upstarts, with plenty of red-carpeted premieres to…
The second and final weekend of the Miami International Film Festival now approaches, and there is still so much to see. This year has proven especially rich in finely executed cinema, but no sane person can see it all, especially since many screenings overlap (it’s no easy task coordinating close…
One of the subtle ways the Miami International Film Festival has reinvented itself for its 31st year is presenting a festival that only projects digitally. There is not a single 35mm film in the festival. It marks a new era in cinematic presentation, and, over the weekend, one of the…
During one scene in Monica Peña’s debut feature, the cryptically-titled Ectotherms, four young people nestle in the shade between two derelict double-decker buses and bitch about their high school grades. The scene unfolds in an unseen lot in Miami. The surreal presence of buses normally seen on the streets of…
No Hollywood director could get away with pushing the limits of awkward pubescent sexuality quite like Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke in his latest film, Club Sandwich. Eimbcke goes places beyond cringe-worthy that will feel strikingly real to anyone who’s survived that terrible transition phase. He has no shame exploring –…
Though seemingly far from over, John Turturro’s career received a crowning award from the Miami International Film Festival Sunday night. The beloved character actor and director arrived in Miami to receive his 2014 Career Achievement Award on stage at the Olympia Theater at Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. The…
In 2006, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program, a project founded in Cambridge and co-supported by the Miami-based One Laptop per Child Association, implemented a long-in-the-works project to get laptop computers to children in developing countries. The possible culture shock of people in locations without running water but possible…
