Brave Cover Band, We Salute You

Even though the Beatles disbanded in 1970, their fans remain a diehard and opinionated group. Time and tragedy have felled by half the greatest rock band of all time, but there’s something about a Beatles cover that can drive a devotee batty. Reviews of the navel-gazing musical Across the Universe…

You Look Good in Leather

No one bats an eye when you rock that cow-skin belt, and you catch a few lingering looks when you get all James Dean in your bomber jacket, but it’s a good idea to leave the full-body leather jumpsuits for special occasions. There’s something about rockin’ head-to-toe soaked, sanded, and…

Are You the Sexiest Person in Miami?

Does a crowd gather when you pose for a passport photo? Do bank tellers lick the dollar bills you deposit? Do you sometimes catch your hairstylist leaning in to clandestinely smell your neck? If so, then you just might have what it takes to win Do I Make You Horny?…

After the Tryptophan

Thursday was all about stuffing your face with well, stuffing. And now you’re expected to indulge in that other infamous Thanksgiving tradition: shopping. The malls are going to be jam-packed all day — this year even more than others thanks to the tanking economy and the resulting off-the-chizzain Black Friday…

Back to Biscayne

Old-timers remember Biscayne Boulevard as a bustling thoroughfare lined with palm trees and dotted with glamorous Miami Modern architectural landmarks. In the Fifties and early Sixties, visiting celebrities and family vacationers headed to landmark hotels for fun in the sun, and the Vagabond was among the boulevard’s brightest stars. Try…

Don’t Call It Roadkill. It’s Art.

Nestor Arenas doesn’t aim to please. The baby-faced, bespectacled 43-year-old Miami photographer likes to show us what we’d rather not see. Like, say, a once-adorable black cat smashed on the side of the road. Or a raccoon’s guts spilling onto the asphalt. In his latest work, which is on display…

A Tale of Two Movies

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, 1992 to be exact. Gus Van Sant, the filmmaker who had just thrilled the world with his young-hustlers-in-love classic, My Own Private Idaho, was picked to direct The Mayor of Castro Street. Already six years in development, this proposed adaptation…

No Love for Fidel

At PanAmerican Art Projects, two Cuban artists level their gun sights on the Castro regime. Pedro Pablo Oliva and René Francisco Rodríguez represent different generations and approaches in their work, but their message is the same: Society on the island presents a soul-withering existence for its citizens. And this is…

Disney’s Bolt Is a Starry Dog Story

With his blazing white coat and pig-pink ears, to say nothing of the zigzag of lightning cut into his flank, the eponymous canine lead of Disney’s lively new animated movie Bolt looks a little bit real and a whole lot not. That’s not a failure of craft: Goofy and sweet…

House

A few months ago, Lionsgate issued a trailer for Saw V that tried to fake out viewers into thinking they were watching an ad for a Christian film. (Sample ad copy: “His gift is life.”) House is sorta like that, but in reverse; neither a reboot of the Eighties horror-comedy…

Kitty Goes Lesbian

Hello, Kitty: I’m a lesbian. My girlfriend was in the closet for the first eight years of our relationship. Then she came out a few months ago, and everything changed. Not only is she more openly affectionate with me, but also anytime we’re around other lesbians, she flirts like there’s…

Shakespeare in da House

To-night and to-night and to-night only — Thirty-seven plays by one Bill Shakespeare Abridged into ninety-seven minutes Of pure sound and fury, signifying Nothing except one hilarious evening For you and your mistress who doth protest Too much: “You never take me out, Player.” So out, out to the great…

Like, Totally

It’s official. The Eighties revival is just about over. It has almost come to that awkward tipping point where old and laughably uncool has met edgy and ironic, and is rapidly heading toward laughably uncool again. Blame it on Lindsay Lohan and her line of leggings, or the ubiquitous use…

Hookahs and Hose

India’s Akbar the Great, ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1556 to 1605, is renowned for his contributions to art, science, and building technologies. No surprise that his reign saw the creation of a smoking implement that marries all three. According to Wikipedia, the physician invented the hookah as an…

God, Gays, and OJ.

Anita Bryant was a pop singer in the late Fifties who made a name for herself entertaining American troops on deployment. In the Seventies, she became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission. In 1977, she got riled up about a law that would protect gays from discrimination, and from…

Next Stop: Carnage

What a difference a year makes. Last time the New England Patriots were in town, they humiliated the Miami Dolphins on their way to a perfect 16-0 regular season. They were the bullies on the block, complete with a juggernaut offense, a classless coach, and insufferable douchebag fans. But all…

This Ain’t Child’s Play

In light of today’s housing woes, your architectural skills are in higher demand than ever. The kitchen walls must be large enough to accommodate portraits of Jesus, MLK, and Obama; the stairs must be sturdy enough to hold you and that monkey on your back; and the bedrooms need to…

You Talkin’ ’Bout Me?

Trips to the bathroom would be boring without the possibility of running into one of our coke-sniffing co-workers doing a Lohan in one of the stalls. And these days, we don’t crowd around the water cooler to talk about the latest episode of Heroes; we wanna see if the boss…

A Flash of Greatness

The 2008-09 Miami Heat season is filled with questions. Can they win without a true center? How many times will they triumph? How many will they lose? But the main question on everyone’s minds before the season was whether we’d see the dominant Dwyane Wade of the Summer Olympics, or…

Defying Expectations

Professional sports have given us the Fighting Irish, the Washington Redskins, and the Minnesota Vikings. Conspicuously absent from the roster are teams with such as the Jumping Jews and the Vicious Israelites. The Jewish culture, as a whole, is not known for producing kingpin athletes (excluding, of course, Greenberg, Koufax,…