Photog Brings the Flamenco

View a slideshow of some of Larrain’s Falmenco shots. At Centro Cultural Español, Gilles Larrain stands over a photograph he took in 1983 in Gualdaquivir, Spain, and launches into the first of many memories. “That’s El Cabrero, one of flamenco’s greatest singers,” he says. The man in the picture is…

Pity the Fool

When a friend recently told me she’d been confused by the poster for the Matthew McConaughey-Kate Hudson fortune-hunting romp Fool’s Gold adorning her local multiplex — that she’d thought for sure this movie had already come and gone — I understood her bewilderment. Even as a professional film critic trained…

Universal Soldier

A fourth Rambo? The question isn’t why; it’s what took him so long. Was America’s avenging angel of meat just planning to sit out Fallujah and what we’re cooking up for Iran and Syria? (Oops — pretend that last part was redacted.) Okay, sure, last time we saw John Rambo,…

Starting Out in the Evening

Faithful in style and spirit to the award-winning novel by Brian Morton, Andrew Wagner’s wise, observant, and exquisitely tacit chamber piece complicates every May-December, academic-novel cliché. A mutually dependent relationship unfolds between Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella), an old-school writer of the Bellow-Roth-Howe generation of realists; and Heather (Six Feet Under’s…

Stage Capsules

Altar Boyz: The hit off-Broadway musical about a fictional Catholic boy band brims with delightful sacrilege. The show is set up like a concert, with songs and between-song banter, and is moving in the flashy, exuberant manner of feel-good musical theater. It is the Boyz’ mission to save us all…

Dance Fever, Spanish Style

We always knew there was more to the art of flamenco than the techniques we picked up one night while eating paella on Calle Ocho and watching a cross-dressing cantaor, who sang and danced with a pink fringed shawl tied tightly around his hips, make the tourists sing along. Now…

Say “I Do”

Boy meets girl. Boy and girl see fireworks when they kiss. Boy proposes to girl, and the two are on cloud nine, anticipating the day they will become one. Then — dun dun da-dun — the wedding! But by the time all the bride-kissing, cake-cutting, and first-dancing is over, the…

Rats!

Although to many of us in Western culture, the rat symbolizes all that is base and gross in nature, in Eastern culture, it’s just the opposite. In fact the lowly rodent represents material gain, leadership, and renewal. And to celebrate all of those brilliant rattributes, there are a number of…

Last Chance to Dance

Part Amélie, part days of yore, Spiegelworld’s traveling stage really attains its proposed feeling: a Euro art nouveau circus. But anyone who has stepped inside this temporal beach attraction on a recent Sunday evening has found it also induces fantasies of the Cuban variety. The moon projects a dim haze…

Reel Romance

Valentine’s Day is almost here and nothing says lovin’ like watching a subtitled film while feeling up the object of your affections. So from today through February 24, you and yours should take in one of the foreign films at Romance in a Can, the rare film festival that puts…

Off the Beaten Path

The green-minded individuals behind Emerge Miami’s Critical Mass have developed several well-worn paths in their regular bike treks across the city. Most of those paths have led to Coconut Grove, Brickell, and other tree-lined, wide-avenued, picturesque locales. Today the Critical Massers will explore one of Miami’s most historic districts. They’re…

Lights, Camera, Miami!

So many film and TV crews have invaded our city over the years that even your little ol’ house might get its 15 minutes of fame. Flicks like Meet the Fockers and True Lies and TV shows such as Dexter and The Golden Girls have written their characters into our…

In Living Color

It’s film awards season, and after a year of $50 movie nights, the ceremonies are our reward too. Celebrating with the winners, crying with the losers, getting drunk with them all — it’s our favorite time of the year. Yeah, the cancellation of the Golden Globes broadcast robbed you of…

Tranquil to Trendy in 34 Years Flat

This weekend the normally tranquil North Beach will be taken over by trendy art collectors, talented artists, and an eye-popping array of paintings, sculptures, and photography. The 34th annual Miami Beach Festival of the Arts has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a local street fair, and…

For the Love of Nature and Pest Control

It’s difficult to imagine an artist with brushwork uncanny enough to fool Mother Nature. Gina Ruggeri’s oil-on-Mylar cutouts of tree stumps, piles of rocks, and canopies of leaves are so deftly executed they skewer the viewer’s sense of the real. The New York painter ups the ante on perception during…

Jaded Fan, Meet Dwyane Wade

It’s hard to believe that just 19 months ago, the Miami Heat was showering in NBA championship glory. Shaq was adding to his legacy, Dwyane Wade was creating his own, and Pat Riley was doing the awkward white man’s dance at the championship parade on Biscayne Boulevard. Now they’re an…

Bigger, Blacker, Funnier

Chris Rock tackles stand-up comedy like it’s a full-contact sport. He paces the stage like he’s ready to box, but the only punches he throws are verbal knockouts. And after he caged his irrepressible comedic energies into neatly adorable big-screen packages — the dude in I Think I Love My…

Gas Brains

Volkswagen drivers are a breed apart. They’re obsessive about their love for the German-engineered vehicles. To them, there’s nothing more fun than shining their round bumpers and arranging the fake flowers that sprout proudly from the dashboard. “VW fans are easygoing, family-oriented, friendly, and they want to share their passion…

Sex, Cocktails, and Ballet?

Forget the ballet slippers and tutus; tonight the ballerinas will don heels. The only tight buns you’ll see will be the dancers’ derrières, because they are letting their hair down for the premiere of Lounge 2200, a sexy jazz work with a club setting and a soundtrack of steamy soul…

Float Like a Mariposa

Hispanic boxers have made an unmistakable mark on the sport of kings. They constitute a large portion of the competitors, and many matches create a battle of culture and country as well as strength and agility. Tonight it’s Colombia — famous for cocaine, delectable pan de bono, and the most…

Queens of Pop Punk Pop

Three decades after they burst onto the scene, the Go-Go’s still have a blast performing together. The key, says lead singer Belinda Carlisle, is the fact that they play only a small number of dates a year, usually a few weeks at a time. “First of all, I’m way too…

Charlie Murphy Keeps It Real, Funny

We’ve used every possible synonym for laugh to tell you about the good times you’ll have at the Miami Improv, and we have yet to disappoint you. So this time when we say you’ll fall down laughing as Charlie Murphy tells his first joke and that he’ll be tickling your…