Baby, It’s (Not That) Cold Outside

Dreaming of a white Christmas? Picturing yourself holding a cup of hot chocolate as snowflakes drift from the sky in a moment so magical you almost believe God is sprinkling sugar on a world that’s been extra-good this year? No doubt excluded from these dreams are your fragile body parts…

Happy Kwanzaa!

Your virgin eyes were opened to a new frontier of diversity after you heard Michael Jackson and friends croon, “We are the world, we are the children.” And ever since, you’ve allowed the various facets of American culture to infiltrate your dinner table, wardrobe, and language. This year you and…

Everyone Loves a Parade

The holidays are a great time for pomp and circumstance. We deck our halls with light displays, ginormous Christmas trees, and oversize inflatable figures, and just because those aren’t enough, crowds head out to the neighborhoods that are most ornately and ostentatiously decorated to ooh and aah at others’ spectacles…

Hey Diddle Diddle

“Be forewarned, there will be naked men!” director Joseph Adler cracks about the edgy production ringing in the new year at GableStage. Tonight at 8, the curtain lifts on the Southeast premiere of The Little Dog Laughed, a play by Douglas Carter Beane that was a smash hit on Broadway…

Get Down on It

You might think your CD collection is the best thing since string cheese, but after one Thursday night at Amendment XXI, you’ll be begging for a peek at DJ Andre Soul’s playlist. “What makes this party a banger is that the classics are played throughout the night,” says Soul’s manager,…

Pop Comic

Actor/comedian Gary Owen is the only white comic to host BET’s Comicview, a fact that puzzles some people. “You’d be amazed at the questions I get,” he says. “‘You’re just light-skinned. You got some Cherokee in you?’” Owen began his stand-up career while he was in the Navy. Only predominantly…

Drink Me

You’re well versed in the vodkas and gins of the bar, but absinthe is one highly potent brew that flies under the radar. Until now. Legend has it that if you take a sip of the fabled green-tinted elixir, your mind will journey to places your eyes haven’t seen. It’s…

Hells Yeah

The holidays are just about ovah, and you’ve had it up to here with family time (no offense, moms and dads). But seriously, if you hear one more Christmas carol or light one more Hanukkah candle, you might have to let this mofo burn to the ground. We hear you…

The Hot New Thing

Perhaps you’ve cruised down Coral Way and noticed the towering new night spot that stands so incongruously apart from the other buildings on the tree-lined street. How could you not? What with the old-school Cuban-style policía vehicles parked out front, and the giant glowing sign, La Bodeguita del Medio seems…

Top Ten Gadget Gifts for Under $50

1. USB Memory Watch – Whoever you give this to will feel like James Bond when they connect their ordinary watch to their office computer only to reveal that it contains that year’s expense report. The watch has two gigabytes of memory. $40. 2. Cocktail Cyclone Portable Drink Mixer CSS-565…

Cuba U: Beyond “Cuba sí, Castro no.”

There’s a plenitude of grizzled, cigar-sucking men lending their play-by-play to Cuban politics. Twenty-one year old Monica Simo, who grew up in Miami and now works as a banking analyst in New York City, hopes to add some youth to that long-running conversation. Last month, she started, La Primera Generación,…

New Year’s Eve Listings

Wanna know what to do New Year’s Eve? Read on. You’ll find 170-plus possibilities. So drink hearty, party heartier, and look for additional listings in the Clubs section next week. Click here to download a PDF of our New Year’s Eve listings…

Singular Sensation

Once (Fox) Easily the year’s most perfect pop album — damn good movie, too, the finest “musical” of the past 20 years. The disc’s making-of refers to it as a “modern musical,” but Once is as old-fashioned as it gets: Boy (Glen Hansard) meets girl (Markéta Irglová), they fall in…

Hock the Line

As an actor, John C. Reilly is the opposite of Mr. Cellophane. He doesn’t disappear into a role; roles disappear onto him — the unlikely porn sidekick of Boogie Nights, the inadequately adequate family man of The Hours, the cutup cowboy of A Prairie Home Companion, all stamped and imprinted…

Knocked Up

During its early moments, Jason Reitman’s second feature threatens to choke on its quotation-marks catch phrases — like when The Office’s Rainn Wilson, cameoing as a convenience-store clerk, tells Ellen Page’s 16-year-old Juno MacGuff that her positive pregnancy test is “one doodle that can’t be undid, home skillet.” Or when…

Xmas Present and Past

Nothing says “holiday spirit” quite like stabbing a terrorist or hammering a goomba, as the hottest games this season invite us to do. But no matter how cutting-edge the stars of 2007 may be, they are also unmistakably familiar. This week we stack the holiday hits of today against the…

2007: The Moments in Review

In a few months New Times will roll out its annual “Best Of” issue. Nestled among Best Tattoo Artist, Best Streetside Falafel Stand, and Best Club in Which to Meet a Midget Mutant Amputee Leather Nun, you’ll find theatrical best-ofs: best show, actor, actress, director, and so forth. But there…

Our Top DVD Picks Scheduled for Release This Week

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two — The War Years (Paramount) Alien Apocalypse (Anchor Bay) Balls of Fury (Universal) Black Moon Rising (Anchor Bay) Boy Eats Girl (Lionsgate) Braveheart: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Bring It On: In It to Win It (Universal) Cinderella II: Dreams Come True Special…

Here’s Your Holiday Spirit

Maybe yesterday was all about screaming kiddies, annoying relatives who overstayed their Christmas dinner receptions, and mountains of torn-up wrapping paper. Maybe it wasn’t, but the whole materialistic aspect of the season is getting to you. Either way, one thing’s certain — you could really use a stiff drink about…

Gimme That

We screamed when Justin claimed to have brought the “SexyBack,” but after watching Chris Brown bring it at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, we gotta call ol’ JT “TimberFake.” Chris is the real deal. We’ve been following him since he promised us that he would “Run It,” and we…

Tribal Celebration

Maybe it’s good that the Miccosukee nation is gaining recompense from its oppressors at their big casino on Krome Venue. But it has that many people equating Indians with gambling. At the annual Miccosukee Indian Arts Festival, a more realistic view of native culture will fill souls and bellies. Enjoy…

Florida’s Over Achievers

The Panthers are the only South Florida sports team that doesn’t completely suck; they’re just a notch below .500, and are very much alive in the weak Southeast Division. But just think about that for a moment: That means the best assemblage of athletic talent in the lower third of…