The 1988 comedy classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was set on the French Riviera, but the scenario could just as easily be transposed to posh local areas like Bal Harbour, Las Olas, and Palm Beach. With a number of wealthy, desperate housewives and lonely socialites in South Florida, a distinguished con…
Update: Last week, New Times wrote about a 12-year-old ballroom dance ingenue in search of a partner. Krysten Batlle, a seventh-grader at Arvida Middle School in Kendall, has been winning dance competitions all over Florida for years, but the only partners she can find are at least twice her age,…
Okay, so Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott were asking for it by naming their latest megaproduction Déj Vu. These dudes aren’t exactly paragons of innovation, unless taking rhetorical hysteria to awesome new heights counts. As the opening credits roll — by which of course I mean roll, zip, flicker, fade,…
For progressives lifted, however temporarily, by the swell of a turning tide, Bobby can be seen clearly for what it is — an Airport movie with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as the central calamity and an all-star cast deployed like multiple George Kennedys. Juggling some 22 main characters…
Todd Field’s second excursion into middle-class unease, after his intelligent but overrated In the Bedroom, unfolds at a leisurely, insidious pace. It posits a suburb full of hypocrites busily persecuting their local child molester (a compellingly creepy Jackie Earle) so as not to face up to their own subterranean secrets…
At his eponymous gallery, Anthony Spinello has painted the walls of a room near the entrance a velvety brick tone and added white crown molding to suggest a Victorian parlor. He did so for “Sueño,” Santiago Rubino’s first solo show, hoping to add an air of mystery to the self-taught…
True Stories: A big-nose profile. A closeup of breasts. A photo of a woman sporting a pig-snout mask while holding cutlery. These are just a few of Sophie Calle’s photographic self-portraits. Above each 67-by-39-inch picture is a story about her life. Over the shnoz profile, Calle tells us that when…
I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love. On the surface, the Caldwell’s decision to house the production seemed like the most awesomely cynical move imaginable, coolly calculated to pacify the antediluvian nostalgia junkies who pay the theater’s bills. I thought the show would be theatrical comfort food,…
Zoo Story: Written in 1958 and steeped in shades of economic disparity and dehumanization in a materialistic world, Edward Albee’s searing one-act play still retains its power to shock nearly a half-century later. The Edge Theatre stages the numbing encounter between a middle-class publishing exec and a disturbed transient at…
An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount) This isn’t exactly the kind of DVD you buy to watch again and again; the ending doesn’t get happier, and there are no twists to decipher with repeated viewings. The producers hope instead that you buy it and share it; it’s less movie, after all, than…
Guitar Hero gave party games a much-needed kick in the ass. No one expected this rhythm game — sold with a miniature plastic guitar — to play to sellout crowds. But it became the most addictive game of the year and one of the most attractive to nongamers. The reason…
American Slapstick (Image) Alias: The Complete Fifth Season (Buena Vista) Boston Legal: Season Two (Fox) The Cry Baby Killer (Buena Vista) Devil Times Five (Code Red) Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist: Season Two (Paramount) Fall Out Boy: Solid Gold Uncertainty (Music Video Dist.) A Fish Called Wanda: Collector’s Edition (MGM) Freedom…
Shortly after winning a 1992 Tony Award — or so the story goes — composer William Finn found out he had a brain tumor. Despite his having just received the top award in his field for the Broadway musical Falsettos, the bad news inspired Finn to write a new semiautobiographical…
Fifteen minutes. It can feel like a lifetime or no time at all. Waiting at the doctor’s office? It seems like forever. Making out with your boyfriend? Time just flies by. The entries in the fifth annual Miami Short Film Festival? Well, there are films that fit into both of…
Ever since I saw Carrie Bradshaw sip her signature cosmo for the first time, I scratched that cocktail from my list. It just became so cliché, like gold-plated name necklaces and men named Big. Although I do enjoy watching Sex and the City (I have the DVDs), I never want…
Mama Lila’s Bistro is establishing a reputation as a go-to place for delicious Peruvian-fusion cuisine. The family-owned eatery is about to get an infusion of Hollywood glamour when baby sister Roberta Valderrama returns from Tinseltown to host the debut party for her hilarious new TBS sitcom, 10 Items or Less…
The turkey has been devoured, your in-laws have finally hit the road, and most important, you survived the first wave of holiday madness. What better way to round off the Thanksgiving weekend than to catch some rays on a Sunday afternoon? Make your midday destination the Caribbean Jazz Brunch on…
Oh, the irony. The song “White Christmas” was written by Irving Berlin in 1942 for the movie musical Holiday Inn. The song became so popular it was once said you couldn’t have Christmas without permission from Berlin. The irony? Irving Berlin didn’t like Christmas; he lost his infant son Christmas…
There is an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David visits his dad in a nursing home and joins him for a game of bingo. Larry quickly fills his card and shouts an exuberant, nearly in-your-face “Bingoooooo!” But when his card is checked, the caller says she never…
You have been eating turkey for two days straight — turkey sandwiches, turkey fajitas, turkey pitas. It is time to back away from the bird, slide on your LiveStrong wristband, and strap on your helmet. Castellow Hammock Nature Center is hosting a relaxing bike tour through the Navy Wells Pineland…
During the thirteenth annual Rasin Fest, guests at the Bayfront Park Amphitheater will celebrate Haitian roots music with the thumping tambour and soaring harmonies from bands like Boukman Eksperyans, Djakout Mizik, and Azor. And this year, attendees of the island fest are likely to hear the wail of electric guitars…
Western culture tends to view the afterlife as something to be feared, “the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns,” according to Big Willie Shakespeare. In Haitian culture, the hereafter isn’t necessarily seen in such dire terms, and maintaining a regular connection with the spirits is of paramount importance…
