The press on reggae musicians is invariably negative nowadays, and with valid reason. Many modern-day dancehall dons don’t seem to see the hypocrisy in recording lighters-in-the-air odes to love and unity and then performing vitriolic paeans to homophobic slaughter. To the critics, the title of the One Love Festival might…
A red and white polka-dot dress with a cap and black stockings sounds more like a Minnie Mouse costume than beach attire, but chic modesty did once rule our shore, which is now overrun with silicone orbs. To take you back to a time when birthday suits were actually concealed…
When she was doing the Roger Rabbit in the video for “Real Love,” Mary J. Blige seemed like the kind of chick you might find shopping at the Swap Shop. By now, MJB can buy out every high-end retail store from Paris to New York, but she’s still down enough…
If, at this remove, we can imagine Vienna in the late 1890s, we behold a great imperial capital in ferment. Gustav Mahler is not only reinventing the harmonic structure of serious music, but also he is getting his head seriously shrunk by Sigmund Freud. Arnold Schoenberg takes painting lessons from…
Luis Moro ignored restrictions on filming in Cuba to make the drama Love & Suicide during a 2003 trip to the island, and he obviously has a passion for the place. This passion fuels Moro’s charm as an actor with a central role. But as coscreenwriter of the film, now…
As a consideration of the power of storytelling — and the urge to mythologize one’s own life as well as the lives of others — The Night Listener could serve as creepy paranoid cousin to the current Lady in the Water. The specters of J.T. LeRoy and James Frey haunt…
In Terminal Baggage, Paul Tei and Ivonne Azurdia have hatched a batch of quirky tone poems that center on what people do in airports while waiting, interminably, to fly. The result is a production that skids into turbulence yet hits a cruising altitude to deliver an evening of well-acted fun…
Ella: It’s ten years this month since songstress Ella Fitzgerald died. Fitzgerald, whose romantically distinctive voice has gently passed from generation to generation since her first recordings in 1936, didn’t so much have her own songs but rather made anything she sang an Ella experience. In the past year, Florida…
During an emergency, I sometimes can and will drive. For instance, when my girlfriend got decked by a medical test a few weeks ago and enlisted me to chauffeur her home from the clinic, I reluctantly agreed, even though it was the first time this millennium I found myself behind…
Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier (Paramount) It’s all here, more or less: the 1979 theatrical cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s harrowing and still-hypnotic Joseph Conrad-in-Vietnam adaptation, the 49-minutes-longer-but-feels-24-minutes-shorter 2001 Redux edition, Marlon Brando’s entire 17-minute “The Hollow Men” monologue, even more “lost” and deleted scenes (including a spooky-shocking one, in…
Like a real war, Chromehounds involves long stretches of tedium, occasionally broken up by a few moments of sheer terror. After what feels like weeks of ponderous marching from point A to point B in your titular “Hound” — a walking tank — combat erupts. The fighting is fast and…
Benito (Lions Gate) Cape of Good Hope (New Yorker) Clark Gable Collection, Volume 1 (Fox) Don’t Tell (Lions Gate) The Hard Corps (Sony) Hong Kong Phooey: The Complete Series (Turner) Hoot (New Line) James Stewart: The Signature Collection (Warner Bros.) Land of the Blind (Bauer) Lemming (Strand) L’Enfant (Sony) Machined…
Donna Halpern has earned her wings. As the founder of Fairy Tails, one of our favorite nonprofit, no-kill animal shelters, she is always caring for abandoned animals. Last year’s hurricane season tested her determination and endurance. Besides accommodating 23 dogs from New Orleans, Fairy Tails donated food and supplies to…
Now here’s an odd mix: The Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium, the educational host of events such as “Lizard Day”; the Just the Funny Improv Comedy Theatre Company, known for being, well, an improv group; and the Children’s Home Society of South Florida, which provides leadership programming for children…
Miamians who think everything past the toll booth is Key Biscayne could go their whole lives without realizing there are two islands, the first being Virginia Key, which happens to be one of the most interesting — and overlooked — places in South Florida. This was the “Negro” beach before…
For the first time since its sensational debut in 2004, local audiences will be able to see one of the most heralded recent Broadway hits. The Pillowman premieres tonight, and contrary to its name, the play is far from a snoozer. Written by Martin McDonagh, The Pillowman is set in…
Although there’s some dispute over the origin of Riesling grapes, there’s no arguing that they make great wine. That’s why so many regions have tried to claim the grape as their own. Germany, Alsace, and Austria are all recognized for their excellent Rieslings, each as distinct in flavor as the…
“More people vote for American Idol than for the president, and that’s scary,” says Nancy Ferreira. That’s why she recently called up the Washington office of Rock the Vote and got permission to use the name for her own undertaking, South Florida Rock the Vote 2006, which is making its…
If you’ve ever watched the interpretive sequence set to Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” at the end of Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion and thought, I wish I could express myself through dance, here’s your opportunity. The Miami Contemporary Dance Company is offering a special summer course. At the…
What is it about Sunday that makes reggae music the day’s ultimate soundtrack? The Sabbath has become the most important day of the week for roots and dancehall fans alike, with any number of radio programs and loungy nightclub evenings dedicated to bass-heavy Jamaican music. “As long as I can…
The Illusionist is one of those films that can either be staggeringly dull or eternally brilliant. It’s shot in what might be called brown-and-white, a sepia tale (based on Steven Millhauser’s Eisenheim the Illusionist) of love, class, and magic set in old Vienna. Edward Norton is the titular star who…
Tonight the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival will screen Quinceañera, a gritty indie film about a girl who loses her way on the path toward adulthood and lands in a gaggle of gay guys instead. Whoops! A quinceañera is the Mexican celebration of a fifteen-year-old girl’s birthday as she…
