thursday april 24 Chris Smither: As both a rough-voiced singer of his own evocative songs and an interpreter of others’ works, Chris Smither makes the A-list of traveling troubadours currently finding an audience among disenfranchised rockers and country fans looking for something a little more complex than the garden-variety Nashville…
No one has exploited the historical-epic form better than David Lean. At his peak he used its spaciousness and breadth to develop characters with conflicting points of view, so that audiences could feel viscerally swept away, emotionally engaged, and mentally sharpened, all at once. With the help of inspired actors…
John Woo has often cited the films of Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973) as among his greatest influences — particularly 1967’s Le Samourai — and it’s easy to see the connection. Even in France, Melville spent most of his career as a cult director: His series of gangster films, starting in 1956…
When I was a teenager, my widowed grandmother left Vermont to live with my family in Florida, where, separated from her friends and other family, she turned to television for companionship. Unfathomable to me, her favorite hour each week was spent watching Lawrence Welk and his clean-cut cast stroll down…
Volcano is set in Los Angeles, and for L.A. haters, it could prove a peak experience. You don’t even have to hate L.A. to enjoy it — love/hate will do. That’s why the film closes with Randy Newman’s mock-anthem “I Love L.A.” (which, of course, makes it L.A.’s true anthem)…
thursday april 17 Arturo Sandoval/FIU Jazz Festival: Trumpet great Arturo Sandoval teams up with the FIU Jazz Band tonight at 8:00 p.m. to perform an evening of jazz classics benefiting the Fellowship House for the mentally ill. Tickets cost $35 and $100. The event kicks off the seventh annual FIU…
Kevin Smith is an impassioned jokester. The young writer-director double-whammies the audience by filling in his stick figures with thick brushstrokes. His first film, Clerks, was a no-budget goof featuring an entire miniature universe of slacker goons, but its main protagonist was a sweetly jerky lovelorn convenience store employee who…
Remember this joke? Question: Want to lose ten pounds of ugly fat? Answer: Cut off your head. Well, according to the press kit for 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, the average human head — dead and drained of blood — weighs 4.4 pounds. I can’t imagine that the heads…
From P.T. Barnum hustling naive ticket holders out of his New York City museum with exit signs that promised “This Way to the Egress” to trailers for upcoming summer movies, misrepresentation stands as one of show business’s few enduring traditions. Proud of their command of illusion, theater folk have been…
Joseph Cornell would have been delighted to observe the scene at the Norton Museum of Art on a recent Sunday afternoon, when children ran excitedly about the gallery in which the artist’s work is on display. Engaged in a treasure hunt organized by the museum, they each held a list…
thursday april 10 The Maroon Experience: The Historical Museum of Southern Florida (101 W. Flagler St.) continues its Thursday night lecture series in conjunction with its current exhibition, “A Slave Ship Speaks: The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie,” tonight at 6:00 p.m. with a screening of Sergio Giral’s Maluala. Giral,…
There are way too many movies about hit men, but that shouldn’t dissuade you from seeing Grosse Pointe Blank. It’s not quite like any other movie, let alone one about a hit man. That may be because it’s a hit-man movie crossed with a high-school-reunion comedy, and the two genres…
Not long after the MGM lion roars, the camera pans over a group of young Broadway hopefuls. Sure of their talent, these would-be stars nonetheless worry they’ll never get their big break. “Gosh, if they’d just give us a chance,” one begins, only to be drowned out by the swelling…
thursday april 3 Madcap Martini Party: Join the heppest cats in town for the grooviest martini party since Sammy, Dino, and Frank ruled the roost. Tara “Queen of the Night” Solomon and Micky Wolfson host this fundraiser for the exhibitions fund of the Wolfsonian (1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach), complete…
Film actors are generally said to have good chemistry or no chemistry. But bad chemistry in movies does exist, and a sleep inducer called Inventing the Abbotts is a case in point. In ascending order of age, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Connelly, and Joanna Going play Pamela, Eleanor, and Alice Abbott,…
When Val Kilmer walked away from the Batman franchise, it was only a matter of time before he offered up his own competing brand. The Saint isn’t just his answer to Batman — it’s a full-length commercial for all the Saint movies to come. There’s a breezy effrontery in the…
One of the biggest recent stories on the entertainment scene concerns the biographical portrayal of a historical enigma: a woman whose life was clouded by controversy, a woman whom millions of adoring followers elevated from obscure nobody to near goddess. Fueling the buzz is the starring actress, a charismatic performer…
thursday march 27 Carmen: Miami City Ballet celebrates the premiere of resident choreographer Jimmy Gamonet De Los Heros’s lavish ballet version of Georges Bizet’s Carmen with a gala evening, also featuring a concert by Cuban diva Albita, tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Jackie Gleason Theater of the Performing Arts…
In The Devil’s Own Brad Pitt plays Frankie McGuire, an Irish Republican Army gunman with 24 kills to his credit — 13 British soldiers and 11 police officers. After a bloody firefight in Belfast, he escapes to New York, where, helped by a pro-IRA judge (George Hearn), he is placed…
Nobody is seriously going to accuse writer-director Alexander Payne of being chickenshit. For his first feature, the hilarious Citizen Ruth, he has not only chosen the number-one issue a filmmaker is likely to get killed over — abortion and a woman’s right to make a personal decision on the subject…
It doesn’t require great acting to get a laugh from a Neil Simon comedy or to touch emotions while performing Tennessee Williams. On the other hand, a few extraordinary actors have the innate ability to combine talent, stage presence, and exceptional skills to create spellbinding performances regardless of the quality…
Painted entirely black and dimly lighted, the South Florida Art Center’s art1035 gallery has been done up to look like a cross between a religious temple and a low-rent love shack. Entering the darkness from the bright Miami Beach sunshine, there’s a deliberately spooky feel to the space. As in…
