I wasn’t even going to review Leon Ichaso’s cliche-ridden anti-Castro diatribe Bitter Sugar. Ichaso’s Cuban Romeo and Juliet seemed neither good enough to merit my praise nor bad enough to invoke my wrath; the film drifts like a sunstruck balsero in a sea of mediocrity. But then, on September 25,…
David and Martha Flanagan are brother and sister, each burdened by memories of the past, each practiced at covering up pain, living together in their childhood home. Vietnam veteran David, once a high school golden boy, now numbs himself with alcohol, cigarettes, and casual sex in order to forget how…
thursday october 3 Designed for Consumption: Giant doughnuts, ten-foot-long hot dogs, streamlined diners, and bun-topped burger joints: The larger-than-life design of America’s roadside restaurants and food stands will be the subject of a lecture by Dr. Cynthia Elyce Rubin tonight at 6:30 at the Wolfsonian (1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach)…
The female protagonists of the darkly funny thrillers Bound, Curdled, and Butterfly Kiss don’t fit neatly into the usual Madonna-whore roles usually ascribed to women in film. But they are cleaning ladies, in a sense: Corky (Gina Gershon) and Violet (Jennifer Tilly) mop up a Mafia money-laundering machine in Bound…
At one point during 1984’s The Mystery of Irma Vep, Charles Ludlam’s insanely goofy yet sly sendup of Gothic novels and Victorian sensibilities, a British Egyptologist leaves nineteenth-century England for the Middle East. There, Lord Edgar Hillcrest pillages an ancient tomb and schleps the spoils back home. This lust for…
Pierrot Barra presides over the Pharmacie Magique in Port-au-Prince’s Iron Market, behind a row of stalls selling old American magazines. One airless afternoon last spring Barra, a Vodou priest, sat under the botanica’s corrugated tin awning on a cane chair, dressed in dark blue jeans and a T-shirt, without shoes…
People in Miami often imagine Havana. Some, in their mind’s eye, preserve an exile’s perfect vision of the city of their sweet childhood home. Remembering recent trips to Cuba, others recall a disconcerting visual composition of the grand Havana Cathedral, ornate hotel lobbies, and the exhilarating ocean promenade, juxtaposed with…
thursday september 26 Curdled: Miramax Films’ most recent flick, Curdled, is one of a number of films shot in Miami and set against the backdrop of our various and vibrant cultures (The Birdcage and Miami Rhapsody come to mind). So what better town in which to present the national premiere…
You’re a doctor on duty in a hospital emergency room. Ambulances arrive and disgorge two gunshot victims. One is a cop and the other a drug-dealing scumbag. Both men need surgery, but the drug dealer is in more immediate danger. Only one operating room is available. The cop’s colleagues, his…
With his muscled arms, deep-set eyes and wavy black hair, 2 days in the Valley writer-director John Herzfeld looks the part of Starsky’s brother, a recurring role the actor-turned-filmmaker once played on the ultra-violent Seventies TV series Starsky and Hutch. But Herzfeld’s early acting career, which included performances in two…
thursday september 19 Jon Stewart: New Jersey native, actor, and comedian Jon Stewart honed his skills in the shark-filled-water-like atmosphere of New York City’s comedy clubs, moving through the ranks to score appearances on HBO’s Young Comedians Special and Late Night with David Letterman. Those appearances led to a brief…
American filmmakers born during the baby boom have been trying — and failing — for decades to make a really great rock and roll movie. A few have gotten close — This Is Spinal Tap and Backbeat pop into mind. But more often such films tend to fall back on…
Too many thrillers start out like gangbusters only to fall apart in the final act. When one finally happens along that ends more cleverly than it opens, the temptation arises to praise it on that basis alone. The Rich Man’s Wife is such a film. The sad truth is, however,…
Most of the theater productions I’ve seen in South Florida over the years, from Palm Beach to South Dade, can be classified as “pleasant.” Bearable to sit through, they didn’t offend, irritate, or prompt me to leave during intermission. They proffered moments of dramatic tension, provided the occasional insight, featured…
Journalists and movie stars circle each other warily, in an uneasy dance born of need and skepticism. On one level, they are interdependent: Stars rely on journalists to promote them, while journalists use celebrity escapades as story fodder. On another level, they never know how much to trust one another:…
Five shows scheduled for Dade and Broward exhibition spaces this season focus on the art of Haiti, both sacred and profane. This is mostly a coincidence, and a pleasing one, that reflects a current international interest in Haitian culture and the fact that South Florida is home to both a…
For a musician, Tom Petty is one shrewd son-of-a-gun. He knows that movie soundtracks these days frequently become more popular than the movies they accompany. A motion picture can be a total box-office dog, but the barrage of media hype preceding its release is sure to emphasize the flick’s signature…
David Mamet’s 1975 play American Buffalo shocked audiences with its profanity and its unsparing examination of what Mamet characterized as “the American Dream gone bad.” Mamet garnered the New York Drama Critics Circle Award with his bleak tale of a pair of lowlife schemers and their half-baked plot to rip…
thursday september 12 Meat Beat Manifesto: Hip-hop, noise, house, techno, industrial elements, and human voice snippets form an amalgam of information, social criticism, and utterly danceable rhythms in the music of Meat Beat Manifesto. With former MBM vocalist and core member Jonny Stephens, programmer and musical conceptualist Jack Dangers created…
thursday september 5 Boukman Eksperyans: Get ready to sweat. Haitian roots supergroup Boukman Eksperyans brings its revolutionary spirit to Rezurrection Hall at Club Nu (245 22nd St., Miami Beach) tonight at 9:00. Boukman, Vodou music’s answer to the Rolling Stones, is currently on a world tour in support of its…
Massive power crash. Phones down. No TV, no radio, no computers. Chaos and lawlessness ensue. Suburban proto-yuppies Matt and his wife Annie panic; they have a screaming baby with an ear infection. They can’t get the medicine they need to cure the infant because the pediatrician can’t call in the…
I can’t believe that with all the money they spent on casting (Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer don’t come cheap), the geniuses who remade H.G. Wells’s sci-fi classic The Island of Dr. Moreau couldn’t spring for some semi-realistic man-beast effects. This is the third and least satisfying Hollywood retelling of…
