In the time I’ve occupied this position, I’ve seen dozens of shows A some good, a few excellent, and many fair, poor, or simply awful. However, I’ve only twice found it necessary for the maintenance of my sanity to leave at intermission after experiencing just one of two acts: first…
Before heading to see the newly formed Florida Playwright’s Theatre present a penny-dreadfully fine rendition of Charles Ludlam’s 1984 classic camp parody, The Mystery of Irma Vep, implant three words firmly in your mind: courage, ambition, facetiousness. The first two refer to the company, which boldly takes on a brash…
“The dog ate the part we didn’t like” — from Panama, by Thomas McGuane You probably don’t have to hate George Bush or his presidential predecessor, Ronald Reagan, to appreciate The Panama Deception (opening Friday at the Alliance on Lincoln Road), this year’s Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature…
Lesbians have feelings too. That’s the earth-shattering revelation at the core of three of hearts. (What is it with lower-case titles these days? bodies, rest & motion, the night we never met A am i the only one who finds the trend precious?) For the first twenty minutes or so,…
A body at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. bodies, rest & motion is proof positive of the veracity of that Newtonian law of physics. This is an insufferable, pretentious, existential character drama that starts out at rest and stays there. Nick, played…
Occasionally I’ll have a few nighttime beers in a bar on South Beach. It’s a place filled mostly with locals and European tourists, the large majority of them men. Every once in a while a tall, Spandex-wrapped blonde will jiggle her way through the crowd, and all eyes turn toward…
After watching Robert De Niro sleepwalk through Mad Dog and Glory, it was a relief to see that someone had awakened the venerable actor in time for his next performance as an abusive stepfather in This Boy’s Life. Unfortunately, whoever roused the sleeping Dog for the film adaptation of Tobias…
Lampooning middle-class neuroses has long been a staple of television sitcoms. From the Bundys to the Simpsons, some of our most popular TV families are paragons of bourgeois dysfunction. But the big screen has been another story; mainstream Hollywood hasn’t really gotten suburban angst right since The Graduate. But not…
The truest comment made by a politician in recent history was uttered by Jimmy Carter, when he stated flatly, “Life is not fair.” Indeed. Take the case of the ACME Acting Company, struggling through scores of financial difficulties, versus the Coconut Grove Playhouse, with its multimillion-dollar annual budget. The state…
It happens every spring with numbing predictability. The crush of Christmas blockbusters and Oscar contenders peters out sometime in mid-January, and with one or two exceptions the pickings A at least in terms of first-run domestic theatrical releases A remain slim until the advance guard of the big summer films…
That creaky adage about writing A 10 percent inspiration, 90 percent perspiration A should be heeded carefully by would-be authors. Students eagerly approach writing instructors with what they believe is the key to any novel, play, or short story: THE IDEA. Surely, once they know what they want to say…
Gombo, the ingenuous hero of Close to Eden, wields a mean urga. The preferred tool of the Mongolian rancher, the gadget resembles a long fishing rod with a noose at the end of it and is one handy piece of equipment for a guy trying to scratch out a living…
In the annals of American cinema, has there ever been an actor whose first name so accurately critiqued his performances as Woody Harrelson? In Doc Hollywood he was Woody the lovestruck hick; in White Men Can’t Jump he was Woody the street-hustling ballplayer; Indecent Proposal offers us Woody the architect…
One of the major brain twisters of the current decade has got to be sexuality: should you do it, with whom, and which sex. Whereas in the past sexual peccadilloes and debates largely remained confined to straightforward scandals A pre- or extramarital dalliances A in the Nineties the carnal issue…
The kitchen and the bedroom. In 1910 Mexico, a woman’s choices, bound by tradition and the macho ethic, were severely limited. Like Water for Chocolate, the film adapted by Laura Esquivel and her director/producer husband, Alfonso Arau, from Ms. Esquivel’s internationally best-selling novel, is the raunchy, romantic, dreamlike rendering of…
As a rule, the last place a movie critic wants to view a film is at a promotional screening. Such events, if successful, are usually loud and crowded, two factors that are not exactly conducive to thoughtful analysis of the motion picture in question. The WMXJ-FM (102.7)/Community Newspapers-sponsored showing of…
Successful dramas tend to deal with similar themes — lost romance, identity crises, loneliness, family tensions — partly because some subjects lend themselves more easily to the stage than others. Extraterrestrials (and other types of space matter), pornographic activity, gang warfare, and the like are difficult to translate into live…
Few dramatic scholars would argue against the assertion that Hamlet remains one of the greatest plays ever written. Unlike such masterpieces as Home Alone and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Shakespeare’s tragedy about the Prince of Denmark was not exactly crying out for a sequel. And few audiences, scholars or…
Il Ladro di Bambini (Stolen Children) is a small film that packs a mean wallop. You don’t realize what a tour de force you’re watching until midway through, and then not because of a Crying Game-like plot twist or a whiff of Scent of a Woman-ly bombast. Rather, Bambini wins…
Thank goodness for small favors: the new Disney release, A Far Off Place, is not a Newsies-magnitude bomb. On the other hand, the best thing about the film (a loose adaption of two books by Laurens van der Post, A Story Like the Wind and A Far Off Place) is…
“It is not a dance; [it is] synthetic sex turned into a spectator sport,” asserts choreographer Jeffrey Holder. “If they turned off the music, they’d all be arrested,” adds phlegmatic comedian Bob Hope. The object of such moral outrage? A vulgar, animalistic dance known as the Twist. Canadian documentary filmmaker…
If you’re feeling lethargic, spend an hour with Michael Hall, the artistic director and founder of the Caldwell Theatre Company, one of South Florida’s two state theaters. Immense funds of energy, optimism, and creativity fill the room from the moment he steps in. Immediately you understand why Jim Caldwell, the…
