NPR’s The Moth Returns to Miami

Have a tale you’ve always wanted to share? The Moth StorySLAM sure hopes so. Created as an offshoot of the New York based series which is recorded live and transmitted via podcast and as “The Moth Radio Hour” on WLRN (91.3 FM), participants offer true, first-person accounts on a predetermined…

The Best Things To Do in Miami This Weekend

The weekend is finally here, and this weekend Miami offers up live poetry, music, a Steven Spielberg retrospective and more. Plus this is great week for Miami’s geek scene: Supercon is back for a cosplay filled weekend. So get out there, put on your best Game of Thrones costume, and…

Voice Film Club: Ted 2 and Inside Out

On this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, the LA Weekly’s Amy Nicholson and the Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl in New York disagree on just about everything in Ted 2 — except that it has a few very funny moments — but only after revisiting the impressive Inside Out, which is…

Wolfsonian Partners with Bookstore in the Grove

Grove residents need not look any further than their local independent bookstore for exposure to world-class museum programming. Miami Beach’s Wolfsonian is partnering up with the Bookstore in the Grove for a series of moderated talks aptly titled: “The Wolfsonian in the Grove.” The first will kick off on Saturday,…

MJFF Presents Queer Film Anthology Stories of Our Lives

Good anthology films are a rare little breed that, almost always, has a dud hiding somewhere in the middle. But, with Stories of Our Lives, director Jim Chuchu delivers five beautiful shorts, and there’s no weak entry.  Premiering for one night only at O Cinema Miami Beach as a free…

Spielberg Retrospective Hits O Cinema Miami Beach

Just after the recent success of their Stanley Kubrick mini-retrospective that included A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey & The Shining, O Cinema Miami Beach is delivering yet another retrospective of a well-known filmmaker this month. Kicking off June 26th, the filmmaker of choice is the man who pretty…

Richard Blanco: End Cuba’s “Emotional Embargo”

No matter how you slice it, Cuba is a complicated topic to breach — especially if you live in Miami. Depending on where you were born, when (if) you came over, and what generation you fall into, the island has always been close, yet seemingly of another world. For all…

Kenny Riches’ Strongest Man Returns To Miami

Since premiering his latest feature, The Strongest Man, at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Miami-based filmmaker Kenny Riches only has had good news to report. His biggest coup: winning a distribution deal with FilmBuff, a national indie distributor that has arranged for a VOD release of the film…

HBO’s Miami-Based Show Ballers Underwhelms

The reviews coming in following HBO’s newest super-hyped-Miami-set series Ballers, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as retired Miami Dolphins superstar turned financial manager Spencer Strasmore, Sunday night debut have been anything but the balls. Critics seems to agree the debut was painfully unoriginal in it’s content; just another recycled 33 minutes…

Laugh and Laugh With Seth MacFarlane’s Ted 2

Some movies are indefensible, and Ted 2 is one of them. Not only is this a movie about a libidinous, foul-mouthed stuffed bear; it’s the sequel to an earlier movie about a libidinous, foul-mouthed stuffed bear. But I laughed and laughed at Ted 2 — as I did at the…

Eleven Best Things to Do in Miami This Week

This week looks bright and sunny, with plenty of things to keep you busy. From music to museums, Mouseketeers, Princess Mia, and the return of Supercon, Miami is your oyster. Get out there and enjoy your city.  THU 6/25 Conceptual artist Fred Wilson has spent a long and successful career…

Paula Crown’s Have a Ball in Design District Is Whimsical Fun

All our actions, whether meaningful or banal, have consequences on the surrounding space. Artist, entrepreneur, and Upper East Side socialite Paula Crown is interested in the physical manifestations of those actions. This time she’s injected a sense of childhood whimsy into her work, with Have A Ball, a subtle nod…

Miami Woman Joins Cast of Big Brother

Miami resident  Liz Nolan, 23, will be joining the cast of CBS’s summer reality show, Big Brother. The show, a broadcast television staple, now in its 17th season,  features 14 contestants locked in a house, their every move filmed, as fellow cast members vote on who’s allowed to remain in…

Artist Michael Vasquez Brings Humanity to the Underrepresented

When people from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery visited Michael Vasquez’s Little Haiti studio June 13, 2013, the artist thought they might have been wondering if he’s as ghetto as his paintings suggest. Vasquez — wearing an oversize T-shirt and a cap high on his head while drinking a Busch…

Sprightly Güeros Follows the Kids Too Bored to Change the World

There’s no reverie that Alonso Ruizpalacios’ Güeros can’t shatter, no presumed truth it can’t complicate, no expectation of closure it won’t dash. Set in Mexico City during 1999’s 292-day student strike at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the film is about — if any one thing — proximity to decisiveness,…

Exile and Jai-Alai Books Join Forces for a Literary Summer

On a sweltering summer night in Miami, is there anything better than listening to a discussion about books, small presses, and the history of Jai-Alai?  Last Thursday, an eclectic mix of mostly young attendees settled atop plush couches in The Standard Spa, Miami Beach lobby for a lecture given by…

Seven Best Things We Saw (and Played) at E3 2015

We came, we played, we conquered! This year’s E3 conference was filled with fun and excitement and though we’re tired, we thought we’d share our seven favorite things from this year’s big event.  The Booths Industry events are known for impressive displays for upcoming games, and this year’s E3 was…

There’s Hope in Dope

Part of what makes writer-director Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope so fresh and joyous is that in many key ways it’s not new at all. Like Dazed & Confused or The Breakfast Club, this is a film about just how weird the extraordinarily normal kids are — kids like you. The teen…