This Changes Everything. This year, Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival takes a big risk with its opening night film. Generally a place for celebratory, uplifting cinema, the first movie to screen at the festival’s centerpiece venue, the storied Olympia Theater, is a documentary that wags its finger at the…
As millions of young people across the country became transfixed by Elvis Presley’s hip shaking, a subculture of young, Jewish, New York-to-Miami Beach transplants looked past the blues and country-tinged sounds coming out of the American South, leaning instead toward the tropical beat of pre-revolution Cuba. This is the story pf the Mamboniks.
Unlike this year’s live-action Oscar shorts, which mostly centered on white boyhood, the Miami Film Festival’s shorts lineup has upped its own ante by bringing a host of diverse voices to the screen for its 36th annual event. The fest lineup balances established talents like Patricia Clarkson with rising local filmmakers.
Miami-based documentary filmmaker Billy Corben speaks in the same style his movies unfold: fast and peppered with plenty of self-effacing jokes. You don’t want to laugh for fear of missing what he might say next. On a tight schedule to finish one of the two films he’s slated to premiere…
Last night’s Green Book’s Best Picture win spoiled the 2019 Academy Awards for many viewers. But before that film, which has been widely criticized for its “white savior” story line, took home the night’s biggest prize, the Oscars seemed to be making improvements in acknowledging both diverse nominees and fan favorites.
On Wednesday afternoon, “One Day at a Time” showrunner Gloria Calderon Kellett tweeted that she had just left a meeting with Netflix and had learned some troubling news about her original series: it was once again in danger of being canceled. Why? Low viewership. Kellett’s full tweet read: “NEWS: Met…
Arctic. The feature film debut by writer-director Joe Penna is a rather grim and grueling survivalist action movie peppered by a handful of startling OMG moments. Underneath all that, however, lies powerful subtext about how purpose adds meaning to life. Arctic follows Overgård (Mads Mikkelsen), the only survivor of a…
Get red carpet ready and head to one of these five South Florida spots on Sunday, February 24, to watch the Oscars with fellow cinephiles.
Globally, kid’s entertainment is a booming, ever-expanding industry with hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue each year. In the U.S., children account for 23 percent of the population (74 million people). It’s little wonder why a who’s who of kids’ media giants and attendees from over fifty countries make it a priority to descend upon Miami each February, hunting for the next big hit.
Overtown has long been a mecca for culture. The deeply rooted community in the historic heart of Miami was a center of entertainment in the 1940s and ‘50s, comparable to Miami Beach. Some of most iconic black artists of the time performed in the neighborhood. But Overtown’s cultural significance is…
Before winning awards and audience’s eyeballs, a movie needs connections to movie theaters via a distributor. It’s really the ultimate goal for an independent filmmaker. The Sundance Film Festival is often thought of as the gateway to such success. But Miami-based collaborative documentary filmmakers Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch found…
Alita: Battle Angel. This is a film made up of three distinct, and sometimes conflicting, aesthetics. At its heart is Yukito Kishiro’s manga series Gunnm (or Battle Angel Alita), of which a number of chapters were chopped and rearranged by writers Laeta Kalogridis and James Cameron to create the two-hour…
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, and starring André Holland, Netflix’s latest release is a riveting sports drama titled “High Flying Bird.” But it’s more than just the tale of a sports agent trying to disrupt the business during an NBA lockout; it’s a tale that prioritizes characters…
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Nothing feels more like a cash grab in Hollywood than a movie sequel. Usually that means finding a way to bring back the same characters and actors and putting them in similar situations as the first movie and trying not to divert too…
Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade has been one of South Florida’s most beloved sports figures for over a decade. He’s also in the middle of his final season in the NBA, with plans to retire later this year. But don’t be too sad when he’s gone, Wade County. You’ll see…
Michael Corleone Blanco, the son of deceased drug lord Griselda Blanco, spent the first 33 years of his life in the drug business. Now, he’s the star of “Cartel Crew,” a VH1 docuseries that follows the sons and daughters of former cartel members. The drug trade isn’t a field that…
The Sunshine State shone brightly at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, with filmmakers from southern Florida taking center stage. One of the festival’s strongest films was Pahokee, a documentary feature directed by the West Palm Beach-based husband and wife team of Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan…
The Miami Film Festival (MIFF) revealed its 2019 slate of picks and guests this morning, and there are plenty of exciting inclusions. More than 160 feature narratives, documentaries, and short films of all genres from 40-plus countries will be presented during the festival March 1 through 10.
When the words “based on a Spanish-language film” pop up in bombastic text the moment Miss Bala’s credits appear onscreen, one quickly becomes aware of how little interest the movie has in either its original version or Mexico, where the film mostly takes place.
Opening with an establishing shot of Art Basel Miami Beach, Dan Gilroy’s new Netflix movie, Velvet Buzzsaw, which recently premiered at Sundance Film Festival, sets up its premise by cheapening Miami’s art scene in the predictable manner you’d expect from a California-based filmmaker. Miami is there to provide a colorful, superficial backdrop…
From big-budget blockbusters to indie films, here’s your guide to the movies opening in Miami theaters this week. Serenity. After directing a tense drama featuring a single actor in the front seat of a car (Tom Hardy in 2013’s Locke), screenwriter Steven Knight returns to the director’s chair with a…
The biggest surprise of the list: Local filmmaker Barry Jenkins’ “If Beale Street Could Talk” snagged only three nominations. These included nods for Original Score, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. But there was an obvious snub for the incredible flick in key categories such as Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director.
