Israeli Doc Rabin: The Last Day Is Powerful but Limited in Scope

In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot after attending a public rally. Rushed to the hospital, he died hours later. His assassin, Israeli ultranationalist Yigal Amir, is in prison for life, having achieved his goal: Without Rabin, the tentative Palestinian-Israeli peace process collapsed. Where’s the story in an…

MIFF 2016: Dark Glasses Is a Cuban Woman’s Revenge Fantasy

On Friday night, the Miami International Film Festival premiered Dark Glasses, a film by a Cuban artist who is redefining the island’s cinema through esoteric visuals and an engrossing narrative. The future feels potent, accomplishing what contemporary cinema seems to have such a hard time at: cultivating authenticity. Jessica Rodriguez’s Pinar del…

Weekend’s Best Film: Embrace of the Serpent

It was no surprise to Colombian writer/director Ciro Guerra when his movie, Embrace of the Serpent, didn’t win an Oscar this year. When New Times spoke to him a few weeks prior about his nomination, he laughed and said, “Honestly, I have no idea how it works. I’m just very…

MIFF 2016: The Five Best Cuban Films Screening This Week

Since the dawn of the revolution, Cuba’s state-sponsored cinema has been controversial and intellectually crafted. In the 1960s, Memories of Underdevelopment and De Cierta Manera marked a golden age of nuanced social critique within the confines of the revolution’s dismal sense of humor. But the Special Period wrought dire economic circumstances, forcing the…

Classic Films Showing in Miami in March

It’s a new month, so that means a new list of classic movies. March offers an abundance of films in Miami, specifically because of the Miami International Film Festival happening the first two weeks, but that doesn’t mean the cinemas are stopping the good ol’ classics, though. Here’s what your…

MIFF 2016 Director Jaie Laplante Picks His Top Five Must-See Films

Now that the Oscars are over, serious movie fans can explore film without the hype awards ceremonies. Miami-Dade College’s 33rd Miami International Film Festival will be a haven for those cinephiles, says Jaie Laplante, the festival’s director of programming six years running. Speaking via phone, he recommended five lesser-known films he…

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Confirms That the Movies Don’t Get Tina Fey

The title of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s strained dark comedy, in which the War in Afghanistan serves as the backdrop to an American woman’s self-actualizing journey, is the military phonetic-alphabet rendering of WTF. The mild Islamophobia and highly questionable casting choices in the film call to mind other texting…

Malick Goes L.A. in the Sumptuous Knight of Cups

What if Terrence Malick directed an episode of Entourage? Well, we’re about to find out, sort of. In Knight of Cups, the director of Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life turns his roaming camera and ruminating voiceovers toward Los Angeles and the movie business,…