Gridiron Generosity

A weekend of football and philanthropy THUR 5/19 Duane Starks of the New England Patriots is more than just a super defensive back; he’s also a super benefactor. His Starks Charitable Foundation has been sponsoring community enrichment programs and providing scholarships to college-bound students since 1998. This weekend the graduate…

Time Keeps on Slipping …

Catch up with it at MAM SAT 5/21 A few ticks of trivia: Ten million copies of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time have been sold since 1988; a half-billion wristwatches were purchased last year; The New York Times recently reported that the average museum visitor spends 3.2 seconds…

Ewokka-wokka-wokka

SAT 5/21 George Lucas’s 1977 sci-fi epic Star Wars captured the hearts of a truly devoted group of fans. For these fanatics, this film is the Bible, and George Lucas is God. Just the Funny will pay homage to these Jedi disciples with good-natured sketch comedy. See Star Dorks tonight…

War: What Is It Good For?

Whatever you do, don’t accuse Ridley Scott of turning his back on a fight. Doesn’t matter if it’s slimy-fanged space aliens attacking Sigourney Weaver, Roman slaves in tough against hungry lions down at the Coliseum, or American GIs going at it with Somali insurgents. Sir Ridley is always happy to…

Going Mental

If you’re expecting a psychological thriller out of Mindhunters, and you buy a ticket for the movie, you will indubitably feel cheated. But break down the film’s title to its most literal sense — hunting for a mind, presumably because those involved were out of theirs — and you’ll know…

Sumo Logic

Legend has it that Japan’s origins stem from the outcome of a sumo match when the behemoth god Takemikazuchi defeated a tribal rival, giving birth to the Land of the Rising Sun. Accordingly, more than mere bovine bullies clad in kinky codpieces to our Western eyes, Japan’s sumo wrestlers are…

Night&Day

THUR 12 Whether he’s sporting football pads and oversize furry pants or argyle socks and a sedate cashmere sweater, Andre 3000 looks good as hell. No wonder Esquire magazine named this Outkast rapper the Best-Dressed Man in the World in 2004. Now local guys can step up to the fashion…

Hot Couture

She’s known for fine fashion, accessories, and perfumes. Hollywood stars Renée Zellweger, Brittany Murphy, and Salma Hayek wear her fabulous frocks to red-carpet events. Venezuelan designer Carolina Herrera found her springboard to international fame right here in the Magic City, at the annual Miami Fashion Week of the Americas. This…

Soup and Crackers

Florida food and culture go native SAT 5/14 There was a time (the Sixties) when, in certain circles, the word cracker came to be an ethnic slur. Put away your P.C. sticks and kick that etymological tangent to the curb. Swamp Cabbage: Cracker Culture in a Fast Food Nation –…

Walking

In Your Sleep FRI 5/13 Walk this way, jog that way, and crawl into your sleeping bag for a nap. As long as a member of your team stays on the track (and you’ve collected enough donations), no one will lose this eighteen-hour relay. To celebrate the fortitude of cancer…

Pretty Is

As pretty does SAT 5/14 Sick of SoBe’s oiled silicone dunes and farcical physical artifice, French curator Carol Jazzar has tackled the local cyborg-in-thongs set, presenting “Beauty or Not,” a group show delving into conventions of beauty. “I wanted to address contemporary issues of beauty because South Beach seems like…

Percussive Powerhouse

A special performance by a jazz great FRI 5/13 To jazz aficionados, Roy Haynes is a national treasure. Guitarist Pat Metheny has dubbed him “the father of modern drumming.” Haynes set the beat for some of the greatest performances in the history of jazz, and the list of legends he’s…

Two Plays Running

Here’s a double bill you don’t see every day: Alan Ayckbourn’s two plays House and Garden are now in simultaneous production at the Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables. Both are set during the course of one August day in the English countryside, sharing one large cast of characters and a…

Singing the Queen’s Praises

It’s not perfect and it needs work, but there’s a lot to enjoy in Nefertiti: A Musical Romance. Billed as a new musical, but an entire generation in the making, this production bears a history as fascinating as the ancient Egyptian love story it traces. The creation of Nefertiti has…

I Hate You! Let’s Get Married

There’s a moment toward the middle of Louie and Ophelia when the newly enamored title couple gets into a verbal fight. Then Louie turns on the television and the theme to All in the Family begins to play. It’s definitely humorous to hear the song, and the allusion to the…

Current Stage Shows

Aunt Dan and Lemon: Wallace Shawn’s dark, provocative tale of sex, nihilism, and the seductive appeal of raw power has to do with one woman’s malevolent influence on a reclusive young girl in the London of the swinging Sixties. The play is a talkathon, but an intriguing one, and there’s…

Current Art Shows

Anne Chu: This exhibition begins with a wide tabletop full of short human figures based on funerary guardians from China’s T’ang Dynasty. Carved roughly from wood, the figures are then painted with casein in a style that seems to draw from Impressionist watercolors. Indeed Chu’s nearby watercolor studies, executed with…

Shock and Awful

It is no great joy to review Palindromes, the latest film from writer-director Todd Solondz, who is loved by those who do not loathe him for such movies as Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, and Storytelling. Advance word had Palindromes as Solondz’s most shocking film, which seemed impossible, given its…

Art Dregs

Spawned from Fifties hot-rod and surf-rat culture, the lowbrow movement is creeping over the art world like a mutant strain of B-movie kudzu with signs that stodgier establishment sticklers may have to resign themselves to the fact that bad taste is here to stay. Pioneered by “Kustom Kulture” czars Ed…

Night&Day

THUR 5 Arriba, arriba, alcohol lovers! Today is Cinco de Mayo. For Mexicans, today is a day to commemorate the Battle of Puebla, when the French army was defeated in 1862. For gringos, today is an excuse to drink Coronas, act the fool, and stumble around in a state of…

Take Your Mother Out

We love you, Mom! It’s your weekend and we’re going to celebrate everything that’s cool about you, because where would we be without you? Oh, yeah, we wouldn’t be here without you. In honor of all the great moms out there, we’ve put together a roundup of Mother’s Day activities…

Urban Experience

Shake It Up Master these concoctions yourself FRI 5/6 Amazingly enough, Arlen Gargagliano hasn’t spent much time in Miami. Her book, Mambo Mixers, is chock full of recipes for delicious Latin cocktails and tapas locals crave. This author started out as an ESL textbook writer and teacher. Through her Latin…