Latin in the truest and broadest sense of that beauteous word, the Miami Latin Film Festival brings us movies not only from Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, and Costa Rica but also from France and Italy as well as, of course, Spain. This year’s edition, which opens Thursday (April 14)…
When the great playwright Arthur Miller died in February, many admirers took stock again of his most enduring creation, Willy Loman. A delusional idealist who finds himself failed and felled by the American dream, the tragic hero of Death of a Salesman has for half a century been the most…
Damian Rojo was just looking to rent out part of his warehouse space in Little Haiti; he didn’t expect the business transaction to lend fodder to his filmmaking passion. “My nephew introduced me to his neighbor who is a wrestler,” says Rojo. “The wrestlers were looking for a new place…
THUR 14 Los Angeles is still headquarters of the film world, but Justin Routt, the creator and owner of Birch Creek Films, sees a bright future for movies right here in Miami. “If you have a really good script and an agent, it doesn’t matter where you live. And the…
The movies are pure magic through a child’s eyes. Think back to your first theater experience. The intoxicating whiff of popcorn and warm butter in the lobby. Sitting in the plush, velvety seats, your legs not long enough to touch the ground, the darkness giving way to bright, mesmerizing images…
Miami’s still walking for a cure SUN 4/17 After seventeen years in the game, the planners of the annual AIDS Walk Miami must have this parade down to a science. Step one, pick a route and a gathering place; step two, ask walkers to raise at least $25 in donations;…
Anyone for numerology? Many cultures are keen on the study of numbers for their mystical powers. Visit certain immigrant neighborhoods in southern California, and you’ll find plenty of addresses with the number eight in them but none with the number four. That’s because eight is revered as a sign of…
Without a lot of fanfare but before an immensely appreciative crowd, the most exciting orchestra in town was born last weekend at the Byron Carlyle Theater in Miami Beach. Livio Tragtenberg’s Nervous City Orchestra, an only-in-Miami version of the Brazilian composer’s 2004 Neuropolis, was a premiere, a celebration of the…
Aida: A powerhouse trio of principals makes the Actors’ Playhouse Aida a fabulously entertaining evening of theater and one of the season’s happiest surprises. For those who already love the show, here is a chance to experience the Elton John-Tim Rice score persuasively, passionately sung and acted by Desmon N…
The camera, that mechanical eye which can be rigged to print the images it targets, has been a potent catalyst for change in the visual arts since its inception in the mid-Nineteenth Century. After an early modernist period in which photography sought and achieved acceptance on its own terms as…
Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form, 1940s-70s: There are still a few weeks left to see this amazing exhibit, which provides a fresh look at some of the most significant connections among contemporaneous works produced in America, Europe, and Latin America during this 40-year period. Worth noting: Max Bill’s Tripartite Unity,…
What if a man has no friends? What if he speaks only when spoken to, and then only of the weather? What if every day of the week he attends mass, serves as a janitor, and retires to a one-room studio, emerging only to return to work? What happens to…
Sahara is a stunning piece of work — stunningly inept, stunningly incoherent, stunningly awful in every single way imaginable. How this didn’t go direct to video or cable or airplane or bootleg is unfathomable. Actually that’s not entirely true. It gets a proper blockbuster theatrical release through Paramount Pictures because…
Robert Burr has deep roots in South Florida. “Our family was one of the very first pioneer families to settle near Arch Creek. They also settled Little River and in the Goulds area. And the Burr’s Berry Farm is kind of a semi-famous place,” says Burr. In 1876 the Burr…
THUR 7 The once-controversial musical Hair, also known as the “American Tribal Rock Musical,” is relevant once again, with its call to question not just authority but also the march to war. The musical is gossamer at first evaluation (Clive Barnes’s New York Times review of the musical’s 1967 off-Broadway…
Right, there’s nothing at all notable about Miamians going fishing in April. By the boatloads, sure. In fact the legislature is languaging legislation that will make it mandatory for all South Floridians to get out on the water at least ten times each spring. But this is fishing on another…
And some like to wear clothes SUN 4/10 Dogs will be putting on the people clothes today at the third annual Pet Rescue Spring Dog Parade in Graham Park (between Meadow Walk Lane and Bull Run Road, Miami Lakes). Founded by tennis great Gardnar Mulloy, Pet Rescue is a nonprofit,…
Gain eco-awareness SUN 4/10 Don’t look now, but we’re in the midst of a global mass extinction. According to ABC News, the world’s amphibians are vanishing at an unprecedented rate that frightens conservationists. The porous skin of frogs acts as an ecological barometer of sorts, and their decline might indicate…
Art with a Latin kick THUR 4/7 Another sign the market has become bullish on art and corporate culture is arteaméricas, the third annual Latin American Art Fair opening today and running through Monday at the Coconut Grove Convention Center (2700 S. Bayshore Dr., Miami). Organizers say the fair, sponsored…
Albita is bound for Broadway SUN 4/10 It seems like a minute ago (it was 1993) that a slightly strange Cuban singer arrived on Calle Ocho and became the sort of star in Miami that she had been in her homeland (her first Fidel-approved album, 1988’s Habra Música Guajira, sold…
This is how it all begins: Night falls, a group of people — a family, a clan, a tribe — gathers around a campfire. The flames crackle, the wind whispers, and under the starry sky, one person begins to tell a story. As the tale unwinds, the tale teller shifts…
Going from strength to strength in the Light Box Studio, Here & Now 2005 radiates the unmistakable glow of success. Fast on the heels of new works by Octavio Campos and Joanne Barrett came two new pieces unveiled last week: a winning tap-dance fantasy with a hip-hop edge called What?!?…
