Remember Love, American Style? It was a lighthearted attempt at feminism and gender-bending, which somehow always ended up in bawdy, wide-angle shots of breasts and behinds and concluded in catty dialogues that took place in a huge, brass four-poster bed. As a youngster I tuned in for the opening shot…
The cultural impact of the new economy on our world has some interesting manifestations. Take airports, for instance, in this era of hypertravel. To relieve the tedium, they house all kinds of imaginable amenities for a population whose personal lives are subordinate to business demands, embodied in the business-class traveler…
For a moment or two, David Lowery–frontman for the band Cracker, and before that, beloved college-radio revolutionary sweethearts Camper Van Beethoven–found himself enjoying the book. He laughed in the right places, winced in the appropriate spots, and thought, for a moment, the book wasn’t half bad. And there’s no reason…
Brazilian filmmakers have enjoyed a reputation for being some of the most prestigious and talented in Latin-American cinema. From early works, such as O Cangaceiro by Lima Barreto (1953), one of the most emblematic Brazilian films, to Black God, White Devil (1964) by Glauber Rocha, to Vidas Secas (1963 )…
As the title suggests, Faith (Fé) explores the world of faith in Brazil. It documents spirituality at the end of the Twentieth Century in this vast and diverse nation, showing us all types of religious celebrations, rituals, sacred offerings, and pagan cults. From the lower Amazon to the arid northeast,…
Apart from mass cultural annihilation, Beatniks, Hee Haw, some dumb-ass sports, and the freak shows of Brentwood, most pop-culture trends are not homegrown but imported to America after prolonged cultivation overseas. Take tofu, for instance, dubbed le curd du soy by uncredited Belgian sailors exploring China centuries before we discovered…
In the prehistoric days of cinema, before the advent of sprawling air-conditioned multiplexes and five-dollar buckets of greasy popcorn, folks just set up their big screens outside and stretched out underneath the stars to marvel at the celluloid magic. It was kind of like a drive-in without the fumes or…
World peace is a tall order. Most of us around here would settle for peace in Miami-Dade County. Global-hybrid band Alabina comes to Miami Beach with the musical message that ethnic differences anywhere in the world can be settled through multicultural song and dance. Unfortunately named lead singer Ishtar has…
Michael Moore often worries about being seen — and worse, dismissed — as the plump, ball-cap-wearing windbag who barges into company headquarters, demands to see the chairman of the board, then gets kicked out or even arrested. He frets about being reduced to a stuntman of shtick, Captain Ambush, the…
Over the River and Through the Woods (written by Joe DiPietro and directed by Kenneth Kay) is one of those plays you walk out of saying, “Gee, my mother would have loved that,” and lo and behold, you look around and there is your mother — and all of her…
Do not judge Shanghai Noon by its trailer, which serves as the very antithesis of advertising: It begs you to stay far away from any theater in which this film is screening. Laden with dreary sight gags (a horse that stays by sitting … just like a dog) and woeful…
The Belgian film Rosie opens with an interview of a thirteen-year-old girl (Aranka Coppens) in juvenile detention for an unknown crime. The sequence’s immediacy and bareness somehow resemble interview scenes from The 400 Blows and Vivre sa Vie, but this first impression is a mirage. Rosie is less intellectual and…
Quick: Who was the most unbelievable movie character to appear onscreen in recent memory? Jar-Jar Binks? Mini-Me? South Park’s Saddam Hussein? All may be supplanted by Joline (Heather Graham), the main character in Committed. See, Joline is a young, hip New York club owner who actually does what she says…
Great tango dancers are said to have “adoquín” or “cobblestone” beneath their feet. The dramatic poses and deliberate drag of the dance tell the story of the streets of late-nineteenth-century Buenos Aires, when Italians crossed the Atlantic in droves to work in the booming Argentine industry. The Bad Life in…
“You hear poetry in these commercials on television, and it’s almost like the kiss of death,” chuckles poet Sekou Sundiata, referring to the TV spots featuring Star Trek’s William Shatner singing the praises of Priceline.com in full beatnik mode. “How far can the end be?” Although Sundiata can giggle about…
The following is a list of women who have been raped, mutilated, tortured, enslaved, crippled, or murdered–and quite often, all of the above. In some cases, these women have also suffered miscarriages, been rendered infertile, contracted horrific diseases, and gone insane. Some of them have even been killed twice, perhaps…
Before Women Who Love Too Much and Codependent No More, there was Georgia O’Keeffe and her watercolors. Characteristically dressed in a long black sweater, O’Keeffe peers out at the audience from the dimly lit stage of the Hollywood Boulevard Theatre. “Watercolors are tricky,” she observes in Lucinda McDermott’s O’Keeffe! “When…
Fifty years into the Twentieth Century jazz became the true voice of black and white urban America. There is something about jazz that embodies the sum and substance of the American city: It is seductive, direct, and purifying (for proof check out or reacquaint yourself with Charles Mingus’s “Boogie Stop…
To begin let us discuss puking. You know, upchucking, barfing, yacking, Technicolor yawning. Always unpleasant — and yet usually a great relief to a queasy gut — a nice vomit can be provoked by just about anything, but a few catalysts seem to work every time. Agents of proven reliability…
Dinosaurs used to be cool. In 1969 if you had asked me what was the best movie ever made, the answer would likely have been The Valley of Gwangi, in which a group of cowboys in the Mexican desert find a gully full of leftover dinosaurs, animated by Ray Harryhausen,…
The big screen in these parts keeps getting better. For discriminating fans of fine cinema, the local independent theaters have been offering real treasures lately. Take the beautiful French-Canadian film Set Me Free at the Cosford, the Miami Film Festival hit East-West at Absinthe House, and the amazing double-shot opening…
Go window-shopping along the sidewalks of Little Havana this weekend, and what might you see? Pastelitos baked to flaky perfection, spiritual self-help paperbacks and Castro conspiracy hardcovers, plastic Catholic saints next to black Santería candles, stylish guayaberas and Panama hats, big-screen TVs tuned to Telemundo, dude lying in bed. Wait…
