Since his TV show ended, Martin Lawrence has gotten more ink for his off-camera life than for his movie career. Nothing about Blue Streak is likely to change that. It’s a shame because the basic plot, which sounds like something from one of Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder novels, is promising…
“You and me?” asks catcher Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly) of his old friend, veteran pitcher Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner). “One more time?” It’s a poignant moment, the top of what may be the last game of Chapel’s career before he’s either traded or quits the game he has loved…
The six friends in When Love Comes hang on to music, drugs, and one another in search of that one intoxifier they don’t have: love. Middle-age pop diva Katie (Rena Owen) is trying to put her singing career on track; she was once a great star of late ’70s Americana…
There goes the neighborhood. Come to think of it, where is the neighborhood? Sentiments often heard in this relatively young city, where things historic — as in buildings — have only recently become a concern for the masses. Yes the holdouts have always been around, the architectural version of tree…
A bustling city street. An elaborate costume. A splashy scene from an old film starring swimmer/movie star Esther Williams. All little bits of inspiration for Brazilian-born choreographer Giovanni Luquini, whose full-scale theatrical/dance work Wrong Clue features a cast of eleven including his own dance troupe, members of the Akropolis Acting…
Somewhere between writing dialogue for the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story and creating Sunday in the Park with George, the only Broadway show to date based on an Impressionist painting, Stephen Sondheim revolutionized American musical theater. Inspired by the elaborate story musicals of his mentor Oscar Hammerstein…
Whether it’s bad or good commercial luck that the thriller Stir of Echoes follows so closely on the heels of The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan’s wildly successful ghost-story sleeper, it’s bad critical luck. The film has some startling parallels to The Sixth Sense: Both concern psychic communication with the…
Although the French-Canadian separatist movement of the 1970s and the production of a Noh play in Osaka, Japan, may seem like very disparate, not to mention esoteric, events to overlap in a film, Robert Lepage’s Nô is, in the end, a satire on the universal frailties of man and his…
There’s the low-budget film, and then there’s the no-budget film, the latter category of which The Following is a member. It’s a story of intrigue, the soul of darkness, and imagery shot with a hand-held camera in sixteen-millimeter black and white. The film loosely focuses on Bill (Jeremy Theobald), who…
Get ready for the sweet life. For seven nights starting September 10, the Absinthe House is running the greatest hits of Federico Fellini in a brief retrospective, ¡Fellinissimo! There are no majorly remastered versions with “missing half-hours” reinserted being shown, but it is a chance to see the best of…
Jackfruit might be the coolest fruit there is. First, that great name — like Jack Frost without the chilling effect. Second, the tasty jacks grow huge, perhaps as big as 150 pounds. Third, they grow here. That last fact is thanks to, naturally, David Fairchild, the legendary plant man whose…
In a town that’s infamous for restaurants and bars that last as long as a sun shower, restaurateur Mark Soyka has managed to create eateries that have the staying power of a sizzling Miami summer. His latest creation, Soyka, near Morningside, is booming. His bustling News Café which he co-owns…
Like her contemporary, the movie star James Dean, Patsy Cline arrived in pop-culture heaven prematurely, the result of a tragedy. She died in a plane crash in 1963 at the age of 30, leaving behind two small children and the work that resulted from twelve recording sessions, not to mention…
As a filmmaker, actor John Turturro clearly believes in drawing from personal experience: His directorial debut, 1992’s Mac (which won the Camera D’Or at Cannes), was avowedly based on his father’s life. For his second feature, Illuminata, Turturro takes a look at the theater, showing us the ambitions, fears, and…
In the opening scene of Leila, we’re shown, through an Iranian holy ceremony, the intimacy of a present-day Iranian family. But family ties are strained and the modern world is tested as Leila (Leila Hatami) and her husband, Reza (Mohamad Reza Sharifinia), discover that she will never be able to…
Of all the atrocities committed by the United States government, the internment of Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II deserves a spot in the top ten. The legal and moral implications of this dark period in our history have been explored by civil libertarians. But what about…
An ample zoo, a cheerful carousel, a tranquil beach area that boasted pristine sand: components of the once-popular Crandon Park area on Key Biscayne. A site that for many years was a bastion for white Miamians. In the intervening years, the zoo moved to its current address, and the carousel…
As far as we know, frighteningly prolific television writer/producer Stephen J. Cannell doesn’t traipse around his hometown of Los Angeles wearing Nike sneakers. If he did though, it wouldn’t be startling. His lengthy career seems to exemplify the athletic-wear company’s advertising slogan/philosophy, “Just Do It.” The co-creator, writer, and sometime…
It seems like only yesterday that movies dealing with gay and lesbian life were synonymous with extravagant displays of gloom and doom. From the suicides of The Children’s Hour and Advise and Consent to the serial killers of Cruising and Basic Instinct, same-sexuality was no fun — in the worst…
What is it they say — that even a flea can reach Mount Olympus riding in Pegasus’s mane? Well, in the case of the new Albert Brooks comedy The Muse, Brooks is the flea and Pegasus is his delectable costar, Sharon Stone. But I get ahead of myself. In The…
A somber, meditative film from the Greek master Theo Angelopoulos, Eternity and a Day tells the story of a terminally ill writer Alexandre (played with creaky eloquence by German star Bruno Ganz) as he moves out of his seaside home and begins to look back over his life on the…
Just when you thought you got the hang of the latest fad, the trendmeisters up in the sky (or wherever they are) go and change things. Once upon a time swing may have been the thing. But savvy dance fans, especially those who are connoisseurs of television commercials, know that…
