thursday april 3 Madcap Martini Party: Join the heppest cats in town for the grooviest martini party since Sammy, Dino, and Frank ruled the roost. Tara “Queen of the Night” Solomon and Micky Wolfson host this fundraiser for the exhibitions fund of the Wolfsonian (1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach), complete…
Film actors are generally said to have good chemistry or no chemistry. But bad chemistry in movies does exist, and a sleep inducer called Inventing the Abbotts is a case in point. In ascending order of age, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Connelly, and Joanna Going play Pamela, Eleanor, and Alice Abbott,…
When Val Kilmer walked away from the Batman franchise, it was only a matter of time before he offered up his own competing brand. The Saint isn’t just his answer to Batman — it’s a full-length commercial for all the Saint movies to come. There’s a breezy effrontery in the…
One of the biggest recent stories on the entertainment scene concerns the biographical portrayal of a historical enigma: a woman whose life was clouded by controversy, a woman whom millions of adoring followers elevated from obscure nobody to near goddess. Fueling the buzz is the starring actress, a charismatic performer…
thursday march 27 Carmen: Miami City Ballet celebrates the premiere of resident choreographer Jimmy Gamonet De Los Heros’s lavish ballet version of Georges Bizet’s Carmen with a gala evening, also featuring a concert by Cuban diva Albita, tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Jackie Gleason Theater of the Performing Arts…
In The Devil’s Own Brad Pitt plays Frankie McGuire, an Irish Republican Army gunman with 24 kills to his credit — 13 British soldiers and 11 police officers. After a bloody firefight in Belfast, he escapes to New York, where, helped by a pro-IRA judge (George Hearn), he is placed…
Nobody is seriously going to accuse writer-director Alexander Payne of being chickenshit. For his first feature, the hilarious Citizen Ruth, he has not only chosen the number-one issue a filmmaker is likely to get killed over — abortion and a woman’s right to make a personal decision on the subject…
It doesn’t require great acting to get a laugh from a Neil Simon comedy or to touch emotions while performing Tennessee Williams. On the other hand, a few extraordinary actors have the innate ability to combine talent, stage presence, and exceptional skills to create spellbinding performances regardless of the quality…
Painted entirely black and dimly lighted, the South Florida Art Center’s art1035 gallery has been done up to look like a cross between a religious temple and a low-rent love shack. Entering the darkness from the bright Miami Beach sunshine, there’s a deliberately spooky feel to the space. As in…
thursday march 20 The Lipton Championships: Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi return to defend their championship titles against 30 challenging tennis stars at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park (7300 Crandon Blvd., Key Biscayne). Other players hitting the courts at the Lipton include Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis, Monica Seles, and…
Cult auteur David Cronenberg crashes and burns — his talent, that is — in Crash, a vain attempt at a techno-age Persona. It follows a demented explorer named Vaughan (Elias Koteas) into an insane new world where twisted metal, curvy skin, automotive oil, and bodily fluids merge in an explosive…
When Paramount Pictures releases The Godfather tomorrow, it will be both honoring itself and perpetrating a crime. The honor is that one of the greatest and most influential films ever made is being re-released on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. The crime is that Paramount, according to a studio…
Since 1986, when it was founded, Coral Gables’s New Theatre has presented Southeast and world premieres, filling its eclectic seasons with local rarities — classics by Ibsen, Chekhov, O’Neill, and Williams — as well as signature works by Mamet, Gurney, McNally, and other contemporary playwrights, including Manhattan-based Tina Howe. Now,…
In the last chapter of the Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi Special Edition, an intergalactic window display of creepy and cuddly critters upstages the human characters. All the conflicts are resolved between the virtuous Rebels — Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Princess Leia (Carrie…
City of Industry starts out promisingly and then turns into the kind of crime thriller only a pointy-headed postmodernist could love. Since a lot of critics these days have pointy heads, you might just want to brace yourself for a lot of steaming compost in the press about how “existential”…
The audience for the original opening night of Brigadoon — March 13, 1947 — passed by glittering Broadway marquees beckoning everyone to see Oklahoma!, Carousel, Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Mister, Street Scene, and Finian’s Rainbow. Entering its golden age, the American musical theater offered postwar crowds intoxicating experiences…
Tie-dyed, graffiti-scrawled canvas huts and paint-spattered model kayaks have turned Fredric Snitzer’s new gallery off Bird Road into a funky tent city. Wooden rods suspended from the ceiling support the sunset-colored, vaguely Bedouin-style structures; visitors can enter one titled El Gran Canibal through an open flap and see a childish…
thursday march 13 Dade County Fair and Exposition: They’ve got daredevils who’ll take your breath away. They’ve got plants and animals from forests and farms. They’ve got food, games, magic shows, art exhibitions, vendors, and loads of live music. But let’s face it: Those super-loud, ultra-illuminated, fabulous puke-inducing rides are…
thursday march 6 Julia Alvarez: It’s no secret that when writers write what they know, they usually end up writing about people they know. And sometimes those people may not be thrilled by what’s been written about them. In her latest book AYo! (no, the title has nothing to do…
Waiting for Guffman is such a funny mess that it keeps you laughing even when you realize it’s not much better directed than a cable-access talk show. Christopher Guest’s is-this-where-I-point-the-camera? auteurism, last seen in The Big Picture, is redeemed by the performers — himself most of all — and the…
During the first few minutes of Howard Stern’s romp through his inexplicable life, he spells out his mission: Private Parts will both convert the nonbelievers and entertain the cult. Stern wants to give you plenty of hot lesbian action (and freed from FCC restrictions, he takes real pleasure in saying…
Originally opened in 1956 as a lavish restaurant, the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s Encore Room was reborn in the early Eighties as a jazz hot spot with its own house band, attracting the young and the hip to the Grove years before CocoWalk was built. Converted into a 130-seat cabaret theater…
