It’s “the last decade of the Cold War” (as the opening titles inform us) in post-Franco Spain. Anti-U.S. sentiment is sky-high. Fred, the gung-ho advance man for the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet, has just arrived in Barcelona, showing up unannounced at the apartment of his less-than-thrilled cousin Ted, a sales…
Whether they were written by one person or many, by lord or commoner, there remains one undeniable truth about the plays attributed to William Shakespeare: They attain the highest possible goals of playwriting. No other author has produced a body of work so consistently excellent, so relevant, so poignant, so…
I wondered where Tom Clancy, the inexplicably popular flag-waving hack author of The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games, was going to turn for source material now that the Cold War has ended. As Gomer Pyle, a U.S. Marine with an understanding of the complexities of international politics about…
The Lone Rangers, a struggling L.A. rock and roll power trio, can’t even come up with a name that makes sense; as several characters in the film Airheads point out, you can’t be a lone ranger if there’s more than one of you. But, like most unsigned bands, they believe…
Regular readers of this column may have noticed I’ve been writing more about ideas and trends lately than reviewing specific plays. There’s a simple reason for this. Unlike the past two South Florida “off-season” seasons (which were packed with new and unusual work), this year’s torrid temperatures seem to have…
I’m guessing I’m not the only Floridian who’s ever played the “What would I do if I won Lotto?” game. You know the drill: It’s Saturday night. 10:55 p.m. In two minutes the six numbered Ping-Pong balls that will change your life forever will be drawn. You sit in front…
Trivia question: What do eight of the twelve top-grossing films of all time have in common? Answer: Special effects by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the production studio founded by George Lucas in 1975. In less than two decades ILM has garnered thirteen Academy Awards for its handiwork. E.T.: The…
When a theater production is truly disappointing, it usually falls into one of two categories: either the show is so tedious you can’t help nodding off at regular intervals, or it’s like a traffic accident, compelling you to stare at it with gruesome fascination while calculating the extent of the…
Here is what I look for in a thriller: a plot that turns on logic, not one that defies it. Characters whose behavior arises from believable motivations and whose actions do not feel arbitrary. Good guys who are not invulnerable, and bad guys who shoot accurately. An opening that grabs…
Good morning, class. Today we’ll be studying the laws of probability. Let’s begin our lesson with a word problem that will help you understand the basic concept. Pretend we’re making a movie. We want to calculate the likelihood that our movie will be a dog. Here’s our picture’s premise: A…
Anyone considering playwriting as a hobby or profession should tread with extra care these days. In addition to knowing how to build a story through constant dramatic action, witty dialogue, and realistic but creative characterizations, the potential author must put his or her finger to the wind and discover which…
In Poland they have a saying that has become particularly popular in the wake of communism’s fall: “Everyone wants to be more equal than everyone else.” White is the second installment in masterful Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s film trilogy based on the trinity of precepts that guided the French Revolution…
When a person won’t do something, the easiest excuse to make is that the particular thing in question can’t be done. A masterpiece can’t be painted on the ceiling of a church. A boy can’t play piano brilliantly at the age of four. No one person could have written all…
It’s a pretty widespread practice in professional sports to retire the number of a player who has excelled at a given position. Hollywood ought to try something along the same lines. Oh sure, they’ve got the sidewalk stars along Hollywood Boulevard and the hand- and footprints in front of Mann’s…
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. And sometimes they’re so simple that you wonder why no one thought of them before. For example: Miami has been extremely receptive to quality Spanish-language cinema over the past few years. This should come as no surprise; it’s no secret that many…
Recently, I watched a melodramatic but compelling TV movie called And Then There Was One. It featured an excellent performance by Amy Madigan as a young woman who falls in love, gets married, and has a child without knowing that she’s carrying the AIDS virus. She endures the death of…
“You have the most amazing weather here,” she says. “A minute ago it was raining. Now it’s clear.” More blinding than clear, actually. The sun is bouncing diamonds of light off the hood of my powder-blue Mustang. We’ve got the windows open. Radio blaring. Can’t put the top down, though…
Andrew Birkin’s The Cement Garden is not an easy film in any sense of the word. The cinematic treatment of Ian McEwan’s acclaimed but downbeat novel was not the kind of project Hollywood moneymen clamor for (it took the better part of a decade and an agreement to direct an…
Blown Away starts out auspiciously enough. As the credits roll and the ethereal, melancholy music moans, the camera skips over a rough sea. Murky green waves fill the screen. The water looks cold and deep. The mood is hypnotic, foreboding. Every now and again you hear a muffled roar off…
Americans are obsessed with mobility. Traveling from point A to point B, whether those destinations are geographical, spiritual, financial, or whatever, governs our lives. Success simply means getting where you want to go. And we’re all going somewhere, whether we realize it or not. We are bodies in motion trying…
After one year of operation, the Theatre League of South Florida can boast a profit of $407.60. If that figure doesn’t seem too impressive, especially when compared with other local projects such as Blockbuster Park, consider the following: 1. The organization runs on a purely volunteer basis, and started without…
I know, I know. The easiest and most PC thing to do here is to label Rose Troche’s lesbian love story Go Fish a delightful crossover film that will appeal to gay and straight audiences alike and be done with it. The film is, after all, sassy and salty and…
