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…
“Everything the light touches is your kingdom,” explains reigning king of the jungle Mufasa to Simba, his eager little cub, at the beginning of Disney’s dazzling new adventure The Lion King. There are a hundred reasons to praise The Lion King, from the bracing yet familiar screenplay to the spellbinding…
Significant historical events often shape an entire generation’s psyche, and when that generation reaches maturity, the whole of society can be similarly affected. America’s Depression-era babies, for example, were nurtured in an atmosphere of guilt and whispers; they grew up embracing denial over truth, and refused to re-examine their rigid…
Everyone deserves a vacation, even artistic directors. I suspect that after producing an exceptional season of drama and musical revues at New Theatre, Rafael de Acha decided to take a break, and graciously hand over this summer’s season to John A. Werkheiser, who will be staging the next three productions…
Here’s something you don’t see every day: black artists exploiting white culture for financial gain. I suppose you could make a case that talk shows were a predominantly white domain until Oprah and Arsenio marched on Phil and Johnny, and after a couple of joints you might be able to…
While you might not guess that a hip-hop mockumentary and a musical about AIDS have a lot in common, there are several parallels between Rusty Cundieff’s Fear of a Black Hat and John Greyson’s Zero Patience. For starters, both films are the work of young, nonmainstream auteurs, each of whom…
The flacks should have a field day with a high-concept action flick like Speed. You can almost predict the blurbs before you’ve even seen the movie: It’s a rush! The thrill ride of the summer! Speed is the ticket! My heart wouldn’t stop pounding! Pedal-to-the-metal action! Speed kills! Race to…
A disproportionate number of sociopaths and sexual miscreants have found careers as rock and rollers. Sid Vicious. Wendy O. Williams. Keith Moon. Patti Smith. Barry Manilow. As sick fucks go, however, GG Allin was probably the sickest. Whether you think Allin was as demented as advertised or just another pathetic,…
If you choose this week to enter into the world created by the ninth International Hispanic Theatre Festival, you may find yourself in a landscape of altered reality, where the stakes are high, the laughs are dark, and the tragic and comedic are almost inextricably tangled. For nearly a decade…
The release of Penny Marshall’s latest film, Renaissance Man, featuring Danny DeVito and Marky Mark, raises several burning questions. Can Marshall, whose picture hits theaters barely two months after Ron Howard’s The Paper and whose acting and directing career has eerily paralleled Howard’s, outschmaltz her freckle-faced colleague’s paper-thin tabloid opus?…
