Flash back to 1999. George Lucas steps back into the director’s chair after two decades of absence and produces the critically derided Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Though its visuals are praised, many writers note the stilted acting and suggest that Lucas’s extensive use of bluescreens rather than…
When My Big Fat Greek Wedding scored a surprise hit for comedienne Nia Vardalos, the former Second City star may have figured any old second act would do — even a penny-dreadful rip-off of one of Hollywood’s most beloved classics. Not so. A flop at the box office, lambasted by…
Dear Spike Lee: The opening words of Do the Right Thing, your 1989 breakout film, were these: “Wake up!” You wanted the world to awaken to the deep and painful rifts in American race relations — between black and white, brown and white, black and brown, the whole enchilada. You…
It’s easy to bash the big-budget blow-’em-up epics that Hollywood wants audiences to like, but harder, as a critic, to go against the tide of movies deemed Important Artistic Triumphs. I’ve always been a contrarian, though, so with due apologies to my critical colleagues, here are the movies you’re wrong…
On the evening before his arrest last week on charges he received $135,000 in bribes from contractors doing business with the City of Miami, suspended commissioner Arthur Teele claimed he was basically clueless about the investigation. But foreshadowing a theme he may echo once his trial begins, he said he…
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz is considering the idea of changing the city charter to a strong-mayor form of government, which would essentially combine the roles of mayor and city manager, giving the unified office more power. The local example is Hialeah, although proponents of this arrangement prefer to point to…
“Dear executive committee members, I stand before you now not as a fellow elected member, but as a daughter. I ask you to help me save my father, Xavier Suarez, and my entire family. We have to get him a hobby, preferably one with a title and a budget, before…
Since taking office as our new county mayor on November 16, Carlos Alvarez has played principal for a day at two elementary schools, addressed an assembly of high school students, and attended the opening of a Burger King with Magic Johnson. For a tough-talking former police chief who now heads…
NE Second Avenue is Biscayne Boulevard’s back door. The gritty street snakes quietly through Miami alongside the main thoroughfare, occasionally catching spillover from Biscayne’s midnight parade of low-rent hookers and penny-ante drug dealers. But the street has a split personality: From 20th to 54th streets at noon on any given…
Walkiria Ramos is frustrated about not being able to send her seven-year-old blind and autistic son to class at Edison Park Elementary School in Miami. Ramos claims that since December 1 public school officials have been slow to provide the special care second-grader Joel Rodriguez requires in order to function…
From afar, the folks who make up the Miami-Dade County Commission appear to organize themselves along the lines of a high-school student body. There’s Joe Martinez the jock; Katy Sorenson the “A” student, raising her hand to answer every question; Dennis Moss the earnest student government geek. And then there’s…
At a strip-mall Starbucks near Miami International Airport, a government employee sits sipping a pumpkin spice latte and nervously shuffling through a sheaf of papers. “There’s a lot going on that I think you should know about,” says the employee, who works for the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA). By…
Not long ago a red-white-and-blue flyer appeared on the bulletin board in my work area at Miami International Airport. I’m a baggage screener for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). No doubt the flyer was posted to boost our morale, which desperately needs boosting, or maybe just to reinforce our self-righteousness,…
This past August, during the Republican primary for Miami-Dade State Attorney, the Christian Family Coalition asked candidates to sign a form pledging that, if elected, they would use their powers as public officials to oppose gay marriage and support a religious agenda. “Running for a quasi-judicial office, I did not…
For Barry Rush, the energetic CEO of Metro Lights, the trouble starts when you call his billboards “signs.” “They’re not signs,” he insists, referring to the eight vast non-signs his firm has draped on the sides of various buildings in downtown Miami. They’re “wallscapes” or “murals,” he explains, sipping spring…
The weeks leading up to November’s presidential election saw Miami-Dade County swell with an unending inflow of lawyers from both parties, election observers, human rights-watchers, and activists of all sorts. Locals got in on the excitement as well, working to get out the vote on behalf of their candidates. The…
Miami-Dade public school teachers have been contemplating who should lead their union, the United Teachers of Dade. The choice came down to former UTD secretary-treasurer Shirley Johnson or English teacher Karen Aronowitz and their affiliated slates. Voting ended December 9. In the vacuum left after embezzling padrón Pat Tornillo went…
It takes a lot to make some people in North Bay Village hide their faces and hang their heads in shame. Consider the recent sightings of former Police Chief Irving Heller at city hall. Earlier this year, Heller resigned when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement began investigating allegations that…
“See, this business is filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfuckers — motherfuckers who thought they ass would age like wine.” — Marsellus Wallace, Pulp Fiction Two boxers in full protective gear meet at center ring inside a cavernous warehouse transformed into a boxing gym. They tap each other’s gloves…
The weeks leading up to November’s presidential election saw Miami-Dade County swell with an unending inflow of lawyers from both parties, election observers, human rights-watchers, and activists of all sorts. Locals got in on the excitement as well, working to get out the vote on behalf of their candidates. The…
The similarities to an actual divorce are remarkable: The bitter fights. The name calling. The locked doors. You got the sense they were staying together simply for appearances. And in the end I think we can all agree splitting up is for the best. I am referring, of course, to…
The race for mayor of Miami-Dade County is over. And none too soon. We’re done with million-dollar ad campaigns trying to convince us that our savior would emerge on election day. We won’t have to watch any more caustic debates or listen to partisan speeches about who will lead us…
