The FIU Miami Film Festival unfolds this week at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts amid a novel dose of controversy. The subject of contention? Surprise, surprise — Cuban-exile politics. In a nutshell: Kids in Exile, a local filmmaking trio composed of Joe Cardona, Mario de Varona, and Michelle…
Last week the Florida Marlins organization rented a conference room at the Biscayne Bay Marriott Hotel and played host to an exclusive group of guests. As usual with such weekday functions (this one began February 3 at 1:00 p.m.), scheduling conflicts prevented some people from attending, but if everyone the…
Captains Outrageous The ugly truth behind Carnival’s glamorous billion-dollar cruise business By Kirk Nielsen, Tristram Korten, and Ted B. Kissell Carnival: Same Old Same OldThe “Captains Outrageous” articles by Kirk Nielsen, Tristram Korten, Ted B. Kissell, and Jim DeFede (February 3) were well done, but as usual nothing will be…
A New York City journalist in town to do his own now-requisite take on the Chris Paciello story remained unfazed by the case’s lurid allegations of Mafia racketeering, armed robbery, drug dealing double-crosses, and murder. No, what really shocked this seasoned writer was discovering firsthand that Paciello’s famed Liquid and…
Take Me Out to the … Parking Lot?Open spaces: check. Sewer runoff: check. Locked gate: check. Yep, this is indeed a Miami park!By Jacob Bernstein Going Once, Going Twice, Sold!Ginger Raspiller via the InternetJacob Bernstein’s article about Miami’s parks and open spaces was unbelievable (“Take Me Out to the …..
A few years ago I wrote a series of articles titled “Micky Arison Is a Greedy Corporate Pig” that decried Arison’s efforts to force the county to build a new waterfront arena for his basketball team, the Miami Heat. The headline was a takeoff on the best-selling book by comedian…
A Family Portrait,Meet Luis and José Cid, Elian Gonzalez’s Miami cousins, just a couple of good old-fashioned American criminalsBy Jim DeFede, Robert Andrew Powell, and Lissette Corsa, January 20, 2000 Elian: Crime-Free and Proud of It Paul E. Czekanski Miami In reference to “A Family Portrait” (January 20) by Jim…
“Of all the bands to come from Miami and end up on a movie soundtrack, you wouldn’t promptly think of us,” scoffs Tom Smith. Placing tongue firmly in cheek, he adds, “But talent rises to the top, babe!” Indeed. Smith and his current outfit, To Live and Shave in L.A.,…
Both on-site police and concertgoers agreed the strongest similarity between the original Woodstock and Phish’s 80,000-strong New Year’s Eve shindig was neither the music nor the mellow, retro-hippie visuals. It was the traffic. In an eerie replay of Woodstock’s opening scene of cars simply abandoned along the roadside, on Wednesday,…
These are heady days for the Diaz de la Portilla clan. Renier, youngest of the three brothers, is on the verge of winning a seat in the Florida legislature, resurrecting a political career that only two years ago seemed all but dead after a brief but tumultuous stint on the…
Forget boy bands, Woodstock violence, or the “Latin” craze. If you’re looking for an overarching theme throughout last year’s pop music, just one word comes to mind: bass. It was all about bass. Moment of clarity number one: Midsummer. Sitting in the back of a car with Miami’s flagship experimentalist…
Y2K DISASTER STRIKES MIAMI Thousands Feared Dead in Millennium Mishap By Thomas Mayrose Washington Post Staff Writer January 2, 2000 MIAMI — In the most tragic event of the new millennium, more than 2500 people were killed when an American Airlines jumbo jet crashed into a Miami concert arena during…
I could hear my voice rising, my tone turning more aggressive, even hostile. I was talking to one of the Miami attorneys for young Elian Gonzalez. She was asserting that no loving father would want his son to grow up in Cuba, and so the pleas from Elian’s father for…
Rock en español largely remains a promise, an unfulfilled aesthetic vision of Latin-American musicians merging their native grooves with rock and roll, fashioning something altogether new in the process. On paper — and in the breathless cheerleading of many local critics — it sounds great. The reality, however, is a…
This past Saturday the Urban Environment League of Greater Miami fired the first salvo in what promises to be a momentous battle over the future of downtown’s Bicentennial Park. Will the forlorn park be rescued and serve as a catalyst for visionary plans to preserve and enhance Miami’s squandered treasure…
For the past three weeks Armando Gutierrez has been a frenetic blur of activity. He carries not one but two cell phones, on which he often juggles multiple conversations, his head bobbing back and forth between portables like a metronome. One minute he’s asking a local lawyer to help him…
An all-too-rare sound filled the intimately lit space inside Timba the Monday before last, as saxophonist David Liebman and percussionist Abbey Radar reached down deep inside themselves and pulled forth some truly beautiful moments. It wasn’t always easy listening, as Liebman’s body appeared to zig (often at an angle that…
That cold snap blowing through Miami last week had less to do with Mother Nature than with the specter of José Garcia-Pedrosa returning to his old fiefdom as Miami Beach’s City Manager. Thankfully Beach law-enforcement figures (quietly aided by local arts advocates) were able to intercede and convince the Miami…
his week I wanted to praise the City of North Miami and its police department for firing Det. Fred St. Amand. Instead I find myself once again wondering if anyone in that city — the mayor, the city manager, the police chief, the city attorney — understands the difference between…
“Let me ask you something,” the man on the other end of the telephone line says. “Where are the commission-sponsored initiatives? Where are the ordinances and resolutions designed to make this a better place to live? There aren’t any anymore. They don’t have any. They’ve run out of ideas.” The…
You can take your pick of the many neo-fin-de-siècle gigs vying for millennium-worthy status, from the dueling downtown saccharine fests of Puff Daddy and Gloria Estefan to the chirpy dance blowouts at the Ice Palace and Miami Beach’s Convention Center, each promising uniqueness, each featuring many of the same oh-so-tired…
“Imagine rock music as a beached whale’s carcass,” suggests pop critic Simon Reynolds. “What seems like intense activity is really necrotic vitality — a maggot horde of bands living off the rotting flesh of a moribund culture. In their teeming tediousness, rock books exist on an even lower plane, microbial…
