Best New Cinema Innovation 1999 | Automated box offices | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami | Miami New Times
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Best New Cinema Innovation

Automated box offices

AMC likes to boast that it is changing the way South Florida sees movies. This might just be true if the amount of time spent waiting in line for tickets could be dramatically reduced. Now comes AMC's automated box office machines at Aventura and Sunset Place. Could long box-office lines be a thing of the past? Take your credit card, slide it in, select a movie and time, grab the tickets, and run. Next stop: the concession stand. Is there something wrong with this picture? We hope not.

Best Party Of The Year

Halloween on Lincoln Road

In this town where a party is something that takes place in a nightclub, organized by a professional event planner, the spontaneous spook show on Lincoln Road is wonderfully refreshing. Drawn by little more than the fact that the pedestrian walkway is an ace spot to see and be seen, the crowds gather. Women strut in full Brazilian carnival regalia, a harness of feathers spreading over the entire width of the sidewalk. Men in Louis XV period costumes -- powdered wigs, lace cuffs, and all -- bow gracefully. Tourists gawk. No one organizes this. There is no guest list or velvet rope. You won't be asked to pay for the privilege of observing. This is an egalitarian pleasure. And the feeling of brotherhood spreads quickly. With so many conversation-starters ("Where on earth did you get that sequined codpiece?"), talk among strangers is easy. Next thing you know, rounds of drinks are bought. But alas, we fear these may be the waning days. The new multiplex and the intrusion of chain stores may make the Road less hospitable to the creative spirits who gather here on All Hallow's Eve.

Best Artist To Leave Miami

Kenny Scharf

He came, he saw, he didn't exactly conquer. So the pop artist is picking up and making a new start of it in Los Angeles, his hometown. The 40-year-old painter, who gained fame in New York in the Eighties, and his wife Tereza, a yoga teacher, are planning to relocate this summer with their two teenage daughters. Scharf to the Herald: "I get press, press, press, but as far as people down here buying artwork, it didn't happen." Reminders of his six-year stint here include a colorful rocket ship lifeguard station on South Beach; one-eyed mannequins in the windows of Burdines; Absolut vodka billboards scattered around town; and gobs of kitschy T-shirts, pens, backpacks, and lighters on sale in the gift shop of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami.

Best Ten-Round Fight For Women's Rights

Roxcy Bolton

Did you hear the one about the genteel Southern woman who kicked some old-boy-network butt? Roxcy Bolton has been delivering punch lines like this for decades. Her intrepid spirit and quick thinking have brought about momentous changes in the arena of women's rights in Miami. Some women work to break the glass ceiling, the systemic barriers women face in rising to traditionally male positions of power and prestige. Roxcy Bolton, true to her agricultural upbringing, was busy breaking ground, the hard, untended ground of feminism in South Florida in the late Sixties, making strides for women's basic human rights over the years by advocating, among many other things, a rape treatment center, the Equal Rights Amendment, and the right of women to nurse their babies in public. In 1996, 30 years after becoming the first Floridian to join the National Organization for Women, Bolton was inducted into Miami's Centennial Hall of Fame. Her latest groundbreaking event? The opening of the Women's Park History Gallery on March 7, 1999 (for International Women's Day). The Women's Park at West Flagler and 103rd Court, which Bolton founded, is the first of its kind in the nation. After suffering a stroke and a heart attack this past year, the 72-year-old Bolton is finally giving herself a well-deserved rest. But you can bet she'll be on the frontlines should a war between the sexes break out.

Best Ventriloquist

Chris Korge

Lobbyist Chris Korge is a master ventriloquist. Just look at his most recent performance before the Miami-Dade County Commission. One of Korge's clients, BellSouth, wanted to sneak through an extension to their lucrative pay-telephone contract with the county. So Korge tapped one of his favorite dummies, Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, to make the motion. While watching Barreiro "speak" in favor of the extension, most people in the audience could barely see Korge's lips moving. Ultimately the maneuver failed, but we understand Korge is undeterred. He's working on a new act. This time he's going to drink a glass of water while making Barreiro "talk." Good luck, Chris. It won't be long before Vegas beckons you and your little buddy to open for Wayne Newton.

Best Weathercaster

Bryan Norcross

Well, hello, Bryan. It's so nice to have you back where you truly belong. No more awful anchor duties for you. You're a 100 percent pure, honest-to-goodness, full-time weatherman again. For the life of us, we can't imagine why you would have wanted to be an anchor and read all those dreadful stories about planes crashes and wars and missing children and hijacked monkeys and all the other weirdness in the world. Sure, it may have seemed like a step down to return to weather only, but don't forget this: With your voice and face, you're lucky to be on television at all. But much more important, Bryan, you are a born weatherman. Somehow you belong next to the eerie glow of that "real time" radar screen, tracking thunderstorms and lightning strikes, and reassuring us that the really nasty stuff is way down there somewhere, far, far away. We can relax. And we thank you.

Best Lost Treasure

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

On May 14, 1998 the environmental conscience of South Florida passed from the scene. Marjory Stoneman Douglas died five weeks after her 108th birthday. Although she wrote eight books (including an autobiography) during her long life, it was her 1947 classic, The Everglades: River of Grass, that helped elevate her from writer to icon. Douglas is rightly compared with Rachel Carson, another environmental visionary whose 1962 exposé, Silent Spring, alerted the public to ecological folly. Douglas's tenacity, eloquence, passion, and yes, longevity, gave the Everglades a champion of unique authority. Those who contemplate an eight-billion-dollar Everglades restoration project would do well to heed her insistence that the area is best helped by removing canals and levees, not by constructing more of them. Despite blindness in her later years, the Coconut Grove matron never lost sight of one simple fact: Our own survival and that of the Everglades are inextricably bound.

Best Radio Station

97.7 FM (unlicensed)

This is the real adult-contemporary format: DJs play everything from Motown to hip-hop, with no annoying commercials. Ads are rare on 97.7, though every once in a while an MC will plug a gig of his own or one of his buddies. But every business has bills to pay, right? This station is also interactive and community-oriented. Especially amusing are the rides: With a lively music bed, a DJ will ask a caller rapid-fire questions and the caller will respond. Example: "Will you give me money?"/"Yes I will, yes I will"/"How much will you give me?"/"Twenty dollars, twenty dollars." During high school football season, callers bring their team pride to the air for all to hear. We're not sure who is running the show after the FCC raided the Liberty City studios in July 1998 and carted away 97.7's two 1000-watt transmitters. But good ideas are like mushrooms that pop up overnight, and within a few weeks of the raid, the station was again on the air. When we get tired of the golden oldies and maudlin slow-dance-tune segments, we surf over to 89.1 FM (unlicensed) for a more raw and less eclectic hip-hop format, but the signal's a little weak.

Best Ballpark

Mark Light Stadium

This ballyard on the campus of the University of Miami is everything good about going to a baseball game, you think as you lean forward on your concrete bench along the first-base side of home. Especially on a late winter day like today, with enough clouds to offer shade yet not threaten rain, and the wind blowing briskly out to left. The visiting pitcher misses with a 1-0 breaking ball. "Baaaallll two!" the hard-core 'Canes fans hoot directly behind home plate. Yes, sir, you think. Despite the clink of aluminum bats, the brand of baseball played here, and the cozy, welcoming atmosphere of the 4500-seat stadium, can easily transport you back to a simpler era in the history of the Great American Pastime. The snack vendor begins his circuit, barking out his wares at a volume more appropriate to Pro Player Stadium. "Peanuts, popcorn, soda, Gatorade ..." A pause for dramatic effect, then: "SUURRRGE!" Some smiling 'Canesters know the routine and join the vendor in his call. A hard drive to right scores a run for the home team, and sets the fans to hollering. You can hear every one of them individually. The slap of high-fives at the plate is palpable. The sun starts angling down in the late innings. The bullpens are working. Maybe you'll have some peanuts.

Best Car Wash

Supershine

Wasn't it Nietzsche who posed this existential conundrum: "Why wash it? It'll just get dirty again." If this is your philosophy, chances are you're not too keen on paying someone to polish your clunker. But even a die-hard nihilist could be swayed by the talents of the Supershine crew. For $10.95 they'll perform the automotive equivalent of a baptism. It begins with the hand wash. Then the vacuuming and wiping down of the interior, where they attend to nooks and crannies you haven't even managed to get crumbs in yet. Then on to the detailing, where they make your whitewalls gleam with a liquid silicone concoction. By the time they've towel-dried the exterior, you won't recognize your wheels. "You sure clean up good," you'll say. Of course they offer a cheaper outside-only job, and all manner of more deluxe wash and wax services, one of which includes (and we quote) "bug removal." Though the basic in-and-out is the best deal, you might be tempted to pay the extra three bucks just to see how bug removal works. For example, what if you pay for bug removal and don't have any bugs? Or worse -- you don't pay for it and you do have bugs? Do they intentionally ignore the bugs stuck to your car? Work around them? Anyway they're open seven days, they have a clean, cool office with a good selection of magazines and local papers, TV, and free coffee. In half an hour (longer if you hit a line) you're on your way, marveling over your sparkling vehicle.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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