The ancient Egyptians believed that death could be overcome, but their afterlife was no cakewalk — it demanded rigorous preparation. The Egyptians held that the ka, a spiritual essence, required food and sustenance after death. And that was just the ka essence — the ba and kha essences had their…
The Miami International Film Festival’s second week features a bevy of fantastic films to soothe the indie-film-loving beast inside us all. Thursday’s films include Germany’s Young Goethe in Love, a Shakespeare in Love-style historical romp about Germany’s great poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe and his perilous and tragic tale of love…
In a wintry woodland in an unspecified time long, long ago, teen beauty Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is arranged to marry brooding, hunky, rich dude Henry (Max Irons), but is plotting to run away with brooding, hunky peasant Peter (Shiloh Fernandez). Then — bummer! — Valerie’s sister is eaten by the…
The shaky-cam is coming, the shaky-cam is coming! Jonathan Liebesman directs his alien-invasion saga Battle: Los Angeles as if he were having a violent seizure, wedding whiplash faux-war-documentary aesthetics to a Michael Bay cocktail of ooh-rah military romanticism, quick-stroke melodrama, and seesawing CG mayhem. Called into duty after news reports…
Like The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol before it, the characters in Mars Needs Moms boast the waxy complexions, unreal movements, and dead eyes of mannequins come to surreal, energetic life. With an unsettling Joan Cusack facial reproduction lending the proceedings a predictably creepy Madame Tussauds vibe, Mars…
Robert Loggia gives a charming performance as Siv Monopoli, patriarch of a squabbling Italian family somewhere in New England. It’s unfortunate that Harvest, written and directed by Marc Meyers, concerns Siv’s decline and death, so that scenes of the old man happily riding his bike through town and amazing everyone…
Fifty years after Kim Ki-young’s postwar hothouse original, Im Sang-soo attempts a sleek, breathless update to the tale of a household riven by a sexy domestic. This time around, instead of a family-man music teacher getting ensnared, a bored, feckless maid (Jeon Do-yeon) is seduced by a rich scion and…
More accurately titled Vidal Sassoon: The Slavering Advertorial, Craig Teper’s obsequious documentary on the stylist who popularized geometric haircuts in the ’60s is in desperate need of shaping and trimming itself. Organized, sort of, around executive producer and Bumble and Bumble founder Michael Gordon’s assembly of a coffee-table book on…
Mikey, Manny, and Angel Jr. are three private-school buddies. Three months before graduation, they are living the fast life of sex, drugs, and hip-hop in Miami. The story is narrated by Mikey, who is a top baseball prospect torn between living clean and joining his friends in the fast lane…
In 1772, we find the young German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe flunking out of law school and getting drunk with his friends. He’s a free spirit trapped in a stringent world where class is everything. All Goethe wants to do is write poems and get them published. But his stern…
At first glance, the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens is among the films you would have least expected to be adapted into a Broadway musical, up there with My Dinner With Andre and Nanook of the North. It’s a nonnarrative account of the bizarre reflections, philosophies, and battles of former debutantes…
True born-and-raised Floridians probably remember Circus Playhouse in Hollywood. Long gone now, it was a progenitor of the ubiquitous Chuck E. Cheese but so much better. Lionel the Lion played ringmaster to a cast of animatronic animal friends. Nothing like watching an enormous gray hippo in her tiny pink tutu…
The Washington Generals is the team that always loses to the Harlem Globetrotters. Somehow, players run around the court chasing Globetrotters with their heads down and serious looks on their faces — well, if it doesn’t quite look believable, it’s still entertaining. Despite a 13,000-game losing streak (they last beat…
When it comes to snacking, the Japanese have transformed that lost, stoner art into a science. Think about it: What other culture has such a creative, spontaneous, deranged, wacky, and random view of the snacking world? Those Wonka-like wizards across the Pacific have birthed treats such as Pocky, Japan’s most…
Because the featured work is interesting and well-constructed, the Kreepy Kraft Fair this Sunday will function like a particularly social gallery space. Brought to you by Kreepy Kittens, Kreepy Tiki Tattoo, Radio-Active Records, and Fresh Beer — South Florida’s own microbrew source — the selection is huge, with nearly 40…
Enter the cold, medical facility of Sky Nightclub for the night Saturday. Many white vinyl suits will pass you. There will be nurses and doctors, medical practitioners and dentists. At a medical fetish soiree, want to get shitfaced? You could make an appointment. Take some shots. Get a medical exam…
It’s not easy being Irish in South Florida — the sun is not our friend. But there’s one day a year when the palest among us can come blinking into the light, when we can wear our freckles proudly. It’s the one day when everyone wants to be Irish. And,…
Don’t let the lack of sweat and bulging muscles fool you; poetry slams are a linguistic sport. Here, verbal athletes are judged by members of the audience in a battle of wits, syntax, performance — and ultimately passion, not only in themselves but also in what they inspire. Makes you…
Some artwork was so racy, the pieces had to be covered up for the family who resided inside this artist-run collective space. It’s either that or explaining eroticisms to a 5-year-old. But Friday, for the closing reception of “Red Light,” everything will be back to normal and fully exposed: Nude…
Christopher Buckley is the spawn of an endangered species: the principled, polysyllabic right-winger. His famous father, William F. Buckley Jr., was a crusading and sesquipedalian conservative thinker, founding the National Review and hosting more than 1,400 episodes of the public-affairs series Firing Line. Christopher isn’t as politically polarizing as his…
As the clock nears quittin’ time, some begin to crave the comfort of their La-Z-Boy, while others start salivating for a cocktail to enjoy. And we mean really enjoy, like being able to throw back a glassful of liquor without the burden of the next day’s eight hours of work…
In the little wee corner, Were a tiny wee man, Wid a little wee smoke, Past the camera he ran. Has it been awhile since you’re spied your last Leprechaun? Better get thee to Ireland fast or else drink more beer. As this Thursday is St. Patrick’s Day, you’ll have…
