Dirty Dancing: Cheating on Your Television Set

The hit TV show So You Think You Can Dance is the reason TV-watching America has fallen back in love with dancing. But that love is more like a threesome: between the viewer and the dancer is the television set. Sometimes it’s best to cut out the box, so leave…

Buzzed on Canvas

Some artwork is best viewed in a gallery, with a buffer of velvet rope providing a more analytical perspective. Other pieces — like the sort hanging at Undergrounds Coffeehaus — require plush seating, conversation, and loads of caffeine to properly distill. The bohemian coffee dive will have those things in…

Tragedy Versus Massacre: It’s Anyone’s Game

It seems the only time boxing is in the news lately is when a near legend is murdered/commits suicide or something awful befalls Mike Tyson. Rather than dwelling on tragedy, focus on the sheer face pummeling going down tonight at 7 at Hard Rock Live’s Friday Night Fights. The card…

Get Your Swagga On

Swagga Nights, going down on the last Friday of every month at Pulp Live, is the newest place for aspiring artists of all genres to meet up and showcase their talents. Whether it’s jazz, rock, rhythm and blues, or reggae, Swagga Nights reps it, even finding stage time to showcase…

The Big Finish

Nothing lasts forever. But for those who keep tabs on South Florida’s artistic pulse, it stings a little more when cool local happenings that have maintained some longevity come to an end. Happy Endings, the art event associated with “Wet Paint” and held at Kyoto Sushi Sake Lounge the last…

Vive La French Cinema

Frenchify your life now. The Eighth Annual French Film Festival (sponsored, of course, by Perrier) is unrolling French cinema for four days. The opening soiree at 6 p.m. on Friday packs a smorgasbord of French cuisine: coq au vin, beef bourguignon, lobster bisque, potato soufflé, and, for dessert, profiteroles. On…

Double the Dub

London’s dubstep movement has spread like a summer heat wave across the globe in recent months, moving out of East End garages and into sweaty dance clubs stateside. Here in South Florida, dubstep and grime’s shuffling bottomed out sound jibes well with our own dance phenomenon, Miami bass. And local…

Cubs’ Flubs

The Chicago Cubs are “ineffectual, overpriced, and ultimately irrelevant” according to one of the latest and frankly more merciful assessments on ESPN.com. That’s almost the opposite of the effectual, underpriced, and, well, marginally relevant Marlins. That’s not to say the Cubs are appreciably worse than the Marlins — the Cubs…

An Ocean of Art

Paintings of sunsets are often a way to make a quick buck off out-of-state tourists looking to take a “piece of Florida” back home with them. Of course, there are plenty of artists who simply love Florida’s marine life and are mindful of the possibility that what they’re capturing on…

War of the Wordsmiths

If you stumble toward Delray’s Dada on the first Tuesday night of the month, you may notice a few people shouting. No, they’re not complaining about the price of the cocktails (can we?). The hipster bar is home to Delray’s slam group, the Poets Anonymous, a collective of artists who…

Gambling So Good

People who gamble with their lives (think Evel Knievel, rest his soul) don’t need to hit the black jack table. But those of us who do can up our ante — and not by putting our car on the chopping block. By gambling, we could help a little girl keep…

Isn’t It Swell?

The Bahamas are the bane of South Florida surfers. The islands cut off incoming swells from the Atlantic, so short of a hurricane, surfers in South Florida are stuck with Typhoon Lagoon. Or they live vicariously through surf flicks like Drive Thru Australia Part 2, an independent surf film being…

Eat, Drink, and Live Happily Ever After

Tony n’ Tina’s wedding is one you can’t crash. It’s a theatrical production that you pay to be a part of. And who doesn’t like weddings? Sure, your parents try to set you up. Or you have to wear an atrocious Bridesmaid dress because, well, the bride wants you to…

Stitching Star Wars

You love Star Wars. You even have some dolls…err…toys…err…action figures. (Though your lightsaber counts as a toy). But you’ve never actually made anything representing your devotion to the sci-fi series. Stitchbird, the monthly DIY crafting workshop, is holding a Star Wars-inspired workshop in honor of its current Stitch Wars exhibit,…

May the Q be with U

In it’s first attempt to start a game night, Undergrounds Coffeehaus will hold a scrabble tournament Friday. Conventional wisdom tells us wordsmiths have a natural advantage, but it’s not true. Musicians and mathematicians actually excel most at Scrabble (it has something to do with looking at words as codes and…

Blues Versus Sacre Bleu

What is Montreal’s impact? Mostly banana-hammock bathing suits, “Je me souviens” license plates clogging the fast lanes in February, and the band Of Montreal, whom no one over 26 has ever listened to. Also, a smaller version of the bagel and some of the best strip clubs in the world…

A Combo Supreme

Jazz combos helmed by a bass player have a solid track record: Charles Mingus, Charlie Haden, Dave Holland, and, if electric is your thing, Stanley Clarke. Maybe one day, 27-year-old local Diogo Brown will be added to that list. He plays the electric bass and runs an outfit that fuses…

The Cat Comes out of the Bag

Since debuting the Wildcat formation last September in a defining win against the Patriots, Tony Sparano and company have been guarding the recipe like Fort Knox gold. What new wrinkles will it have this season? True Dol-fans will have a chance to find out when Miami Dolphins Training Camp opens…

Escape from Porncatraz

Remember when there was an understanding that if an actor’s career crossed the hills into the San Fernando Valley, she was done as a serious actress? My, how things have changed. Sasha Grey, the 21-year-old porn star who calls herself a “sexual athlete,” has made the opposite leap — out…

Singles Event

South Florida R&B musician Casely will perform his new single tonight at La Playa. Born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, he moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music on a music scholarship. If that’s not enough to vouch for his talent, he’s been featured frequently on TV from…

Man to Man

Lynn Shelton’s Humpday, a sexual sitcom, opens with a pair of breeders in bed. A youngish married couple, Ben (mumblecordeon Mark Duplass) and Anna (Alycia Delmore), confess that they’re too tired to procreate that night and then confess their mutual relief. As if in response, the doorbell rings at 2…

Set to Explode

Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker is a full-throttle body shock of a movie. It gets inside you like a virus, puts your nerves in a blender, and twists your guts into a Gordian knot. Set during the last month in the yearlong rotation of a three-man U.S…