Fans of the last two Miramax films from Swedish director Lasse Hallström — Chocolat and The Shipping News — may be happy to know that he has stuck to the exact same formula for his latest, An Unfinished Life. Like its predecessors, this is the tale of an itinerant single…
Once you get past its negligible plot, scant dialogue, and almost zero action, Gus Van Sant’s elliptical rendering of the final hours in the troubled life of a grunge musician is rarely boring. That may seem like a backhanded compliment, but given the absence of such customary cinematic conventions as…
The Man isn’t so much a movie as a parody of one, the kind of thing people in movies about the movie business pitch as outrageous, inept ideas when a director’s for the cheap and quick giggle. Only in movies like The Player or Bowfinger or Christopher Guest’s The Big…
The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which is based on a true story the same way Harry Potter and Star Wars movies are, is the latest — though certainly not the last — movie of this bloody (awful) year trying to scare the money right out of your wallet. It has…
“I always cannot understand why girls don’t wanna be with me for a long time,” says Timothy Treadwell, subject of the documentary Grizzly Man. “I have really a nice personality — I’m fun, I’m very very good in the . . . umm, well, you’re not supposed to say that…
A rich family returns to their nice home after a vacation, but something isn’t quite right. The place has been . . . burgled? No, not quite. The stereo that’s missing — it’s in the fridge. The chairs have been stacked into a tower. And there’s a note attached: “Your…
Way off the beaten path in Oakland Park is the Exhibit Space at Chromatek Imaging, a tiny room to the side of the photo lab’s service counter. This pleasantly surprising little gallery currently boasts the dramatic photography of artists Suzanne Scherer and Pavel Ouporov, a husband-and-wife collaboration that has received…
The Mosaic Theatre’s Richard Jay Simon is one of the most talented theater directors in South Florida. He’s also one of the most versatile. His emotionally detailed hostage drama, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, grabbed my attention in Mosaic’s first season, when the company was playing to audiences of three…
Even though South Beach is well-known for its annual Thanksgiving White Party, it doesn’t actually own the color white. Wait, is white a color? Regardless, nobody owns it. As such, party-promoting guru Gary Santis, known for running clubs Warsaw, Coliseum, and the Saint, has organized the first White Fort Lauderdale,…
THU 1 Stop asking head coach Nick Saban which quarterback will start when the Miami Dolphins play the Atlanta Falcons in tonight’s preseason finale. Speaking after the Fins won last Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Bucs (17-14), Saban said, “I am not going to comment on and worry about…
On August 12, Ozzy Osbourne announced that after ten years of headlining Ozzfest, the Black Sabbath front man is finally taking his day of rest. Osbourne still plans to make scattered appearances on future tours, though only in select cities. Sure, that’s big news and all, but real news came…
Can you handle the dancehall? SAT 9/3 In 1994, Spragga Benz was a short-haired, handsome, young dancehall star whose string of Jamaican hits landed him a deal with Capitol Records. He’d started out as a DJ (or “selector,” as they’re called in Jamaica), then unexpectedly became a singer (“deejay”) after…
A rock star and two eight-balls, sittin’ in a tree… FRI 9/2 When Phil Varone was a student at Coral Springs High, “I was into playing the drums and trying to get chicks,” he says. But he grew up to join Saigon Kick and Skid Row, and while on tour…
Jack Johnson stars in The Accidental Rock Star TUE 9/6 Why this dopey little, monkey-headed, acoustic-guitar-playing guy is selling gazillions of records is anybody’s guess. Is it because he’s just so damned likable, with his bare feet and his beach vibe? Or because he’s just so damned cool, having grown…
At the opening of The Constant Gardener, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of the novel by John le Carré, we hear a conversation before we see it. The screen remains black, still running credits, as a man and a woman negotiate a departure. Slowly, the scene dawns, revealing the couple…
Ain’t nothing in this world more tedious than highbrow erotica, which works itself into a lather and then wipes off the sweat before anyone notices how awfully and inappropriately worked-up it got. Asylum, adapted by Closer’s Patrick Marber and Chrysanthy Balis from a novel by Patrick McGrath, is just that…
Cineastes swooned over Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai’s 2000 film In the Mood for Love, a slow-as-molasses melodrama about two tediously formal people whose spouses are having an affair with one another. Thrown together by circumstances, they find themselves falling in love but, determined not to emulate their cheating…
Remember Nick Cannon? For a while there, he seemed to be the next big young heartthrob, right after starring in the marching-band movie Drumline and the remake of the ’80s comedy Love Don’t Cost a Thing. When Dave Chappelle joked that his son was leaving him for Nick Cannon, people…
Late summer in South Florida is hardly the most hospitable time for art. Heat, humidity, and hurricanes conspire to keep people at home or perhaps in cool, dark theaters to take in Hollywood’s latest exercise in mindless mass entertainment. So those of us with a craving for culture have to…
California native William DeBilzan’s mixed-media, abstract, expressionist pieces have gained popularity throughout the United States since the early 1990s. His visibility increased dramatically when popular primetime television shows like Frasier and Just Shoot Me featured his paintings. New River Fine Art is currently displaying its recent acquisitions of DeBilzan’s original,…
Doin’ the hustle in Hollywood THU 9/6 If reality television shows measure the temperature of the nation, then ballroom dancing may be hotter then a malaria patient in a sweater. On ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, celebrities were paired with professional dancers to train and compete, while Fox’s So You…
“I was doing a set in Vancouver and people thought my name was Edgar Five,” laughs DJ Edgar V. Dance music junkies from South Florida would never make such a rookie mistake. Mr. V (for Villamil), now 31, spun his way through the South Beach club scene before landing a…
