THU 8/26 According to Harland Williams’ biography, the Toronto-born comic started telling jokes as a way to cope with the passing of his father, who allegedly was killed by a dead crow that fell from the sky. The bird’s beak supposedly pierced the farmer’s skull, and he “dropped like a…
Oh, Janis. Oh, gorgeous, outrageous, soul-ripping, rockin’, bluesy momma Janis Joplin. She’s a volcano. She’s a tsunami. She’s a fearless, reckless, raging American beauty. Watch her tear open her chest to reveal her hot, pulsing wounds. Watch her rage with burning, glorious light. Watch her smile that sweet Janis smile…
You know how fear is scary? Well, director E. Elias Merhige is into that, especially in his new serial-killer thriller, Suspect Zero. Absent, however, is the dark-comic malevolence the director smartly cultivated in his successful and disquieting Shadow of the Vampire a few years ago, bullied and bulldozed out of…
Edmund Elias Merhige is an artist among hacks. Suspect Zero, the new thriller from the Brooklyn-born, L.A.-based filmmaker, employs a lot of elements of the serial-killer genre popularized throughout the 1990s, set in familiar noirish desert locales. Yet it’s compulsively watchable, featuring a meticulously shaded performance from Ben Kingsley (whom…
The Women’s Theater Project makes Eve Ensler’s Necessary Targets poignant and authentic. The audience sits on the stage, adding to the intimacy of this dramatic story about Park Avenue psychiatrist J.S. (Linda Bernhard) and an ambitious young writer, Melissa (Lela Elam), who go to Bosnia to hear the stories of…
My first visit to Art on the Edge Gallery & Design Center started inauspiciously. I got lost (my fault) and wandered around Oakland Park until I swallowed my male pride and called for directions. Sure enough, the gallery was right where one of the owners, Geri Konstantin, had indicated, a…
Remember the running Seinfeld gag about Kramer¹s dream of a pizza parlor where patrons choose the ingredients, then make their own pizzas? Kerry Szymanski had a similar dream when she opened SassyBB in Fort Lauderdale in mid-July. Well, sort of. Instead of pizza, patrons design their own purses. And instead…
“Nepotism: The Art of Friendship” — The Museum of Art (MoA) in Fort Lauderdale continues its slow, steady comeback with this small exhibition curated by Edouard Duval-CarriRisqué, the museum’s first official artist in residence. The Haitian-born artist drew on the work of two dozen other artists he knows and/or admires…
Heaven Help Us! The Swingin’ New Rat Pack Musical: This toe-tapping world premiere about God sending the Rat Pack back to Vegas to help a suicidal lounge owner is stylishly presented, with the terrific cast belting out some great tunes — some 29 hits pop up in the show, ranging…
Remember that uncle who told jokes at otherwise-boring-as-hell family functions? The one you affectionately called Uncle Funny? Well, we’re sad to say the ol’ yukster’s going to be leaving, and he’s taking his club with him. After 11 years as Broward County’s premier laugh lounge — which brought to town…
THU 19 Bartending can be stressful. Sometimes you just can’t remember whether you should mix Cointreau or Courvoisier! Jim Beam or J&B! It’s enough to make you go drown your frustrations on the other side of the bar. Chill. Tonight, during Margarita Madness, a pro mixologist will send you on…
Talking to Michael Biedzinski, you get the feeling that ending up on a stage dressed in drag — or being in charge of guys dressed in drag — is not a matter of choice. It’s a matter of destiny. Retracing his involvement with the Rough Riders gay dance team, he…
SAT 8/21 It’s Saturday night, and you want to hear the boom bap beat and lyrical gymnastics of some quality hip-hop. You could try out one of the myriad club nights downtown, but chances are, you’ll hear the same commercial dreck on the dancefloor that’s pumping out of the speakers…
FRI 8/20 It all started in the early ’80s with Bigfoot, but now there are about 300 monster trucks loudly competing at rallies across the United States. Monster trucks don’t have prissy names. They have sinew-tearing names. At the Monster Jam Summer Heat this weekend, you’ll encounter champion trucks like…
TUE 8/24 In case your grip on reality has been completely decimated by the boob tube, here’s a quick reminder: Survivor contestants are not Maroons. Morons, occasionally, yes — but not Maroons. The term refers to runaway slaves from 16th- and 17th-century Guiana and the West Indies, as well as…
FRI 8/20 Alternative arts devotees know you can’t step into the same underground river twice — nothing endures but change. With today’s real estate market being what it is, the hole you squat in today (where you moodily compose your elephant-dung masterpieces) becomes tomorrow’s loft apartments: So it goes. That…
Say hello to a pop-cinema masterpiece. This Japanese import opens with a massive thud not unlike Godzilla’s footfall, and its cinematic legacy stretches back almost as far. It’s got crafty Samurai action, hilarious bits of business, insightful observations into the human condition, and geysers of kitschy, computer-generated blood. Oh yes,…
It’s a real credit to Intimate Strangers director Patrice Leconte that even though his film features a couple of ridiculous contrivances to get the plot going, the overall film still feels true. Leconte has a gift for depicting the quirks of odd relationships; his last film, Man on the Train,…
He was called, among other things, fascinating, abrasive, wise, vain, ruthless, tenderhearted, indefatigable, and contentious. His wife once commented: “How glad I am that I married this crazy man instead of some dull son of a bitch.” Such was the impact of Dalton Trumbo, the famed screenwriter and raconteur whose…
American Buffalo by David Mamet employs his usual staccato interchanges and scatological flair; but in this production by TheaterWest, the acting sometimes weakens the desired effect, not allowing the audience to grasp the sense of the script, let alone laugh at the humor. The play is performed la theater in…
Owners Aaron and Monica Maxwell of Harmony Isle Gallery must be doing something right: Seven years after they opened their little shop in Fort Lauderdale’s Gateway shopping district, business is still thriving. Harmony Isle is doing so well, in fact, that the couple just opened a second location, Harmony Ridge,…
In the Heart of America: An ambitious critique of America as the Great Imperialist Satan, the play tracks two gay G.I.s stationed in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War of 1990 and also has to do with the ghost of a Vietnamese woman chasing the soul of Lt. William Calley,…
