It’s hard to believe they were originally going to release Basic before bombs started falling over Baghdad; if it isn’t the worst movie of 2003 so far, it’s only because Boat Trip hasn’t screened yet. Now, in the shadow of smoke rising from the rubble in Iraq, it’s even more…
The prospect of a new Chris Rock movie, especially for those who enjoy his standup, can be a scary thing. We want to like him. A movie anywhere near as funny as his HBO series and specials would be a wondrous thing to see. But every time we get our…
Many playwrights draw from their personal experiences, but Edward Albee appears to be downright obsessed. The veteran, venerable playwright returns again and again to familiar subjects: dysfunctional family dynamics and the inescapable isolation of human beings. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Tiny Alice, The Play About the Baby all seem…
March 21, 2003–though he never knew the precise date, it was the very day Nile Southern had been waiting for longer than he cared to remember. On that day, Southern went into the Chelsea Mini-Storage facility on Manhattan’s West Side, grabbed the largest dolly he could find–it looked like a…
“What’s an arboretum?” the small boy asked Zeke Landis, who was leading a group of schoolchildren through the Deerfield Beach Arboretum. “Hmmm,” murmured Landis, thinking hard and fast. “You know when a lot of different animals are all together in one place and that place is called a zoo?” The…
THU 4/10 This is big. “Mutamentum,” the eclectic exhibition of German, Italian, and American sculpture (including the works of two sculptors from Palm Beach County), jostles into the Armory Art Center’s (1703 S. Lake Ave., West Palm Beach) like a truckload of furniture. Traveling exhibitions of contemporary sculpture are rare…
Entertainer, heartbreaker, director, personality advisor, servant, poetry in motion, deer in the headlights, actress, easy prey. When filmmaker Vanessa Vassar set out to document the lives of New Mexico waitresses, these were the self-imposed job descriptions she received. Her first documentary, American Waitress, explores the power structures and misconceptions of…
Thursday, March 27 Part Shakespeare, part Penthouse letter writer, singer/guitarist Stephen Lynch takes the art of storytelling to a sexually confusing and deliciously sarcastic new level. Sick songs packaged with beautiful melodies spew forth on Lynch’s latest comedy album. Superhero tackles issues of alcoholism and gynecological health. It answers the…
Yachting and Palm Beach County enjoy a long history only hinted at by this week’s Palm Beach Boat Show. When Henry Flagler finished his visionary (some say thoroughly insane) quest to build a railroad to South Florida and turn the Town of Palm Beach into a private resort for him…
In the hit Armageddon, our planet — big mother, source of life and self — is threatened by Ben Affleck and other calamitous horrors, with the movie commanding attention through fear. The converse now arrives in The Core, wherein the mama herself goes terminally nasty on the inside due to…
In nature, living things prey upon each other all the time. Humanity, on the other hand, has a choice. It is flouting this choice that excites director Gaspar Noé. In his latest project, Irréversible, he basically swipes Christopher Nolan’s backward-narrative structure from Memento to tell a lurid tale of rape…
In a hurry? Me too, so I’ll get to the point. This is a review of Floyd Collins, an innovative musical that’s got a week or two left in its run at Actors Playhouse in Coral Gables. The story is based on a real incident in the 1920s, when a…
War, as it turns out, is good for absolutely nothing when it comes to anti-war songs. At the risk of sounding like Bill O’Reilly (who, no doubt, listens only to Wagner), it’s time to protest the protesters, most of whom are blowin’, all right, just not in the wind. The…
Not many musical acts can forge ahead after half a century together without some flashy media makeover. But after more than 60 years of testifyin,’ the Blind Boys of Alabama are still ready to spread the word. The boys met as students at the Talladega Institute for the Blind in…
Thursday, March 20 It’s about that time of year. Spring is in the air. Makes you want to get fancy and drink some wine, right? “Wines from Around the World” is the theme for the eighth-annual Las Olas Wine and Food Festival. In addition to sampling a fine selection of…
The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life. –Oscar Wilde Dance theater has been an art form in Asia for 1,000 years, in Europe for more than 100 years, and in Latin America for 50. In the…
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Adolf Hitler killed his own dog. Most of his other evil is well-documented now, and words alone are inadequate anyway, so let’s begin by considering this comparatively microscopic offense. For the many who shower their canines with at least as much affection as they offer other human beings (and often…
One thing’s for sure: “The Sideshow of the Absurd,” which has taken over the entire first floor of the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, is easily the most bizarre show to hit South Florida in a very long time. And I mean that in a good way, at least…
Sometimes life is like a fairy tale. Not the Teletubbies kind, the Grimm kind. Things are humming along really well, then blam! Something mysterious strikes out of the blue and your sweet reality is suddenly transformed into a nightmare. That pretty much sums it up for Peter Hoskins, the central…
Imagine, if you will, a president whose sexual peccadilloes get him into huge amounts of trouble. Sure, it sounds as if it could never happen, but bear with us. Now add to the mix a group of relentlessly greedy corporate CEOs. OK, OK. Also, admittedly, a bit hard to believe…
Thursday, March 13 A century ago, the National Wildlife Refuge System got its start when Teddy Roosevelt, one of our nation’s foremost environmental presidents, began setting wilderness aside to ensure that future generations would always have unspoiled areas to enjoy. On March 14, 1903, he handed down an order to…
