Back in the 1980s, only a fool would have pinned Ike Turner as the half of the Ike and Tina duo who would enjoy lasting fame. Even these days it’s a hard concept to swallow. But while Tina has retired after a stellar career as a rock and soul vocalist,…
For his debut film as a producer-director, Fort Lauderdale resident Rob Goodman wanted something distinctive. So he borrowed a 1978 Checker Cab, decorated the interior with dozens of oddball knickknacks, and told a cameraman to hop inside and shoot. The resulting piece of cinema, titled 531, is among about 110…
The 16th Annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival swings into full gear this weekend, beginning with the official opening-night film Friday at the Parker Playhouse and continuing with an average of more than a dozen screenings a day. Without further ado here’s a selection of what you can expect from…
There cannot be man, woman, child or beast alive who does not know that on November 6, Fox will debut its new series 24. Long before the fall season was to begin, it had already been appointed the most anticipated and beloved show of the year–by critics who had seen…
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl: the classic model for romantic comedy and drama. According to Rebecca Gilman, it’s also the prescription for obsessive stalking. Gilman, an up-and-coming playwright with a penchant for issue-oriented suspense, has served up a hy perrealistic portrait of one woman’s nightmare in…
Just because Halloween is usually seen as a children’s holiday doesn’t mean that adults can’t dress up and have fun. The young ones can keep that door-to-door-begging-for-candy stuff — tricks (and treats) are for kids. Meanwhile, us more-mature types can slide on those fishnets, tighten up that corset, and head…
If anyone had his fate set in stone before he was born, it was Hank Williams III. No one else has been born so obviously into country royalty. His father, Hank Williams Jr., was one of the big names of the country outlaw set in the 1980s. And his grandfather,…
At the risk of sounding like an old-timer reminiscing about the good old days, I remember when the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival was a relatively small, intimate affair called the Greater Fort Lauderdale Film Festival — and you actually stood a chance of taking in a good portion of…
About halfway through the first-floor segment of “Brooklyn!” — now on display at the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art (PBICA) in Lake Worth — lurks an uncanny reminder of how art and life sometimes occupy the same territory. It’s a two-part 1999 video installation called Crash by Christoph Draeger,…
In more than a few ways, producing live theater is akin to staging a military campaign, involving rapidly changing logistical considerations of time and personnel and never enough money. Generals must marshal their limited resources, placing assets where they will be the most effective. That is also the way it…
On November 4, some 1,800 television personalities–actors, writers, producers, show-runners, network executives–will, finally, parade into a Los Angeles theater to award their peers and themselves for a job well done. They will, at long last, hand out the golden statues known as Emmy, just as it has been done every…
Despite a massive oeuvre that includes scholarly, theological, poetic, and fictional works, Jack Lewis will always be remembered for writing kids’ books. If you haven’t heard of Jack, that’s because you didn’t know the man personally. In the literary world, he went by the initials of his given name, Clive…
“Someone called it urban gut bucket. I like that. Others call it dirty jazz or avant-sleaze. It gets sleazy sometimes. We get low-down and funky.” That’s Steven Bernstein, guiding light of Sex Mob, on his band’s sound. Along with forming the band to gig at New York City’s Knitting Factory…
Here you’ll find madness, mayhem, and murder in no short supply. The Hughes brothers, Albert and Allen, have always had a knack for horror, as evidenced by their edgy gangster flicks, Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, which they’ve stated were influenced by the styles of Brian De Palma and…
Ask David Lynch, and he will tell you apple-pie America just isn’t what it seems. People behave strangely, sometimes violently, and sometimes they even transform into different people without being polite enough to warn you first. Eerie and freaky, shot through with sporadic bursts of humor and sex, Mulholland Drive…
Two weeks ago, it would have been possible to use the name of the man interviewed below; indeed, it would have been expected, as he is no mere “spokesman,” the only identifier by which he is to be referred. Two weeks ago, it would have been possible to point out…
Where is the epicenter of live theater in South Florida? Several contenders vie for the t itle, but none can top Coral Gables, with five professional companies in residence. If you toss in the Coconut Grove Playhouse, just down the road, and City Stage, which books the University of Miami…
On October 3, there appeared in The New York Times an article about how movie studios are struggling to find new villains in a post-September 11 environment. Writer Rick Lyman rounded up the usual suspects: a few film producers, a couple of screenwriters and the requisite amount of film scholars,…
Why are fewer than 2 percent of the nation’s licensed architects black? Richard K. Dozier, a professor of architecture at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, thinks one reason is that young people think no historic building of architectural merit in the black community, designed and constructed by black architects and…
Seems like every month is dedicated to something or even several somethings. October, for example, is not only Breast Cancer Awareness Month; it’s also Hispanic Heritage Month. In Broward County that means it’s time for the annual Hispanic celebration, ¡Viva Broward!, now in its 12th year. The festival dedicated to…
hanks to his justly lauded work as action choreographer on The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, director Yuen Wo Ping is among the most famous creators of Hong Kong action in the U.S. In the wake of the latter film’s astonishing success, Miramax, with a prod from Quentin Tarantino,…
Plot aside — way aside, as it’s almost a nonissue in a film that telegraphs its final scenes during its opening moments — Bandits is really about only one thing: Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis’s bald heads. As Joe Blake (Willis) and Terry Collins (Thornton), two bank-robbing fugitives in…
